Indian Space Capabilities

[Bombay Dude]

India Successfully Repeats Test Of Asia’s Largest Solid Rocket Booster, The S-200

AsianScientist (Sep. 14, 2011) – India’s space program crossed an important milestone on September 4 this month, when the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully carried out the second test of the strap-on S-200 solid rocket booster, stated to be the biggest in Asia and the third largest in the world after the ones flown on NASA’s space shuttle and Arianespace’s Ariane 5 rocket.

The primary function of the strap-ons is to provide an initial boost to the rocket.

The success of the test assumes significance because the S-200s will form the strap-on stage for a new rocket known as the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark 3 version which is now in an advanced stage of development. There will be two strap-ons in the rocket.

This vehicle, slated to make its maiden flight either towards the end of 2012 or early 2013, will fly communication satellites weighing four tons. In contrast, the present version of GSLV’s can carry communication satellites weighing only up to two tons.

Once the GSLV Mark 3 becomes operational, ISRO’s dependence on Arianespace – the European rocket organization – to carry its four-ton class of communication satellites will be drastically reduced.

In the recent test which was conducted at the Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota, the S-200 fired for 130 seconds without any problems. Containing 200 tons of solid propellants, the length of the stage is 21.9 meters and its diameter is 3.2 meters. The S-200 was first tested on January 24, 2010.

For its maiden flight, the rocket will lift off with the simultaneous ignition of both the stages which will burn for about 130 seconds and separate at 149.3 seconds into the flight.

In another development, ISRO chairman K. Radhakrishnan announced last Friday at a media briefing in Bangalore that provisionally, the launch of the Megha Tropiques satellite – an Indo-French venture – has been fixed for October 12, 2011.

With it three other nano satellites will also be placed in orbit: IIT Kanpur’s Jugnu, SRM University’s SRMSAT, and another one from Luxembourg.

India Successfully Repeats Test Of Asia

 

[Kaislerlaut]

India Successfully Repeats Test Of Asia’s Largest Solid Rocket Booster, The S-200

AsianScientist (Sep. 14, 2011) – India’s space program crossed an important milestone on September 4 this month, when the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully carried out the second test of the strap-on S-200 solid rocket booster, stated to be the biggest in Asia and the third largest in the world after the ones flown on NASA’s space shuttle and Arianespace’s Ariane 5 rocket.

The primary function of the strap-ons is to provide an initial boost to the rocket.

The success of the test assumes significance because the S-200s will form the strap-on stage for a new rocket known as the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark 3 version which is now in an advanced stage of development. There will be two strap-ons in the rocket.

This vehicle, slated to make its maiden flight either towards the end of 2012 or early 2013, will fly communication satellites weighing four tons. In contrast, the present version of GSLV’s can carry communication satellites weighing only up to two tons.

Once the GSLV Mark 3 becomes operational, ISRO’s dependence on Arianespace – the European rocket organization – to carry its four-ton class of communication satellites will be drastically reduced.

In the recent test which was conducted at the Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota, the S-200 fired for 130 seconds without any problems. Containing 200 tons of solid propellants, the length of the stage is 21.9 meters and its diameter is 3.2 meters. The S-200 was first tested on January 24, 2010.

For its maiden flight, the rocket will lift off with the simultaneous ignition of both the stages which will burn for about 130 seconds and separate at 149.3 seconds into the flight.

In another development, ISRO chairman K. Radhakrishnan announced last Friday at a media briefing in Bangalore that provisionally, the launch of the Megha Tropiques satellite – an Indo-French venture – has been fixed for October 12, 2011.

With it three other nano satellites will also be placed in orbit: IIT Kanpur’s Jugnu, SRM University’s SRMSAT, and another one from Luxembourg.

