Indian Space Capabilities

[nitesh]

Raytheon eyes India's global navigation system for ISRO, AAI - Sify.com

Raytheon eyes India's global navigation system for ISRO, AAI Saturday, 16 August , 2008, 14:07

New Delhi: A US defence major Raytheon would make a bid for a satellite-based navigation system for the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

Raytheon along with its Indian partners would bid for the system wit h its Geosynchronous Augmented Navigation System (GAGAN) project, company's vice president for Airspace Management and Homeland Security Andy Zogg said in a statement.

Raytheon will lead the team to deliver the GAGAN solution to AAI and ISRO. GAGAN is expected to provide satellite-based navigation for civil aviation across south and east Asia, which will provide India with the most accurate, flexible and efficient air navigation system deployed.

“We look forward to continuing our collaborative relationship with ISRO and AAI during this critical phase of GAGAN,” Zogg said, promising that the company was committed to a thorough transfer of knowledge of GAGAN to further enhance India's leadershi p position in air navigation.

In November last year, Raytheon had announced the successful completion of the final system acceptance test to augment standard Global Positioning System signals over India. The Indian partners in the GAGAN project would be Accord Software and Systems f rom Bangalore for Global Positioning System (GPS)-based user-receiver prototype development optimised for equatorial region, and Elcome Technologies from Gurgaon for logistical and on-site support, he said.

 

[jaison]

this will surely improve the quality of air travel safety in the subcontinent.....

 

[Contrarian]

As far as i was aware, didnt Raytheon win the contract for the first phase of GAGAN as well?

 

[nitesh]

As far as i was aware, didnt Raytheon win the contract for the first phase of GAGAN as well?

Yes sir, you are correct, kindly find the references:
The Hindu Business Line : GAGAN ready for demo phase

ISRO, Raytheon complete tests for GAGAN Satellite Navigational System | India Defence

But my question is can't it be used for precision bombing instead of GPS system, or only GLONASS will serve that purpose?

 

[nitesh]

This might be of interest:

Info about IRNSS and GAGAN:

http://www.unoosa.org/pdf/icg/2008/expert/2-3.pdf

 

[nitesh]

NDTV.com: Destination moon: ISRO's big challenge

Destination moon: ISRO's big challenge
NDTV Correspondent
Wednesday, August 20, 2008, (New Delhi)
India's maiden satellite to the moon, Chandrayaan-1 has been fully integrated and it is undergoing final tests before it can be sent in the next few weeks to the country's spaceport Sriharikota to be hoisted moon wards.

Speaking to NDTV Dr G Madhavan Nair, chairman, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said, "the satellite is all dressed up and we can look forward to an October, 2008 launch."

Having mastered a host of technologies, ISRO's next big challenge really is the launch of Chandrayaan-1 (Moon Craft), the country's maiden shot at the moon to be launched using the 44-meter tall Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle that will weigh 316 tonnes at lift off, or to put it in perspective weigh more that the combined weight of 50 fully grown Asian elephants and is taller than seven storey building. PSLV with 12 consecutive successful launches is India's workhorse rocket.

This moon mission costing about Rs 400 crore is a scientific venture meant for mapping the moon surface in detail like never before and will undertake the most intense search of water on our nearest planetary neighbour. This is first multi-continent mission in several decades, and also literally one where the tables have been turned around for once.

In this mission, countries like USA, UK and Sweden are being given a literal free ride to the moon as India is just not charging them anything for taking their instruments to the moon. In this barter deal the contributing nations share data with each at no cost. The recent Japanese and Chinese mission carried only instruments from their own countries, while ISRO in its magnanimity opened its heart and coffers so that the global lunar community could join in this new race to the moon, now being led by the Asian nations.

India's mark on space faring is now indelible with a mission for robotic landing on the moon called Chandrayaan-2 already slated for 2012 and spacecrafts to Mars, an asteroid and Sun already under planning. The Indian space agency is already eyeing sending an Indian up on an Indian rocket from Indian soil by 2015 and an Indian on the moon by 2025.

Quoted in the book written by NDTV's Science Editor Pallava Bagla and Subhadra Menon titled Destination Moon: India's Quest for the Moon, Mars and Beyond and released on Tuesday, Nair says, twenty years from now when space travel is likely to become mundane like airlines travel today, we don't want to be buying travel tickets on other people's space vehicles.

Moon is still an enigma

Even though the moon has been fabled in songs and poetry, and romanticized by lovers down the ages, the earth's closest neighbour is still an enigma in material terms. Can it sustain life? Does it have water? How did it come into existence? And what is its exact relationship with the earth?

