|
India has joined Europe’s Galileo Satellite Navigation System. The signing of the Galileo agreement was announced by Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh at a press conference at the end of the India-EU Summit in New Delhi. Galileo is EU’s plan to create its own global navigational system with uses ranging from helping motorists navigate electronic maps to search and rescue operations. The first Galileo satellite is expected to be launched this year itself. The system will be fully operational with 30 satellites orbiting 24,000 kilometres above the earth by 2008. India is only the fourth non-EU country to join the Galileo Club.
CARTOSAT-I
India’s odyssey in space has added several new features of utility for the common people in remote villages and towns during the past one year. The latest is CARTOSAT-I, the eleventh satellite in remote sensing series. The images sent by its two panchromatic cameras will be useful for generating digital elevation maps for urban and rural development, land and water resources management and environmental studies. It has already started sending high quality pictures.
The 1560 kilogram Cartosat I shot into space on May 5 along with a smaller 42.5 kilogram Hamsat satellite riding on PSLV, the launch vehicle developed and perfected by India’s own scientists.
The flight took off from a new state of art launch pad – the second such facility established at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota. Shortly after the twin launch, Cartosat and Hamsat were placed in Polar Sun Synchronous Orbit at an altitude of 632 kilometres. The satellite health is constantly monitored at the Space Control Centre at Bangalore with the help of its network stations in Lucknow, Mauritius, Bearslake in Russia and Biak in Indonesia.
Like Cartosat, Hamsat has been developed by Indian scientists including amateurs and is an important contribution to the international community of Amateur Radio Operators. With its successful launch on its ninth mission, Indian built PSLV has proved its reliability and versatility to put satellites of different weights precisely into specified orbits. This latest effort is aimed at bringing ISRO’s services within the reach of common people.
EDUSAT
Earlier in September 2004, (September 20) India’s first thematic satellite, EDUSAT was placed into a precise predetermined Geosynchronomous Orbit by the country’s home – developed Geo Synchronomous Lauch Vehicle, (GSLV) on its first operational flight.
EDUSAT is meant to serve the educational sector to meet the demand for interactive satellite based distance educational systems. The 1950 kilogram satellite will provide connectivity for different levels of education including the University stage. It will also support non-formal education and developmental communication. It is specially designed for audio-visual medium and multi-centric systems.
The Visvesvaraya Technological University’s network with 100 centres is already operating through Edusat.
New Launching Facility
The new second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, at Sriharikota has emerged as a universal facility to accommodate all the launch vehicles of the Indian Space Research Organisation to be built in the next ten years and even more unlike dedicated pads elsewhere in the world mainly catering for a particular class of rockets. Different sectors of Indian industry have made notable contribution in its development.
As a mark of self reliance, the new integrated platform will now handle most of the launchings on the Indian soil itself and Indian satellites will no longer need to be flown out to foreign bases to be sent up into space.
From Aryabhatt 30 years ago in 1975 to Bhaskara I & II and other INSAT and Remote Sensing series, Indian satellites were launched from Soviet and American centres as also Kouru in French Guyana on board the multi-unit Rocket Avianne.
Serving Common People
An important addition to ISRO’s multi-dimensional programmes aimed at promoting the interest of common people, is the establishment of village resource centres to integrate communication and remote sensing satellite capabilities to meet the critical needs of the rural population. The first cluster of village resource centres connecting four villages in Tamil Nadu has been set up jointly by ISRO and the M.S. Swaminathan Foundation.
These centres based on a very small satellite unit provide information on a wide range of sectors like land records, sites for drinking water wells, environment, alternate cropping, infrastructure and help in organizing many services including tele-medicine, tele-education, tele-fishery, water management and interactive farmers’ advisories. They help connect specialist hospitals to bring expert medical care closer to villages.
Satellite based tele-medicine network has already been expanded to 22 urban and 78 rural hospitals including remote areas of the Andaman and Lakshdweep groups of islands and Kashmir. They establish connectivity between patients at the remote end with specialist doctors in sophisticated hospitals.
Automatic Weather Stations have been developed with the participation of private industries to improve forecasting services. These are operated in co-ordination with INSAT 3 A and the latest Metsat Kalpana I.
The most important contribution of the Space Department manned by the country’s own highly qualified and dedicated scientists is the INSAT System – joint venture of several user organizations. Among them are the Department of Communications, India Meteorological Department, All India Radio and Doordarshan.
Beginning with INSAT I-A in April 1982, the Insat system today has eight satellites in operation emerging as one of the largest communication satellite systems in the Asia Pacific Region with several new brands in the offing.
To go further on the international front, India has given a 50 million dollar grant for a pan African Satellite programme. This came at the initiative of President APJ Abdul Kalam during his South African tour last year.
Reaching The Moon
And now the Indian Space Research Organisation, ISRO, is poised to launch its quest for the moon through a specially designed spacecraft Chandrayan I. Significant progress has already been made for the mission scheduled for 2006-07. According to an ISRO report the spacecraft configuration has been finalized. Scientific payloads from the international community are expected to go up on board Chandrayan I along with Indian satellites. Another scientific mission, Astrosat has been planned for advancement of astronomical research in the country.
*Freelance Writer
|