India Successfully Repeats Test Of Asia

very good news for gslv mk3

 

[Firemaster]

http://www.nrsc.gov.in/UIW2010/Session-2/Ms.Arundhati%20Mishra.pdf

Hey guys check out this link

 

[angeldemon_007]

Don't need to mimic China - The Times of India

 

[tamygu]

At ‘Alice’ in science wonderland, the ‘muchness’ of India

As senior scientist J Schukraft gives visitors a tour of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (known by its French acronym CERN), its gigantic labs and its complex experiments, the one word that keeps popping up is ‘India’. That is because whether it is colliding particles in the 27-kilometre-long Large Hadron Collider (as part of Alice Experiment) or discovering neutrons that travel faster than the speed of light, Indian scientists are at the forefront of research happening inside those massive steel and concrete structures at CERN, nestled 40 minutes from Geneva.
“Apart from so many Indians working with us at important positions, I think whenever we need a particular kind of hardware that either does not exist or is difficult to find, we turn to India, and an obscure factory in Indore or a firm in Chandigarh delivers it,” Schukraft says.

At present 109 Indian scientists are associated with CERN in one way or the other. Dr Tapan Naik, who leads the team of Indian scientists involved in Alice (short for ‘A Large Ion Collider Experiment&#8217, says the connection between CERN and India is not just about numbers.

““At every stage, from constructing labs to every experiment, either Indian scientists or Indian firms are involved. In the Alice experiment, Indian scientists contributed by creating the photon multiplicity detector. It is purely an Indian effort, from conception to commissioning. A firm in Chandigarh gave us the electronics, while electronic chips, silicon detectors and a particular kind of graphite that is able to protect delicate hardware came from Bangalore,’’ Naik, who is also a member for the CERN Management Board, said.


Back home, Naik heads the physics department at Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre (VECC), Kolkata. “I worked at CERN from 1994 to ‘97, now I come once a month. A huge amount of data collected in Alice is also analysed in Kolkata,” he says.

Dr Archana Sharma is one of the brightest stars at CERN. Everything that happens in the Alice experiment tunnel 100 metres below the ground — where attempts are on to re-create the Big Bang, which is believed to have led to creation of the universe — is at her fingertips.

“We are trying to understand what happened 13.7 billion years ago, unlock the mysteries of the universe,” she said, a gleam in her eyes. “In the tunnel, particles collide 40 million times per second and we record the data. The volume of data collected is so huge that CERN has only 20 per cent capacity to analyse it, the rest is distributed across the world, much of it goes to Kolkata. You will be surprised at the number of Indian universities and institutions that are involved with CERN,” Dr Sharma said.

Excited about last fortnight’s discovery of certain neutrinos travelling faster than the speed of light during an experiment, Dr Sharma said that if a second experiment proved the same, “it is going to be a revolutionary discovery”. “I am keeping my fingers crossed.”

Prof Raghav Varma, head of physics department, IIT, Mumbai, has been working at Alice for the past five years. “Scientists from several countries are here but I think the contributions made by Indians stand out at CERN. At least 70 Indians are involved with Alice in one or the other,” he said.

To capture 40 million digital photos per second of colliding particles in the tunnel and to send the data of each collision separately, millions of cables are required. It was an obscure factory at Indore took up the challenge and delivered miles and miles of cables thinner than a strand of hair.

Dr Anju Bhasin, department of physics, University of Jammu, who is here since several months, said that in her interaction with students, she is now able to make physics more exciting based on her experience at CERN.

“Physics is usually dismissed as dull and drab. But when I share my experience, and what we are doing at CERN, with my students, they perk up. The subject has become a lot more interesting now and I receive emails from scores of physics students seeking advice on topics they want to research or pursue,’’ Dr Bhasin said.

Apart from these institutes, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research; the physics departments of Aligarh Muslim University, Bhubaneshwar Institute of Physics, Panjab University, University of Guwahati and Rajasthan University; and the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata, are involved with CERN work.

President Pratibha Patil, who visited CERN as part of her official tour of the Swiss Confederation, met and interacted with the Indian scientists yesterday. She was taken 100 metres underground to get a first-hand look at the tunnel where the collider is located.