Chandrayaan-1, India's maiden moon craft, will seek to unravel these and other mysteries in the most ambitious exploratory mission to the moon in decades.

Conceptualized by Indian scientists, it is in some ways a global scientific endeavour, with European and American instruments hitching a ride on a lunar satellite and rocket designed and launched by the Indian Space Research Organization.

When the mission was first proposed in 1999, it seemed wildly optimistic to most people. Could a developing nation with limited resources afford to invest so much money, time and effort on research into outer space? Yet, almost a decade later, India's science community has just about proven beyond doubt that it is capable of meeting the most exacting challenges.

 

[Flintlock]

India, Nasa tie up for Chandrayaan-India-The Times of India

India, Nasa tie up for Chandrayaan
21 Aug 2008, 0201 hrs IST, Srinivas Laxman,TNN

MUMBAI: Preparing to its first unmanned mission to moon, Chandrayaan-1, between October and December, India joined seven other nations to team up with Nasa for the future exploration of earth's only satellite.

Confirming this, Isro spokesperson S Satish told TOI that a key pact was signed at a conference of International Lunar Users' Group at Nasa's Ames Research Centre last month. India was represented by Devi Prasad Karnik, space counsellor attached to the Indian embassy in Washington. The other seven countries are Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, France and Britain. Japan has already launched an unmanned mission to the moon. Germany, Italy and Britain had announced at International Astronautical Congress in 2007 that they planned their own lunar missions which would be independent of the European Space Agency.

The international lunar agreement, which Nasa says a "landmark" one, will allow India and the seven countries to join hands with Nasa for developing new technologies and send robotic exploratory missions for a manned return mission to the moon.

For Nasa, the lunar agreement is important as the eight countries, including India, are keen to send astronauts to the moon. Experts say the increased interest in the lunar science and the emergence of India, Japan and China as important space-faring nations will also help Nasa.

 

[nitesh]

Isro to launch Italian, Algerian satellites - Technology - livemint.com


Bangalore: Antrix Corp. Ltd, the commercial arm of India’s space agency, has won a pair of deals from Algeria and Italy to launch earth observation satellites next year on the polar satellite launch vehicle, or PSLV, its workhorse rocket.
The contract awarded by the Algerian space agency to launch Alsat-2A, a 200kg remote sensing satellite, is the first won by Antrix from an African nation. The Algerian agency has the option to launch a second such satellite. For the Italian space agency Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, Antrix will launch a satellite named IMSAT, which will be the second Italian satellite to be boosted into space by the Indian Space Research Organisation, or Isro, which in April 2007 launched Agile, a 352kg scientific satellite.
The Algerian and Italian satellites, besides a 100kg satellite for Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and Cubesat, a three-satellite package from the Netherlands, would ride piggyback on heavier Indian satellites, said K.R. Sridhara Murthi, managing director of Antrix. He didn’t disclose financial details.
Antrix is also in talks with space agencies of South Africa and Nigeria to carry out similar launches, Murthi said. “We are also looking at opportunities bigger than that—remote sensing satellites, where payloads (are) of 800kg or even higher.”
Isro offers the home-grown PSLV to carry satellites of up to 1,700kg into low-earth orbit at a cost that’s nearly 30% cheaper than that charged by firms such as International Launch Services, owned by Space Transport Inc. and two Russian organizations, Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center and RSC Energia. Low-earth orbit is the region above earth between 200km and 2,000km, ideal to place earth observation or remote sensing satellites.
India is still a fledgling competitor in the global satellite manufacturing and launch industry, which is expected to grow to $145 billion (Rs6.3 trillion) over 10 years to 2016, from $116 billion in the 10 years to 2006, according to Paris-based research firm Euroconsult.
“(Isro’s) benchmark is with international specifications on quality, reliability and credibility of the systems. And then, you are also cost competitive,” said K. Kasturirangan, director of the National Institute of Advanced Studies, a think tank in Bangalore. “The opportunity is just growing.”

