ISRO 100th mission set for launch

A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C21) blasted off from Sriharikota on September 9 and placed two foreign satellites in orbit, accomplishing the Indian Space Research Organisation’s 100th mission, a milestone in the country’s space journey.

After a 51-hour countdown, the PSLV lifted off at 9.53 a.m., two minutes behind schedule, to avoid any collision with space debris.

In the textbook launch, it carried SPOT-6, a 712-kg French earth observation satellite and injected it into an orbit of 655-km altitude, inclined at 98.23 degrees to the equator. Proiteres, a 15-kg Japanese microsatellite, was put into orbit as an additional payload. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and a host of dignitaries watched the flight path on electronic screens, as the 44-metre tall PSLV accomplished its task, reinforcing the fact that it is the ISRO’s workhorse, with 21 successful missions in a row.

The four-stage ignition and the injection of the satellites into the orbit took 18 minutes and 37 seconds. As Proiteres separated at the final moment, the scientists erupted into joyous applause.

SPOT-6, an optical remote-sensing satellite capable of imaging the earth with a 1.5-metre resolution, is built by Astrium SAS, a European space technology company.

Proiteres is meant to study the powered-flight of a small satellite by an electric thruster and to observe Japan’s Kansai district with a high-resolution camera.

With Sunday’s mission, the ISRO has launched 62 satellites and 38 rockets. It has so far injected 28 foreign satellites into orbit, beginning with Germany’s 45-kg DLR-TUBSAT aboard the PSLV-C2 in 1999. SPOT-6 is the the PSLV’s biggest commercial lift so far. At a press conference, Dr. Radhakrishnan said the financial matters relating to the launch could not be disclosed, but the cost of the vehicle was recovered. The ISRO also sent its own payload, ‘Mini Resins,’ for demonstration of an instrument called Redundant Strap down Inertial Navigation System.
Manmohan Singh watched the historic 100th mission of the Indian space agency and scientists at Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) rocket's mission control room kept an eye on the rocket that escaped the earth's gravitational pull.

ISRO officials are hoping that the agency's 100th space mission will turn out to be a grand success.
The PSLV-C21 rocket is expected to deliver SPOT 6 and Proiteres into a 655 km polar orbit.
Remote sensing satellites send back pictures and other data. The SPOT and Indian remote sensing satellites are the two leading earth observation satellite series.
Interestingly SPOT 6 is the heaviest foreign satellite to be carried by a PSLV rocket since 1999 when ISRO started launching satellites owned by foreign agencies.
ISRO has been carrying foreign satellites since 1999 initially as an add-on luggage to its own satellite.
It was with Agile, a 350 kg Italian satellite, that ISRO started flying a full commercial rocket. Till date ISRO has launched 27 foreign satellites successfully and the Sunday mission would take the tally to 29.
The successful launch of SPOT 6 would make ISRO's PSLV rocket a strong contender to carry SPOT 7 planned by French company Astrium SAS soon.
According to ISRO, the satellite launch agreement between Antrix and Astrium is part of the long-term agreement signed between the two agencies in September 2008.
The space agency has also jointly built two heavy satellites - 3,453 kg W2M and 2,541 kg Hylas - for the French agency.
India has the largest constellation of remote sensing satellites in the world providing imagery in a variety of spatial resolutions, from more than a metre ranging up to 500 metres, and is a major player in vending such data in the global market.
With 12 remote sensing/earth observation satellites orbiting in the space, India is a world leader in the remote sensing data market. The 12 satellites are TES, Resourcesat 1, Cartosat 1, 2, 2A and 2B, IMS 1, Risat-2, Oceansat 2, Resourcesat-2, Megha-Tropiques and Risat-1. 

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Meteorological Satellite

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is planning to launch a meteorological satellite, INSAT-3D to monitor atmospheric characteristics viz. cloud motion winds, vertical profiles of humidity and temperature, total precipitable water, sea surface temperature over Indian Ocean, outgoing radiation etc. The satellite is scheduled for launch during 2013. The data obtained from this satellite along with ground based observations would help to derive information about climatic conditions, including rain.

Mars rover Curiosity touches down on the Red Planet

The Mars science rover Curiosity landed on the Martian surface  to begin a two-year mission seeking evidence the Red Planet once hosted ingredients for life, NASA said.

Mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles burst into applause and cheered as they received signals relayed by a Mars orbiter confirming that the rover had survived a make-or-break descent and touched down within its landing zone.