At ‘Alice’ in science wonderland, the ‘muchness’ of India - Indian Express

 

[russellpeters]

As an observer state of CERN, India is collaborating in many aspects of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project - building components of the accelerator as well as constructing detectors for various experiments. In the ALICE experiment, India is participating in the forward di-muon spectrometer (FMS) and in particular has responsibility for the design, fabrication and supply of the custom VLSI chip required for the spectrometer's front-end electronics. ALICE will study lead ion collisions at the LHC, where the production of the heavy quarkonia, such as the upsilon and its excited states, is expected to be suppressed. This is regarded as one of the strongest signals for the formation of a quark-gluon plasma.
Readout cards


Here, the yields of the upsilons will be measured by detecting their decays to two muons and determining the momenta of the muons though their bending in the field of a dipole magnet. The upsilon resonances will show up as "peaks" in the reconstructed invariant mass spectrum over a background of various other sources.

The tracks of the muons through the magnetic field will be measured in the FMS by a set of multiwire proportional chambers with finely segmented cathode pads. Muons passing through the detectors will produce signals on these pads, and their tracks will be reconstructed from a measurement by the front-end electronics of the charges deposited on the pads. Because of the high packing density and low noise required of the electronics readout, it is essential that the front-end electronics is realized in form of a custom-designed VLSI chip - the MANAS (Multiple Analog Signal processor).
Final chip

The design of the MANAS chip, based on the GASSIPLEX chip developed by Jean Claude Santiard at CERN, started in late 1997 at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP), Kolkata, and a memorandum of understanding was signed between SINP and Semiconductor Complex Ltd (SCL), Chandigarh, for the fabrication of the chip. Inside this chip, the signal from the detector is amplified by a charge-sensitive amplifier, processed by a deconvolution filter and shaping amplifier, tracked and stored, then finally read out via a multiplexer.

The final set of masks for fabrication of the MANAS-1.2-1 prototype was released by Bikash Sinha, SINP, in October 1999 and the first prototype ceramic packaged chips were delivered by SCL in March 2000. Extensive bench tests at SINP and CERN on the prototype chips were performed, followed by a beam test of the chip, mounted on a prototype detector for the second of the tracking stations (developed and fabricated at SINP) and exposed to a 7 GeV proton beam. The results of these bench tests showed that the first prototype satisfied most of the design criteria. Two modified iterations of the design then corrected the problems found in the first prototype.

By January 2002, 1500 pre-production chips, MANAS-1.2-3, were sent to several institutes collaborating in the ALICE FMS for more extensive tests, both in the lab and in test beams. The main features of this state-of-the-art chip are the low noise level (640 electrons rms), small gain fluctuations, large dynamic range (500 to -275 fC), radiation tolerance and the low sensitivity of parameters to temperature variations.

The production readiness review for the MANAS chip was held in October 2003, and was based on results from various laboratories. More than 100 000 chips will be delivered by January 2005, after stringent quality and performance tests by the foundry, SCL in Chandigarh.

The MANAS chip is a definite success story for R&D and fabrication for high-technology VLSI development in India. It has already initiated more R&D activity in VLSI technology in India, and a large number of useful applications are being planned, including accurate image processing.

Indian chips on track for ALICE - CERN Courier

 

[Night_Raven]

Kudos to all people , institutes and centres involved in this gigantic effort @ CERN ..... we all are proud of you !

- Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre (VECC)
- Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP)
- Semiconductor Complex Ltd (SCL)
- IIT Mumbai
- University of Jammu
- Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
- Aligarh Muslim University
- Bhubaneshwar Institute of Physics
- Panjab University
- University of Guwahati
- Rajasthan University
- Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics

and many more ....

 

[kavish]

GSLV mk3

 

[RoYaL~GuJJaR]

GSLV mk3

Thanks for video man

Awesome

 

[SpArK]

ISRO mulling more launch sites


ISRO has said it planned to have more launch sites as the frequency of satellite launches is slated to go up in the coming years.


