The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is planning to launch 10 satellites in a year to better communication network and improve disaster management, the government revealed Wednesday.
"ISRO is planning to launch 10 satellites in a year. The actual number of satellites to be launched will be decided based on national developmental priorities," Science and Technology Minister Prithviraj Chavan said in the Lok Sabha.
"The aims and objectives of these satellites include natural resources management, augmenting the communications infrastructure, satellite navigation, disaster management support, space science research and planetary exploration," the minister added.
He said the action plan of the department in this context will include augmenting the technical infrastructure within ISRO and enhancing the production capabilities in the Indian industry in the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2012-17) to meet projected demand.
After the disappointing failure of its recent space venture, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is now planning to launch a satellite in May this year that for the first time will solely be developed by students and would cost around Rs.55 lakh.
The satellite has been developed by a team of students from around seven engineering colleges in Bangalore and Hyderabad. It will be used to capture high-resolution images from space that will be made available to students.
The satellite named STUDSAT will be put in the Low Earth Orbit around 680 kilometers above the earth by ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.The satellite has a volume of just 1.1 litres and weighs just one kilogram.
Source from ISRO has reported that the satellite is in the Pico category and would be attached on the back of the PSLV along with three other satellites.
The STUDSAT has a built in camera to produce high-resolution photographic data for the purpose of remote sensing applications and vegetation studies for six months. This data would be commercially sold and would be inaccessible for students but will be given free to students to conduct research such as land mapping.
Five satellites
S. Satish, ISRO's Head of Public Relations, said the PSLV-16 would put five satellites into orbit. These include 1. Cartosat-2B (a remote sensing satellite with resolution of 0.8 m), 2. Alsat (an Algerian satellite), two Canadian nanosatellites, and the StudSat.
Analysis of data obtained by the Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar (Mini-SAR) onboard Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft has provided evidence for the presence of ice deposits near the moon's North Pole. The Mini-SAR instrument found more than 40 small craters (2-15 km in diameter) with sub-surface water ice located at their base. The interior of these craters is in permanent sun shadow.
Prof. Paul Spudis, Principal Investigator of the Mini-SAR experiment said, “The new discoveries by Chandrayaan-1 and other lunar missions show that the moon is an even more interesting and attractive scientific exploration and operational destination than people had previously thought.”
The Mini-SAR mapped the moon’s permanently shadowed polar craters that are not visible from Earth. The radar uses the polarisation properties of reflected radio waves to characterise surface properties. Results from the mapping showed deposits having radar characteristics similar to ice. The emerging picture from the multiple measurements and resulting data of the instruments, Moon Mineralogy Mapper and Mini-SAR on Chandrayaan-1 and NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), indicates that water creation, migration, deposition and retention are occurring on the moon.
The Mini-SAR's findings have just been published in the journal, “Geophysical Research Letters” authored by scientists from 13 agencies from USA and India, including Prof. J.N. Goswami, Principal Scientist, Chandrayaan-1 from Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad and Dr. M. Chakrabarty of Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad. The new findings add to the growing scientific understanding of the multiple forms of water on the moon.
Mini-SAR and Moon Mineralogy Mapper are two of the 11 instruments on Chandrayaan-1, which was launched on October 22, 2008, and began orbiting the moon on November 8, 2008. The Applied Physics Laboratory, USA performed the final integration and testing on Mini-SAR. It was developed and built by the Naval Air Warfare Center and several other commercial and government agencies in USA.
The mighty Chinese dragon is finally growing nervous at the growing reach of the Indian missile programme. According to agency reports from Beijing, the leading official Chinese newspaper People’s Daily has claimed that the Agni-5 missile — India’s latest nuclear-capable missile being developed by the DRDO’s Hyderabad-based Advanced Systems Laboratories — can even target China’s northern-most city of Harbin.
“India’s Advanced Systems Laboratory (ASL) has made its forthcoming Agni-5 missile highly road-mobile, or easily transportable by road, which would bring Harbin, China’s northernmost city within striking range if the Agni-5 is moved to north-east India,” agency reports quoted the People’s Daily as stating. Harbin is the capital of China’s Heilongjiang Province. The paper, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, noted that the Agni-5 which has a range of 5,000 km is similar to the Dongfeng-31A showcased during China’s National Day military parade on October 1 in Beijing. India is going to test-fire the missile in early 2011, the Chinese report claimed. Officials of the DRDO had indicated earlier that the designing of the Agni-5 missile — that will have an estimated range of 5,000 to 6,000 km — could be completed by the end of 2010 following which the missile could be tested as early as 2011.
“The development of the Agni-5 missile programme is on schedule,” defense sources said on Friday, without elaborating.
The development of the Agni-5 missile is the next step for India’s missile programme after the Agni-3 missile which has a range of 3,500 kms. The Agni-3 missile is already currently undergoing trials and is the first missile that can strike large parts of China. The Agni-5 missile, on the other hand, is expected to bring the whole of China under its range which is why the Chinese are growing increasingly nervous. China, which has missiles that can reach every part of India, has an advanced missile programme and has demonstrated the ability to knock out even satellites in space. While the Agni-3 is a two-stage ballistic missile, the Agni-5 missile will be designed to be a three-stage ballistic missile (for greater reach) capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads. The Agni-V missile will be launched from canisters and can be moved quickly by road so that it can be launched from venues that are closer to the target.
China is planning to launch their own space station, named Tiangong, by the end of 2010 or beginning of 2011. There have been a few instances where information about the station surfaces briefly over the past few years about the development of the space station. Specific details on the program are not being release in large doses by the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA), so the development of the station is somewhat shrouded in mystery.
Qi Faren, one of the designers of the Shenzhou-5 spacecraft, said in an interview on CCTV last month of the upcoming launch, "Quality is the key to technology. We must guarantee a successful launch. We will launch it whenever we are ready. It will be the end of 2010, or the beginning of 2011."