NASA described the feat as perhaps the most complex achieved in robotic spaceflight.

Moments later, Curiosity beamed back its first three images from the Martian surface, one of them showing a wheel of the vehicle.

"I can't believe this. This is unbelievable," said Allen Chen, the deputy leader of the rover's descent and landing team.

The car-sized rover apparently came to rest at its planned destination near the foot of a tall mountain rising from the floor of Gale Crater in Mars' southern hemisphere, mission controllers said.

The $2.5 billion Curiosity project, formally called the Mars Science Laboratory, is NASA's first astrobiology mission since the 1970s-era Viking probes.

The landing marks a major victory and milestone for a U.S. space agency beleaguered by budget cuts and the recent loss of its 30-year-old space shuttle program.

"It's an enormous step forward in planetary exploration. Nobody has ever done anything like this," said John Holdren, the top science advisor to President Barack Obama, who was visiting JPL for the event. "It was an incredible performance."

The exact condition of the one-ton, six-wheeled, nuclear powered vehicle upon its arrival could not be immediately ascertained.

Rover: first step to human space programme to Mars

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has high expectations for the upcoming landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars and is certain of great science results, a lab engineer says.

Torsten Zorn, a robotics engineer with JPL and a four-year veteran on the Curiosity project team, told Xinhua in an interview that the most interesting part of the venture could be learning more about the geological history of Mars.

Zorn said scientists want to find out how Mars’ once wet surface dried up, how long the process took and what caused the changes. The findings will be important for scientists to determine whether Mars is habitable for humans.

To find life, in any form, Zorn said, is a goal of Curiosity. The rover is equipped with a drill to gather samples underground and send them to a self-contained lab to determine Mars’ geological conditions and changes, and if there are any microorganisms present on the planet. The small lab will also test the soil samples to see if there are signs of life in the history of Mars.

Curiosity will test the Mars soil only with its own equipment after it lands on the planet on Sunday (August 5) but future missions will bring samples back to Earth for more study, Zorn said.

Zorn said many Americans have volunteered for the first one-way trip to Mars, but he said that if scientists can send human to Mars, they can also guarantee a return trip.

Russia’s Soyuz-FG Carrier rocket set Five Satellites into Orbit

Russia's Soyuz-FG carrier rocket set off from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan on 22 July 2012. The rocket will put the Russian satellites Canopus-B and MKA-PN1, a Belarusian BKA satellite, the Canadian ADS-1B and German TET-1 into orbit.
The Canopus-B satellite, developed by the All-Russia Research Institute of Electromechanics, is designed for remote sensing of the Earth. It weighs about 400 kg and will work on a circular orbit at a height of 510 km.
The MKA-PN1 satellite, developed by Russia's NPO Lavochkin aerospace company, will collect data to help meteorologists build models of ocean circulation - particularly in Arctic waters along Russian shores - and climate dynamics.

The German TET-1 satellite, a part of the German Aerospace Center's On-Orbit Verification Program, will conduct a test on new space technologies.

The ADS-1B satellite, built by the Com Dev aerospace company, will form part of a ship-identification satellite system.

The satellites were earlier planned to be launched in the first half of 2012, but was postponed several times as Kazakhstan kept the decision to let Russia use its territory for rocket launch on hold.

Russia got the permission to launch the rocket following a meeting between Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Massimov and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in June 2012.

Partial solar eclipse on May 21

The trio of sun, earth and moon will depict an interesting view of partial solar eclipse on May 21, which will be seen in the eastern part of the country.

The partial solar eclipse will begin at 15:39 hours and would end at 19:06 hours, Jiwaji laboratory Ujjain director Rajendra Prakash Gupta said.

At the height of the eclipse, the moon would cover 94.5 per cent of the sun, he said.

This is the first eclipse this year which is visible in India.

The partial solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and earth in such a way that from the earth, a portion of the sun is seen hidden behind the moon.

Mr. Gupta said a partial lunar eclipse would occur on June 4 but it would not be visible in India.

PSLV-C19 SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHES RISAT-1

The PSLV-C19, the newest in the series of polar satellite launch vehicles of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), burst off the launch-pads of Sriharikota in the wee hours of April 26 on its space mission of placing indigenously developed Radar Imaging Satellite the RISAT-1 in a polar circular orbit.

After a customarily tense countdown at the ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, at precisely 5.47 a.m., the launch vehicle’s core stage igniters and set of six strap-on motors ignited within seconds of each to signal the successful lift-off of the PSLV-C19 with the RISAT -1 firmly docked inside its metal frames. 