ISRO mulling more launch sites - Brahmand.com

 

[raavan]

AVATAAR, KAALI AND DURGA

The Brahmos cruise missile programme was perhaps the most hush-hush of India's missile projects. The long-range missile programme Surya is heard of at least through official denials. The reusable missile launcher-cum-hyperplane Avatar, the most ambitious of all projects, is openly talked about. Questions are asked at least in aerospace circles about the 'forgotten' Durga and Kali, though replies are rarely given. Agni-III is a matter of logical conjecture and extension of Agni-II.


(The defence minister had claimed last November "India has the capability to design and develop an ICBM having a range of more than 5,000 km. However, in consonance with the threat perception, no ICBM development project has been undertaken.")


But Brahmos is altogether a new name, though there has been talk about a cruise missile programme for some time. The success of Lakshya and Nishant is said to have given the Aeronautical Development Establishment the expertise to work on the cruise missile. However, till recently ADE authorities were claiming that they were engaged only in 'concept studies', and far from developing or even planning a cruise missile.


The 280 km-range missile, presently configured as an anti-ship weapon, is one of the few supersonic cruise missiles in the world. Ballistic missiles fly in a ballistic trajectory, much like a bullet. Their longer-range versions have to go up into the heavens and face problems when they re-enter the atmosphere. The enemy can also trace their launchers by calculating the ballistic trajectory and destroy them.

A cruise missile, on the other hand, is like an unmanned plane, flying at low altitude. Before launch it is fed information about the terrain over which it has to fly and the missile flies either by comparing the fed-in data with the camera pictures it takes or by constantly identifying its location with the help of global positioning systems.


Over sea, a cruise missile has a definite advantage over a ballistic one. The enemy ship out at sea can hide behind the earth's curvature against a ballistic missile, which flies straight. On the contrary, a cruise missile can fly long ranges parallel to the surface and, if needed, a few meters above it. Brahmos's supersonic speed gives the enemy very little reaction time. The Indo-Russian Brahmos is learnt to be the starting point of an ambitious cruise missile programme. Studies have been going on for the last three years at the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) on the cost-effectiveness of a hypersonic missile (which fly at five or more times the speed of sound). Parallel studies in the US and Europe have concluded that the future belongs to hypersonic missiles. The US is already developing the F-16 into a hypersonic fighter.

Studies in India, not only at NAL but DRDL (the DRDO's missile lab), IIT Mumbai and ADE, are learnt to be running parallel to and not behind the Euro-American ventures. The hyperplane Avatar, the most ambitious of all, is already reaching the end of the conceptual stage and entering the planning stage. The kerosene-fuelled scramjet-powered vehicle is claimed to be much cheaper than the design concepts worked in the US, Germany, the UK and Japan.


The idea is to develop a vehicle that can take off from conventional airfields, collect air in the atmosphere on the way up, liquefy it, separate oxygen and store it on board for subsequent flight beyond the atmosphere. In fact, Air Commodore R. Gopalaswami, former chairman and managing director of Bharat Dynamics, India's missile factory, had once claimed that it could be developed even into a commercial transporter. Incidentally, it was Gopalaswami who suggested the name Avatar.

Avatar is primarily intended as a reusable missile launcher, one that can launch missiles, land back and is loaded again for more missions. The vehicle will be designed to permit at least a hundred re-entries into the atmosphere. The vehicle could also act as a satellite launcher at a hundredth of the present cost of launching satellites. A miniature Avatar, which is also being conceived, would be hardly bigger than a MiG-25 or an F-16.


Meanwhile, there is also talk of developing Nishant into a cruise missile. The present vehicle, an unmanned battlefield surveillance vehicle that can carry a payload of 45 kilos, completing test phase at ADE, is powered by a German Alvisar-801 engine. Nishant's cruise missile potential had been pointed out three years ago by Air Marshal Bharat Kumar in a United Services Institution (USI) research paper: "Nishant holds a lot of promise and provides us a take-off vehicle for potential UCAVs (uninhabited combat aerial vehicles) applications as well as (a) cruise missile programme."