 

[jaison]

Isro to launch Italian, Algerian satellites - Technology - livemint.com


Bangalore: Antrix Corp. Ltd, the commercial arm of India’s space agency, has won a pair of deals from Algeria and Italy to launch earth observation satellites next year on the polar satellite launch vehicle, or PSLV, its workhorse rocket.
The contract awarded by the Algerian space agency to launch Alsat-2A, a 200kg remote sensing satellite, is the first won by Antrix from an African nation. The Algerian agency has the option to launch a second such satellite. For the Italian space agency Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, Antrix will launch a satellite named IMSAT, which will be the second Italian satellite to be boosted into space by the Indian Space Research Organisation, or Isro, which in April 2007 launched Agile, a 352kg scientific satellite.
The Algerian and Italian satellites, besides a 100kg satellite for Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and Cubesat, a three-satellite package from the Netherlands, would ride piggyback on heavier Indian satellites, said K.R. Sridhara Murthi, managing director of Antrix. He didn’t disclose financial details.
Antrix is also in talks with space agencies of South Africa and Nigeria to carry out similar launches, Murthi said. “We are also looking at opportunities bigger than that—remote sensing satellites, where payloads (are) of 800kg or even higher.”
Isro offers the home-grown PSLV to carry satellites of up to 1,700kg into low-earth orbit at a cost that’s nearly 30% cheaper than that charged by firms such as International Launch Services, owned by Space Transport Inc. and two Russian organizations, Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center and RSC Energia. Low-earth orbit is the region above earth between 200km and 2,000km, ideal to place earth observation or remote sensing satellites.
India is still a fledgling competitor in the global satellite manufacturing and launch industry, which is expected to grow to $145 billion (Rs6.3 trillion) over 10 years to 2016, from $116 billion in the 10 years to 2006, according to Paris-based research firm Euroconsult.
“(Isro’s) benchmark is with international specifications on quality, reliability and credibility of the systems. And then, you are also cost competitive,” said K. Kasturirangan, director of the National Institute of Advanced Studies, a think tank in Bangalore. “The opportunity is just growing.”

antrix is doing things.

 

[nitesh]

US, Russia to help track India's moon mission - news.smashits.com

US, Russia to help track India's moon mission
Posted: 12:40a.m. IST, August 24, 2008
New Delhi, Aug 24 (IANS) India will be helped by Russia, Spain and the United States in deep space tracking of Chandrayaan-I, its maiden moon mission that will be launched later this year.

'Deep Space tracking of Chandrayaan-I is a tough task and needs global support. We are getting support from Russia, Spain and the US for tracking the movement of the mission,' K. Kasturirangan, former head of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said. Kasturirangan is currently an adviser to ISRO.

'India has set up two antennas of 18 metre diameter and 32 metre diameter to track Chandrayaan but, looking at the huge task, other space agencies like NASA will help us in getting enough data,' Kasturirangan said.

Chandrayan-I, India's first unmanned lunar mission will be launched either in late October or in early December. ISRO does not launch any mission in November due to cyclonic atmosphere.

Kasturirangan said that while the 18-metre deep space network (DSN) antenna will track the movement of Chandrayan up to 100,000 km, the 32-metre DSN antenna would help capture data from the mission that involves a distance of 400,000 km.

ISRO has already installed the indigenously built 32-metre DSN antenna at Byalalu, a village 32 km from Bangalore.

M.G.K. Menon, another leading scientist and a former ISRO chief, said that deep space tracking network is expensive but once India builds the required infrastructure for it, 'we can use it repeatedly and reap the benefit'.

ISRO spokesman S. Satish, who was in Delhi earlier this week, said that the Chandrayaan had already been assembled.

'It's like a dress rehearsal now. It's undergoing several tests to face the tough environment of the moon. Soon it will undergo a vibration and acoustic test,' Satish told IANS.

'It will probe if there is water in the polar part of the moon. It will investigate the origin and its evolution,' he added.

The spacecraft will be launched by indigenous Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and will carry 11 payloads, including six of foreign countries.

These 11 payloads will bring back best digital elevation map of the moon, mineral concentration, and carry out environmental studies, direct measurement of radioactivity and provide transport on the lunar surface.

 

[jaison]

US, Russia to help track India's moon mission - news.smashits.com

US, Russia to help track India's moon mission
Posted: 12:40a.m. IST, August 24, 2008
New Delhi, Aug 24 (IANS) India will be helped by Russia, Spain and the United States in deep space tracking of Chandrayaan-I, its maiden moon mission that will be launched later this year.

'Deep Space tracking of Chandrayaan-I is a tough task and needs global support. We are getting support from Russia, Spain and the US for tracking the movement of the mission,' K. Kasturirangan, former head of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said. Kasturirangan is currently an adviser to ISRO.

'India has set up two antennas of 18 metre diameter and 32 metre diameter to track Chandrayaan but, looking at the huge task, other space agencies like NASA will help us in getting enough data,' Kasturirangan said.

Chandrayan-I, India's first unmanned lunar mission will be launched either in late October or in early December. ISRO does not launch any mission in November due to cyclonic atmosphere.

Kasturirangan said that while the 18-metre deep space network (DSN) antenna will track the movement of Chandrayan up to 100,000 km, the 32-metre DSN antenna would help capture data from the mission that involves a distance of 400,000 km.

