Indian Space Capabilities

[sudhir007]

The Hindu : Front Page : ISRO, DRDO must step up internal vigilance, say experts

ISRO, DRDO must step up internal vigilance, say experts

NEW DELHI: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) must step up internal vigilance to prevent India from becoming another “happy hunting ground” for Israeli intelligence, a strategic affairs think tank has advised.

In a report following the arrest of Stewart David Nozette on charges of espionage, the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS) has drawn attention to the U.S. space scientist’s “top secret” security clearance when he was associated with ISRO’s Chandrayaan project.

‘Inquiry would clear the air’


While his association “may not have resulted in the siphoning off of classified information,” the IPCS feels an inquiry could clear the air of what transpired during the course of his interaction with Indian space scientists as well as about the nature and type of data Dr. Nozette could have extracted.

Dr. Nozette was the “co-investigator” of the Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar (MiniSAR), one of the two American payloads onboard Chandrayaan-1. MiniSAR designed to look for signs of water in the polar regions of the moon was a NASA payload built by the Applied Physics Laboratory of the John Hopkins University and the Naval Warfare Centre, U.S.

‘Internal matter’


ISRO sources have made it clear that the arrest of Dr. Nozette was an internal NASA matter and ISRO security has not been compromised in any way.

Dr. Nozette visited the Bangalore-based Satellite Centre, the lead agency for Chandrayaan-1 mission, twice and interacted with Indian space scientists. ISRO has said Dr. Nozette was not taken around any critical installations and facilities.

With India having agreed to expand cooperation with the U.S. in several high tech areas, ISRO should exercise a higher level of caution while interacting with visiting American scientists, recommends IPCS which noted that for a long time, the U.S. has remained a favourite playground of Israeli spies and espionage agents.

 

[Screaming Skull]

India's space ambitions taking off​

By Emily Wax

Washington Post Foreign Service

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

In this seaside village, the children of farmers and fishermen aspire to become something that their impoverished parents never thought possible: astronauts.

Through community-based programs, India's space agency has been partnering with schools in remote areas such as this one, helping to teach students about space exploration and cutting-edge technology. The agency is also training thousands of young scientists and, in 2012, will open the nation's first astronaut-training center in the southern city of Bangalore.

"I want to be prepared in space sciences so I can go to the moon when India picks its astronauts," said Lakshmi Kannan, 15, pushing her long braids out of her face and clutching her science textbook.

Lakshmi's hopes are not unlike India's ambitions, writ small. For years, the country has focused its efforts in space on practical applications -- using satellites to collect information on natural disasters, for instance. But India is now moving beyond that traditional focus and has planned its first manned space mission in 2015.

The ambitions of the 46-year-old national space program could vastly expand India's international profile in space and catapult it into a space race with China. China, the only country besides the United States and Russia to have launched a manned spacecraft, did so six years ago.

"It's such an exciting time in the history of India's space program," said G. Madhavan Nair, a rocket scientist and the outgoing chairman of the national space agency, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). "More and more bright young Indian scientists are calling us for jobs. We will look back on this as a turning point."

The ascendancy of India's space program highlights the country's rising ambitions on the world stage, as it grows economically and asserts itself in matters of diplomacy.

Politicians once dismissed the space program as a waste. Activists for India's legions of poor criticized additional funding for the program, saying it was needless decades after the American crew of Apollo 11 had landed on the moon. Now, however, the program is a source of prestige.

Last year, India reached a milestone, launching 10 satellites into space on a single rocket. Officials are positioning the country to become a leader in the business of launching satellites for others, having found paying clients in countries such as Israel and Italy. They even talk of a mission to Mars.

India's program is smaller in scope than China's and is thought to receive far less funding. It is also designed mostly for civilian purposes, whereas experts have suggested that China is more interested in military applications. (The Communist Party has said its goal is peaceful space exploration.)