The RISAT-1 with a payload of 1858 kg, the heaviest satellite being launched yet by the PSLV, is a state-of-the-art Active Microwave Remote Sensing Satellite carrying a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payload that will operate in the C-band. In simpler terms, the RISAT-1 can beam back imaging of the earth surface features during day and night and under all imagined weather conditions. The SAR which gives the RISAT-1 its magic lens also makes it superior to the generation of optical remote sensing satellites in terms of clearer imaging at all times and under any condition.

Once the PSLV-C19 successfully completed each of the four stages of its flight in a span of 18 minutes and reported normal parameters, congratulatory scenes broke out at the Mission Directorate at Sriharikota. 

According to ISRO scientists, once the satellite onboard propulsion system will raise the orbital altitude to 536 km with orbital inclination of approximately 97 degrees to place the RISAT-1 into a polar sun-synchronous orbit, the satellite will begin its daily routine of 14 orbits with a of 25 days. During its mission life of five years, RISAT-1 will use its active microwave remote sensing capability for cloud penetration and day-night imaging of the earth surface and provide critical data inputs for a range of applications.

The satellite’s applications will range across agriculture — paddy monitoring in the kharif season — and management of natural disasters like flood and cyclone and could greatly assist food security planning in India.

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, in its 21st flight (PSLV-C19), launches India’s first Radar Imaging Satellite – RISAT-1 into a Polar Circular Orbit with an altitude of 480 km (+ 40.5 km) and orbital inclination of 97.552 (+ 0.2). RISAT-1 weighing 1858 kg is the heaviest satellite being launched by PSLV.

This is the third flight of the high end version (PSLV-XL) with six extended strap-on motors, each carrying 12 tonnes of solid propellant. (The two earlier flights of PSLV-XL were used to launch Chandrayaan-1 and GSAT-12 Communication Satellite) 

 RISAT-1

Radar Satellite-1 (RISAT-1) is a state of the art Microwave Remote Sensing Satellite carrying a Synthetic Aperture Reader (SAR) Payload operating in C-band (5.35 GHz), which enables imaging of the surface features during both day and night under all weather conditions. 

Lift-off Mass	1858 kg
Orbit	Circular Polar Sun Synchronous
Orbit Altitude	536 km
Orbit Inclination	97.552o
Orbit Period	95.49 min
Number of Orbits per day	14
Local Time of Equator Crossing	6:00 am / 6:00 pm
Power	Solar Array generating 2200 W and one 70 AH Ni-H2 battery
Repetivity	25 days
Attitude and Orbit Control	3-axis body stabilised using Reaction Wheels, Magnetic Torquers and Hydrazine Thrusters
Nominal Mission Life	5 years
Launch date	April 26, 2012
Launch site	SDSC SHAR Centre, Sriharikota, India
Launch vehicle	PSLV- C19

China launches weather monitoring satellite

China has successfully launched a satellite which will be used for meteorological monitoring, and gathering maritime and water resource data.

The satellite, Fengyun-II, is expected to play an important role in weather forecasting and disaster reduction, state-run news agency Xinhua reported.

Developed and produced by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, the satellite was launched from the southwestern Xichang Satellite Launch Center. It will collect data for the China Meteorological Administration.

The Long March 3A rocket, which was used to carry the satellite into space, is a product of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology. January 13 launch marked the 157th Long March rocket launch.

NASA marks 2012 with twin probes in moon orbit

NASA kicked off the new year with a pair of probes circling the moon in the latest mission to understand how Earth’s closest neighbour formed.

There was no champagne popping in the mission control room at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory when the Grail spacecraft arrived back-to-back over the New Year’s weekend, but several scientists and engineers celebrated by blowing noisemakers.

“It’s a really good feeling to have not one but two of our twins in orbit,” project manager David Lehman said Sunday after the mission was deemed successful.

The action began on New Year’s Eve when Grail-A swung over the south pole, fired its engine and braked into orbit around the moon. Not to be outdone, its twin Grail-B executed the same manoeuvres on New Year’s Day.

The arrivals capped a roundabout journey spanning 3 1/2 months and covering 2 1/2 million miles (4.02 million kilometres).

The moon has long been an object of fascination. Galileo spotted mountains and craters when he peered at it through a telescope. Poets and songwriters looked to the moon as a muse.