With the limited production of the 200-km Agni-II having already begun, the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme is almost at the end of its fiery run. Indeed, a few of the short-range tactical missiles like Nag, Trishul, Akash, the naval Prithvi (otherwise called Dhanush) and Astra are yet to be fully developed or tested, but it is only a matter of time before they are. Space-based laser weapons are another frontier technology that the military brass is thinking of. Recently the chiefs of staff committee ordered a feasibility study on them.(Incidentally, the Air Force is already demanding that India set up an aerospace command.) The DRDO, however, had anticipated this and already begun research.

One system that has been talked of in a USI paper by Dr V. Siddhartha, officer on special duty in the secretariat of the scientific adviser to the defence minister, is Durga or directionally unrestricted ray-gun array. Though no details on this are available, it is said to be an Indian version of the US's Star Wars project in which in-coming missiles can be shot down, or burnt down, by laser guns based in space. Still less known is Kali or kinetic attack loitering interceptor, a more advanced version of Durga.

However, all video-game gadgetry presupposes matching advances in space technology, both in launch vehicles and military reconnaissance satellites. Without capable launch vehicles, none of these can be lifted into space. With the recent success of the geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle, the ISRO has acquired heavy-lift capability. Work has already begun on a hypersonic launch vehicle, which would be the forerunner to Avatar.


The more recent of the IRS series satellites are said to have limited military reconnaissance capability. The recent military exercises in the Rajasthan desert did make extensive use of IRS pictures, but military demands higher resolution pictures. According to Dr Siddhartha's paper, Satish Dhawan [former ISRO chairman] had talked in 1996 of a national early warning and response system (NEWARS), a space-sensor and communications-based integrated space-ground system meant exclusively for peaceful purposes. Siddhartha superposed on Dhawan's techno-scenario diagram a series of operational military reconnaissance satellites named Sanjaya.

Cruise missiles may be the currency of power today. But the currency of future would be Avatar, Durga and Kali.
Caution India: INDIA'S LATEST LASER WEPONS DURGA AND KALI TO KILL THE ENEMY MISSILES AND AIRCRAFTS

 

[Varad]

Brazil wants Indian satellites to monitor Amazon


Brazil is negotiating to use satellites from India to improve the monitoring of deforestation in the Amazon rain forest.

A member of Brazil's National Institute for Space Research says a satellite recently launched by the Indian government could vastly increase Brazil's ability to combat deforestation in the region.

Luis Maurano says the IRS-6 satellite would allow authorities to locate deforested areas much faster than with the satellites currently used.

Maurano said Tuesday that the negotiation with India is complicated but was confident an agreement could be reached.

If not, Brazil will have to wait until the launch of a satellite in partnership with China at the end of 2012.

Brazil wants Indian satellites to monitor Amazon - BusinessWeek

 

[Varad]

SUCCESSFUL STATIC TESTING OF S-200 SOLID BOOSTER DONE BY SHAR

 

[Thundersword]

when was this done^^^^^

 

[sathya]

India developing capabilities to protect space-based assets
Published November 16, 2011
SOURCETI



Making it clear that it was against the use of space for warfare, India Wednesday said it is developing capabilities to protect its space-based assets such as satellites.

“We don’t believe in use of space for warfare. Our philosophy is to use it only as resource… We have to make sure that our assets are protected and access is not denied. DRDO has a programme to protect our assets in space,” DRDO Chief VK Saraswat told reporters here.

Noting that India needs to take care of this area in the light of the fact that other countries are gearing up their space based offensive programs, Saraswat said, “DRDO has a programme to protect our space based assets and to ensure continuity of access there.”

On new threats emerging in the area of cyber space, he said two DRDO labs are working in this areas to develop suitable technology.

“There are new threats emerging in the field of cyber warfare. Two DRDO labs are working specially in this area. We are trying to see various ways to make our team competent in this regard so that we can monitor the flow of cyber traffic and look at the ways to encrypt and disrupt them,” he said.

DRDO took up the project following a number of recent cyber attack on government website from groups of hackers based outside India.