"A human space flight with an eventual moon mission is a direct challenge to China's regional leadership," said John M. Logsdon, professor emeritus of political science and international affairs at George Washington University's Space Policy Institute. "China is still the leader. India has yet to diminish China's space stature. But India is indeed seeking a higher global profile."

India now has among the world's largest constellations of remote-sensing satellites. They are sophisticated enough to distinguish healthy coconuts from diseased ones in this region's thick palms. They can also zero in on deadly mosquitoes lurking in a patch of jungle.

In September, a NASA device aboard India's first lunar probe detected strong evidence of water on the moon -- a "holy grail for lunar scientists," as Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA headquarters in Washington, put it.

The partnership with Americans was particularly gratifying to Indians, given recent bilateral history. After New Delhi conducted nuclear tests in 1998, the United States imposed sanctions denying India access to certain technology in a bid to curb its ability to launch nuclear rockets, said Theresa Hitchens, a space expert who is director of the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva.

"Space launchers and ballistic missiles are quite similar from a technical perspective," she said.

Many of the sanctions have been lifted, and India and the United States last year signed a historic civilian nuclear agreement, lifting a 30-year ban on bilateral nuclear trade.

"The scientists at ISRO and NASA have always had deep respect for each other. But it was politics and bureaucracy that stood in the way of great science," said Pallava Bagla, co-author of "Destination Moon: India's Quest for the Moon, Mars and Beyond."

As India's space program barrels ahead, experts fear that NASA is losing ground. The space agency's human spaceflight program is facing budget cuts, as well as basic questions about where to go and how to get there.

After NASA's aging space shuttle retires in 2010, it will be five years before the United States will have another spacecraft that can reach the international space station.

The United States may have to buy a seat to the moon on an Indian spaceship, said Rakesh Sharma, India's first astronaut, who in 1984 was aboard the Soviet Union's Soyuz T-11 space shuttle. "Now that would be something," Sharma said. "Maybe budget cuts could usher in an era of more cooperation rather than competition and distrust."

washingtonpost.com

 

[Chanakyaa]

Im dying to See the Tri Color wave on the Moon !!!
ISRO is the pride of India.

---------- Post added at 05:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:22 PM ----------

Im dying to See the Tri Color wave on the Moon !!!
ISRO is the pride of India.

 

[Naradmuni]

Are these authors so illiterate in popular physics, … or, their divine mouth only meant to impress/mislead readers…?

Sorry, but…

Absolute zero - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It is -90 "Degree" celcius and not -900 celcius. Not to mention, its -250 "Deg" C and not -2500 C

Its no use Knowing "popluar" physics if u are void of common sense.

Here is the source :
Realising the cryogenic dream

 

[Renegade]

The world is slowly waking up to Indias technological poweress. Ivestments made in the past in Science & Tech have born fruit.

Go ISRO!!

 

[lockh33d]

lol gg gg gg

 

[scrumpy]

[/COLOR]Im dying to See the Tri Color wave on the Moon !!!
ISRO is the pride of India.

It is already on the moon.

A flag will not wave on the moon since there is no wind on the moon. However the Moon Impact Probe did create mechanical waves on the moon surface on impact.

 

[gpit]

It is -90 "Degree" celcius and not -900 celcius. Not to mention, its -250 "Deg" C and not -2500 C

Its no use Knowing "popluar" physics if u are void of common sense.

Here is the source :
Realising the cryogenic dream


P.S : Mods(AM) you are being unfair and biased by deleting my earlier posts clarifying the above issue.

Friend, this is a respected forum, unlike some Indian fancy forums where abusive heehaws are rampant and unchecked.

I reported your post for your self-degrading dirty slur and personal attacks, not your points of subject matter in argument.

Be civilized, and behave properly.

 

[Beskar]

Narad:

Three of your posts on this page were deleted. In the first one, this is how you addressed the member;

DUMB @$$ GPIT, It is not 9 hundred celcious

The other two were "Duplicate posts" and that's why they were removed. Since you're new to the forum, I'm clearing it out here. Next time, contact the management using your PM option. The management does not have to "Clarify" anything. Read the forum rules.

