New Delhi, April 20: India has launched its first satellite capable of peering at the ground through clouds during daytime or after nightfall, acquiring exceptional reconnaissance capabilities through an earth-observation radar from Israel.
In a two-in-one launch this morning, India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle carried into space a Radar Imaging Satellite, RISAT-2, for ground observations, and India’s first communications satellite built at a university, ANUSAT.
The 300kg RISAT-2 placed in an orbit 550km above the earth will provide India superior reconnaissance capabilities that the country has hitherto lacked — ground observations from space irrespective of the weather at day or night.
While RISAT-2 would thus bolster India’s resources for reconnaissance, Indian Space Research Organisation officials said today this satellite was intended to improve disaster management during floods, cyclones, or landslides.
“During monsoon floods, we need good ground images to determine the best place to drop food and relief packets,” an Isro official said. “There have been times when we’ve had to buy satellite radar images from foreign countries to look through clouds.”
Key elements of the synthetic aperture radar aboard RISAT-2 have come from an Israeli company that was also associated with TecSAR, an Israeli reconnaissance satellite that was launched aboard India’s workhorse launcher PSLV last year.
Isro sources declined to quantify how much of the radar technology had been contributed by the Israeli company. “The Israeli company has provided important components,” a senior scientist with Isro said.
A spokesperson with the Israeli company associated with the TecSAR satellite also declined to elaborate its role in the development of the synthetic aperture radar aboard RISAT-2 or to compare the radars on TecSAR and RISAT-2.
India is building its own radar satellite — RISAT-1 — but progress on the indigenous radar has been slower than expected.
The home-grown radar imaging satellite is now expected to be launched by the end of 2009, an Isro official said today.
The 15th launch of the PSLV today also ferried a 40kg mini communications satellite ANUSAT, designed, fabricated and tested by a team of about 40 students and the faculty at the Anna University, Chennai.
The youngest member of the team is 22-year-old Hariharan Ravishankar, an electronics engineering student who joined the project in his undergraduate years, and is now pursuing an MTech at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.
“We wanted to give our students hands-on experience with space activities,” said Mala John, assistant professor of electronics engineering at Anna University. The satellite demonstrates space-to-earth communications.
The PSLV flight lifted off today from Isro’s Srihari- kota island launch pad at 6.45am, releasing RISAT-2 first after about 18 minutes and ANUSAT next about a minute later. Both satellites have orbital altitudes of 550km, and both go around the earth once every 90 minutes.
“I felt like jumping with joy when I heard our ground station had picked up signals from ANUSAT at 8.24am today,” said Hariharan who had helped build the ground receiver, but was attending a class at IIT Madras this morning. “It’s been great to work with Isro and learn what happens in a real working environment.”
Source: TELEGRAPH INDIA
In a two-in-one launch this morning, India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle carried into space a Radar Imaging Satellite, RISAT-2, for ground observations, and India’s first communications satellite built at a university, ANUSAT.
The 300kg RISAT-2 placed in an orbit 550km above the earth will provide India superior reconnaissance capabilities that the country has hitherto lacked — ground observations from space irrespective of the weather at day or night.
While RISAT-2 would thus bolster India’s resources for reconnaissance, Indian Space Research Organisation officials said today this satellite was intended to improve disaster management during floods, cyclones, or landslides.
“During monsoon floods, we need good ground images to determine the best place to drop food and relief packets,” an Isro official said. “There have been times when we’ve had to buy satellite radar images from foreign countries to look through clouds.”
Key elements of the synthetic aperture radar aboard RISAT-2 have come from an Israeli company that was also associated with TecSAR, an Israeli reconnaissance satellite that was launched aboard India’s workhorse launcher PSLV last year.
Isro sources declined to quantify how much of the radar technology had been contributed by the Israeli company. “The Israeli company has provided important components,” a senior scientist with Isro said.
A spokesperson with the Israeli company associated with the TecSAR satellite also declined to elaborate its role in the development of the synthetic aperture radar aboard RISAT-2 or to compare the radars on TecSAR and RISAT-2.
India is building its own radar satellite — RISAT-1 — but progress on the indigenous radar has been slower than expected.
The home-grown radar imaging satellite is now expected to be launched by the end of 2009, an Isro official said today.
The 15th launch of the PSLV today also ferried a 40kg mini communications satellite ANUSAT, designed, fabricated and tested by a team of about 40 students and the faculty at the Anna University, Chennai.
The youngest member of the team is 22-year-old Hariharan Ravishankar, an electronics engineering student who joined the project in his undergraduate years, and is now pursuing an MTech at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.
“We wanted to give our students hands-on experience with space activities,” said Mala John, assistant professor of electronics engineering at Anna University. The satellite demonstrates space-to-earth communications.
The PSLV flight lifted off today from Isro’s Srihari- kota island launch pad at 6.45am, releasing RISAT-2 first after about 18 minutes and ANUSAT next about a minute later. Both satellites have orbital altitudes of 550km, and both go around the earth once every 90 minutes.
“I felt like jumping with joy when I heard our ground station had picked up signals from ANUSAT at 8.24am today,” said Hariharan who had helped build the ground receiver, but was attending a class at IIT Madras this morning. “It’s been great to work with Isro and learn what happens in a real working environment.”
Source: TELEGRAPH INDIA
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