ISRO has already installed the indigenously built 32-metre DSN antenna at Byalalu, a village 32 km from Bangalore.

M.G.K. Menon, another leading scientist and a former ISRO chief, said that deep space tracking network is expensive but once India builds the required infrastructure for it, 'we can use it repeatedly and reap the benefit'.

ISRO spokesman S. Satish, who was in Delhi earlier this week, said that the Chandrayaan had already been assembled.

'It's like a dress rehearsal now. It's undergoing several tests to face the tough environment of the moon. Soon it will undergo a vibration and acoustic test,' Satish told IANS.

'It will probe if there is water in the polar part of the moon. It will investigate the origin and its evolution,' he added.

The spacecraft will be launched by indigenous Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and will carry 11 payloads, including six of foreign countries.

These 11 payloads will bring back best digital elevation map of the moon, mineral concentration, and carry out environmental studies, direct measurement of radioactivity and provide transport on the lunar surface.

so now even the us is helping us along with russians,seems to be a good development...

 

[nitesh]

Foreign push to moon mission
Manoj K Das | ENS
29 Aug 2008 01:50:00 AM IST

KOCHI: India’s moon mission is giving new dimensions to international scientific cooperation. A 50-member team of scientists from NASA and EADS (the European Space Agency) has arrived in the country to provide technical support to Chandrayaan-I.


The NASA team has already completed a thorough scrutiny of the Indian strategy to reach the moon at its Jet Propulsion Centre and stamped its endorsement. The NASA brains, along with the EADS scientists, are also studying the minute behaviour of the Chandrayaan satellite currently undergoing the crucial therm-vac tests at ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore.

The thermo-vacuum tests subject the payload to the vagaries of space where it is exposed to temperatures ranging from 180 degrees to minus 120 degrees. "Each time we switch over from one extreme to the other the data is analysed by the NASA-EADS team. The constant monitoring will continue till the satellite comes out of the thermvac chamber around September 12," said M Krishnaswamy, IRS programme director.

The foreign scientists are engaged in an extensive study of the ISRO’s launch plan. "NASA is studying the impact of gravity on our satellite while it is en route to the lunar pole. This being our first inter-planetary mission, we’ve no models on influences. NASA tested our software on their models and found that our plan should safely put Chandrayaan into lunar orbit," sources said.

The US has also agreed to undertake parallel tracking of the Chandrayaan till the satellite is placed in the moon’s orbit. "Though we plan to execute all crucial manoeuvres when Chandrayaan is visible to our stations, a couple of commands may have to be executed when it is not. NASA will track it during this phase," ISRO sources said. They also revealed that India and the US have already inked an MoU for smooth tracking of the Chandrayaan.

The ISRO is looking at a mid-October window for the launch. "The programme is now three days behind schedule. But we’re hopeful of making it happen on October 16 or 17. In case we miss this window, the next chance is on November 3 and then on November 16," sources said.

The launch date is dependent on the moon’s cycle.

ISRO’s plan is to station Chandrayaan at 400,000 km when the moon comes closest to earth. The satellite will be moved towards the moon’s southern polar field and allowed to be grabbed by lunar gravity. Then, through controlled firing of onboard rockets, it will be placed at a height of 100 km before the probe is launched to study the lunarscape.



Express Buzz - Foreign push to moon mission

 

[nitesh]

Students too join ISRO’s satellite project

Hemanth CS | ENS
29 Aug 2008 05:50:00 AM IST

BANGALORE: The complicated business of designing and developing space applications and putting space satellites on board will no longer be restricted to scientists or technocrats; students too are set to be part of India’s latest space mission. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which is currently undertaking the “youth satellite” project, a dedicated satellite for scientific experiments, has the participation of undergraduate and post graduate students. The youth satellite, according to ISRO, will be launched next year from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on board a polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV) for conducting experiments on remote sensing and observing outer space.

Students of the Moscow University and Andhra University, along with other education institutions, have already been involved in the project, DVA Raghava Murthy, project director, Youth Satellite told to this website's newspaper. “The configuration of the three payloads has already been finalised. One payload for solar fare observing (SOLRAD) is being currently developed by students of Moscow University.

The other two payloads which the launch vehicle will carry are being developed in India,” he said. The two payloads currently being developed by students in Indian universities are the astrospheric limb viewing payload and the radiobeacon for ionospheric tomography (RABIT) payload. This apart, ISRO has also finalised the configuration of the main spacecraft, which is said to be in the fabrication stage.