Thanks.

 

[Naradmuni]

P S Veeraraghavan takes over as Director, VSSC​

Shri P.S. Veeraraghavan, Distinguished scientist of ISRO and Director, ISRO Inertial Systems Unit (IISU), assumed the office of Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram. He took over the charge on 31st October, 2009 from Dr. K. Radhakrishnan who has taken over as Secretary, Dept. of Space and Chairman of ISRO from Dr G Madhavan Nair.

Shri Parivakkam Subramaniam Veeraraghavan has made very significant contributions for the launch vehicle technology of ISRO starting from the first SLV-3 Project. After obtaining his M.Tech. degree from I.I.T., Chennai, Shri Veeraraghavan joined VSSC in 1971. His first assignment was in SLV-3 Project under the leadership of Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the former President of India, as Engineer-in-Charge of Checkout System development. He was responsible for the design and development of the first checkout system for the first SLV-3 Project.

Shri Veeraraghavan has made pioneering contributions in the area of integration and checkout of ISROs launch vehicles. As Deputy Director of Mechanisms & Vehicle Integration Testing (MVIT), he was instrumental for assembly, integration and checkout of ISROs launch vehicles PSLV and GSLV till 2002. After assuming the charge of the Director, IISU since 2002, he was responsible for the inertial systems development in ISRO for both launch vehicles and spacecraft. The performance of these inertial navigation systems has been at par with those of the best in the world. The inertial systems in Chandrayaan-1 contributed to its precise orbital maneuvers and very accurate lunar injection. Under his able leadership, IISU has developed a number of advanced inertial sensors and systems for future missions. ISRO has now achieved 100% self-reliance in the crucial technology of inertial sensors and systems.

Sree Veeraraghavan is a recipient of many prestigious awards including the VASVIK Award for 1997 (Electronics), the Astronautical Society of Indias award for 2002 in the area of Rocket Technology and ISROs Performance Excellence Award for 2007. He has been selected as Fellow for a number of professional bodies including the Aeronautical Society of India. He has also been ominated to the governing council of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, New Delhi.

 

[Naradmuni]

India Plans Lunar Landing Using Scramjet Hypersonic Space Plane​

A scaled down version of AVATAR undergoing aero-elastic test.​

The United States, Russia, India, Japan and China have all announced plans to send astronauts back to the Moon around 2020. India's space agency, although lacking the level of funding found in the US and Japan, has an ambitious plan for the next decade.

In a statement made by India's then president, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the country wants to launch its first lunar orbiter, the Chandraayan-1, in early 2008 and a manned mission to the moon sometime near the end of the next decade.

The Indian space agency is now working on a revolutionary, reusable launch vehicle (RLV) that takes an innovative approach using a scramjet "hyperplane" according to Kalam. India's scramjet RLV, Kalam asserted, will provide the "low-cost, fully reusable space transportation" that has previously "denied mankind the benefit of space solar-power stations in geostationary and other orbits," Technology review reports.

A scramjet is a type of jet that uses a supersonic flow in the combustor and consists of a constricted tube through which inlet air is compressed by the high speed of the vehicle, a combustion chamber where fuel is combusted and a nozzle through which the exhaust jet leaves at higher speed than the inlet air.

This new design could offer many applications, like low-cost satellite launching and manned missions to space and will be capable of high speeds, in excess of Mach 10, which means that it could make the flight between Sydney and London in just two hours.

The first flight of the Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle (HTDV), a protoype for the scramjet RLV named Avatar, is scheduled for the end of next year, and if it is successful, it will be a revolution in space exploration.

Avatar will be a light aircraft, weighing only 25 metric tons and to get into space, it will use liquid hydrogen to fuel the turbo-ramjet engines, 60 percent of which will be used to defeat Earth's gravity and ascent to a cruising altitude. The AVATAR design has already been patented in India and applications for registration of the design have been filed in patent offices in the United States, Germany, Russia and China.

"The Avatar RLV project will enable the Indian program to leap ahead of the Chinese nostalgia trip. Once low cost to orbit comes alive, it will drive cheaper methods of doing all our unmanned activities in space," said Gregory Benford, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Irvine, and an advisor to NASA and the White House Council on Space Policy.

The idea is to develop a hyperplane 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. The AVATAR RLV was first announced in May 1998 at the Aero India 98 exhibition held at Bangalore. It is planned to be the size of a MiG-25 fighter and would be capable of delivering a 500 kg to 1000 kg payload to low earth orbit at very cheap rate for an estimated vehicle life of 100 launches.

AVATAR is proposed to weigh only 25 tonnes in which 60 per cent of mass will be liquid hydrogen fuel. The oxygen required by the vehicle for combustion is collected from the atmosphere, thus reducing the need to carry oxygen during launch. AVATAR is said to be capable of entering into a 100-km orbit in a single stage and launching satellites weighing up to one tonne.

AVATAR would take off horizontally like a conventional airplane from a conventional airstrip using turbo-ramjet engines that burn air and hydrogen. Once at a cruising altitude, the vehicle would use scramjet propulsion to accelerate from Mach 4 to Mach 8. During this cruising phase, an on-board system would collect air from the atmosphere, from which liquid oxygen would be separated and stored. The liquid oxygen collected then would be used in the final flight phase when the rocket engine burns the collected liquid oxygen and the carried hydrogen to attain orbit. The vehicle would be designed to permit at least a hundred re-entries into the atmosphere.

Dr. M R Suresh, a senior ISRO official, stated that, "The dream of making a vehicle which can take off from a runway like an aircraft, and to return to the runway after deploying the spacecraft in the desired orbit (or Single-stage-to-orbit or SSTO) can be fulfilled only by the availability of more advanced high strength but low density materials so that the structural mass of the vehicle could be reduced considerably from the present levels. The advent of nano-technology could play a deciding factor in developing such exotic materials. However, the material technology available today can realize a Two Stage To Orbit (TSTO) vehicle only and the configuration of the vehicle which is being considered. However, the before realizing the RLV-TSTO it is important to perfect many critical technologies pertaining to hypersonic reentry vehicles. Hence a technology demonstrator vehicle (RLV-TD) is being developed."

Air Commodore Raghavan Gopalaswami, former chief of Bharat Dynamics Ltd, Hyderabad, is heading the project. He coined the name and made the presentation on the space plane at the global conference on propulsion at Salt Lake City (USA) on July 10, 2001. .

AVATAR is currently in the prototype testing stage. Along with DRDO team development of critical technology components were undertaken by as many as 23 academic institutions (Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institute of Science etc) along with ISRO in India. Both the scramjet engine concept and the liquid oxygen collection process have already undergone successful tests at DRDO and at the IISC.

More on Avatar RLV...

 

[Naradmuni]

India now has among the world's largest constellations of remote-sensing satellites. They are sophisticated enough to distinguish healthy coconuts from diseased ones in this region's thick palms. They can also zero in on deadly mosquitoes lurking in a patch of jungle.

Well said...

 

[Tejas-MkII]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...1/04/GR2009110400141.html?sid=ST2009110400142

India's space ambitions taking off

By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 4, 2009

PANNITHITTU, India -- In this seaside village, the children of farmers and fishermen aspire to become something that their impoverished parents never thought possible: astronauts.

Through community-based programs, India's space agency has been partnering with schools in remote areas such as this one, helping to teach students about space exploration and cutting-edge technology. The agency is also training thousands of young scientists and, in 2012, will open the nation's first astronaut-training center in the southern city of Bangalore.

"I want to be prepared in space sciences so I can go to the moon when India picks its astronauts," said Lakshmi Kannan, 15, pushing her long braids out of her face and clutching her science textbook.