Students of Andhra University and other institutions have been pursuing the project; a project team of around 30 ISRO officials are also involved. The Banaras Hindu University is said to have evinced an interest in being part of the youth satellite project, which is the brainchild of former President Abdul Kalam, who incidentally, during his visit to the city, christened the project the “youth satellite” project.

The project will help in conducting experiments in galactic observation and atmospheric studies. “The young students will benefit a great deal through the experiments, as they will be involved in the data utilisation process,” said Raghava Murthy.

Express Buzz - Students too join ISRO

 

[nitesh]

Good news

The Hindu Business Line : ISRO arm’s revenue up at Rs 940-cr on satellite launches

ISRO arm’s revenue up at Rs 940-cr on satellite launches
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‘We have also now entered into a good business contract of $5 million (around Rs 20 crore a year) from Russia for IRS data.’
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Madhumathi D.S.

Bangalore, Aug. 30 Two commercial satellite launches made from Sriharikota during 2007-08 have driven up the revenue of ISRO’s commercial arm Antrix Corporation to Rs 940 crore for that year.

Antrix’s pre-audit revenue grew nearly 42 per cent year on year — up from Rs 664 crore — due to the launch of Israeli defence satellite TecSAR in January 2008 and Italy’s Agile in April 2007. A part of it spilled over from the previous year.

The mainstay of business, however, remains the leasing of transponder capacity on ISRO satellites to broadcasters, VSATs and public sector users, according to Antrix’s Executive Director, Mr K.R. Sridhara Murthi. The space services and systems provider of the Department of Space is now a ‘mini ratna’ – which gives it relatively more autonomy to take faster decisions on some of its projects and collaborations.

Antrix also saw its provisional profit after tax touching Rs 169 crore, or 60 per cent growth over Rs 105 crore it gained in fiscal 2007. Two years back, in 2005-06, Antrix’s sales were Rs 414 crore.

In the complex and volatile global space services market: “This growth is certainly heartening but it also poses a challenge as to how we maintain further growth”, Mr Murthi told Business Line.

IMAGERY, LAUNCH DEALS
In remote sensing data sales, which gave 10 per cent of the revenue last year, Antrix has wrested the big and growing Australian market, where it will sell imageries from Resourcesat/IRS-P5. Australia has apparently sought Indian data to replace long-time supplies from US Landsat earth observation satellites after there were supply hitches. Australia, new and important territory to Antrix, would be served initially for three years.

“We have also now entered into a good business contract of $5 million (around Rs 20 crore a year) from Russia for IRS data,” Mr Murthi said. In the past, Russia was an occasional user of IRS data and it can renew the one-year deal.

It recently signed contracts to launch two satellites as co-passengers next year. These are the Italian space agency’s 200-kg IMSAT and Algeria’s Alsat-2A, a 200-kg earth observation satellite. ISRO reportedly charged Rs 45 crore for Agile and a little more than that for TecSAR.

“We are looking at launching some more nanosats and a couple of other opportunities,” Mr Murthi said.

Ideally, Antrix, like other space majors, would prefer to peg its growth on the bigger pie of building and launching satellites for global customers. ISRO has been making its satellites for over a decade and has also launched 16 tiny and small satellites for a fee. Its real opportunity in launch services, according to Mr Murthi, will start opening up when the GSLV-MkIII that can lift four tonnes to space gets into service in two years.

Currently, ISRO is working on two satellite integration contracts that it won jointly with EADS Astrium. The W2M satellite is to be delivered to Eutelsat around October. The other one, HYLAS, is for Avanti Screen Media of the UK.

 

[Marshal]

RIA Novosti - World - India plans to launch first space shuttle in 2010 - space official

BANGALORE, August 13 (RIA Novosti) - India is planning to launch a reusable spacecraft for the first time in 2010 and to send a mission to Mars as early as 2012, a senior space official said Monday.

India has been successfully developing its space program in recent years, regularly launching satellites using its own booster rockets.

"Our target [for the first launch] is before 2010," the Press Trust of India news agency quoted Chairman of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Madhavan Nair as saying.

Indian scientists have already designed a prototype of the space shuttle to measure parameters of the vehicle and determine future work on the project, the official said.

"The launch vehicle will use a rocket to boost it up to Mach 5 or so," Nair said, adding that air-breathing modules could be integrated into the reusable delivery vehicle.

The news agency said the ISRO is also focusing its attention on an unmanned mission to Mars to study chemical attributes of the Martian atmosphere, and the planet's sub-soil and terrain. The mission could take place as early as in 2012.

India earlier announced plans to launch 15 telecommunications satellites and 8-10 earth remote sensing satellites by March 2012, when the 11th five-year plan has been completed.