Lakshmi's hopes are not unlike India's ambitions, writ small. For years, the country has focused its efforts in space on practical applications -- using satellites to collect information on natural disasters, for instance. But India is now moving beyond that traditional focus and has planned its first manned space mission in 2015.

The ambitions of the 46-year-old national space program could vastly expand India's international profile in space and catapult it into a space race with China. China, the only country besides the United States and Russia to have launched a manned spacecraft, did so six years ago.

"It's such an exciting time in the history of India's space program," said G. Madhavan Nair, a rocket scientist and the outgoing chairman of the national space agency, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). "More and more bright young Indian scientists are calling us for jobs. We will look back on this as a turning point."

The ascendancy of India's space program highlights the country's rising ambitions on the world stage, as it grows economically and asserts itself in matters of diplomacy.

Politicians once dismissed the space program as a waste. Activists for India's legions of poor criticized additional funding for the program, saying it was needless decades after the American crew of Apollo 11 had landed on the moon. Now, however, the program is a source of prestige.

Last year, India reached a milestone, launching 10 satellites into space on a single rocket. Officials are positioning the country to become a leader in the business of launching satellites for others, having found paying clients in countries such as Israel and Italy. They even talk of a mission to Mars.

India's program is smaller in scope than China's and is thought to receive far less funding. It is also designed mostly for civilian purposes, whereas experts have suggested that China is more interested in military applications. (The Communist Party has said its goal is peaceful space exploration.)

"A human space flight with an eventual moon mission is a direct challenge to China's regional leadership," said John M. Logsdon, professor emeritus of political science and international affairs at George Washington University's Space Policy Institute. "China is still the leader. India has yet to diminish China's space stature. But India is indeed seeking a higher global profile."

India now has among the world's largest constellations of remote-sensing satellites. They are sophisticated enough to distinguish healthy coconuts from diseased ones in this region's thick palms. They can also zero in on deadly mosquitoes lurking in a patch of jungle. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...1/04/GR2009110400141.html?sid=ST2009110400142)

In September, a NASA device aboard India's first lunar probe detected strong evidence of water on the moon -- a "holy grail for lunar scientists," as Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA headquarters in Washington, put it.

The partnership with Americans was particularly gratifying to Indians, given recent bilateral history. After New Delhi conducted nuclear tests in 1998, the United States imposed sanctions denying India access to certain technology in a bid to curb its ability to launch nuclear rockets, said Theresa Hitchens, a space expert who is director of the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva.

"Space launchers and ballistic missiles are quite similar from a technical perspective," she said.

Many of the sanctions have been lifted, and India and the United States last year signed a historic civilian nuclear agreement, lifting a 30-year ban on bilateral nuclear trade.

"The scientists at ISRO and NASA have always had deep respect for each other. But it was politics and bureaucracy that stood in the way of great science," said Pallava Bagla, co-author of "Destination Moon: India's Quest for the Moon, Mars and Beyond."

As India's space program barrels ahead, experts fear that NASA is losing ground. The space agency's human spaceflight program is facing budget cuts, as well as basic questions about where to go and how to get there.

After NASA's aging space shuttle retires in 2010, it will be five years before the United States will have another spacecraft that can reach the international space station.

The United States may have to buy a seat to the moon on an Indian spaceship, said Rakesh Sharma, India's first astronaut, who in 1984 was aboard the Soviet Union's Soyuz T-11 space shuttle. "Now that would be something," Sharma said. "Maybe budget cuts could usher in an era of more cooperation rather than competition and distrust."

 

[Screaming Skull]

From the same WaPo article-

Linking via satellite

India has increased the number of satellites it has launched to compete with other space agencies and to help modernize poor villages. The satellites are used to monitor ground resources and farming conditions and to expand telecommunications.

Linking via satellite - washingtonpost.com

 

[GLOBAL HAWK]

I for one surely appreciate Indian's cost effectiveness in space research

I wonder if their ISRO is allocated bucks similar to NASA, what would they so and aim for

China also seems to be cost effective in space research on its own level.