Even governments wanted a piece of the moon. Since the dawn of the Space Age, more than 100 missions launched by the United States, Soviet Union, Japan, China and India have targeted Earth’s companion. NASA flew six Apollo missions that landed twelve men on the lunar surface and brought back more than 800 pounds (362.3 kilograms) of rock and soil samples.

Despite all the attention, the moon remains mysterious. Mission chief scientist Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said researchers know more about Mars, which is farther away from the Earth, than the moon.

One of the enduring puzzles is its lopsided shape with the far side more hilly than the side that Earth sees. Research published earlier this year suggested that our planet once had two moons that crashed early in the solar system’s history and created the moon that graces the sky today.

Scientists expect to learn more about how the celestial body formed using Grail’s gravity measurements that will indicate what’s below the surface.

Since the washing machine-size Grail probes short for Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory were squeezed on a small rocket to save on costs, it lengthened the trip and took them 30 times longer to reach the moon than the Apollo astronauts, who took a direct three-day flight.

Previous spacecraft have attempted to study the moon’s gravity about one-sixth Earth’s pull with mixed success. Grail was expected to give scientists the most detailed maps of the moon’s uneven gravitational field and insight into its interior down to the core.

Data collection won’t begin until March after the near-identical spacecraft refine their positions and are circling just 34 miles (54.72 kilometres) above the surface. While scientists focus on gravity, middle school students will get the chance to take their own pictures of the moon using cameras aboard the probes as part of a project headed by Sally Ride, the first American woman in space.

There’s already chatter about trying to extend the $496 million mission, which was slated to end before the partial lunar eclipse in June.

Two Earth-like planets spotted around distant star

Scientists have found two Earth-sized planets orbiting a star outside the solar system, an encouraging sign for prospects of finding life elsewhere.

The discovery shows that such planets exist and that they can be detected by the Kepler spacecraft, said Francois Fressin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They’re the smallest planets found so far that orbit a star resembling our sun.

Scientists are seeking Earth-sized planets as potential homes for extraterrestrial life, said Mr. Fressin, who reported the new findings in a paper published online by the journal Nature.

One planet’s diameter is only 3 per cent larger than Earth’s, while the other’s diameter is about nine-tenths that of Earth. They appear to be rocky, like our planet.

But they are too hot to contain life as we know it, with calculated temperatures of about 760°C and 425°C, he said.

Any life found on another planet may not be intelligent; it could be bacteria or mould or some completely unknown form.

Since it was launched in 2009, NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler telescope has found evidence of dozens of possible Earth-sized planets.

But Mr. Fressin’s report is the first to provide confirmation, said Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington. He’s a member of the Kepler science team but not an author of the paper.

The researchers ruled out a possible alternative explanation for the signals that initially indicated the planets were orbiting the star Kepler-20. The star is 950 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Lyra.

The planets, called Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, are part of a five-planet system around the star, and their location challenges current understanding of how planets form, scientists said.

In our own solar system, the small rocky planets are closest to the sun, while gaseous giants are on the periphery.

But the five-planet system has no such dividing line; big and small planets alternate as one moves away from the star.

That’s “crazy,” and unexplained by current understanding of how planets form around stars, said study co-author and Harvard scientist David Charbonneau.

Earlier this month, scientists said they’d found a planet around another distant star with a life-friendly surface temperature of about 22°C. But it was too big to suggest life on its surface. At 2.4 times the size of Earth, it could be more like the gas-and-liquid Neptune with only a rocky core and mostly ocean, scientists said.

Japan launches spy satellite

Japan successfully put a spy satellite into orbit on December 12 and expects to complete its network of intelligence-gathering satellites with another launch next year.

Japan’s space agency, JAXA, said the launch from the remote southern island of Tanegashima went off without a hitch and the radar-equipped satellite is functioning properly. It was the second launch of the year, following a successful liftoff in September.

Japanese media reports say it will augment the optical satellites Japan has already launched by providing data of what is happening on the ground at night or through cloud cover.

Japan launched its first pair of spy satellites in 2003, prompted by concerns over North Korea’s missile program. It currently has four optical information-gathering satellites in orbit, though the latest of those is not fully operational yet. It previously launched two radar intelligence satellites, but both malfunctioned.

The satellite launched December 12 is expected to begin gathering intelligence in a few months.

That would give Japan the combination of two optical and two radar satellites that it wants to complete its network. Tokyo is seeking to use the satellites to provide information on any given spot on the planet at least once a day.

NASA in high gear for Mars rover launch

The U.S. space agency is poised to launch the most powerful and advanced robotic rover ever built to explore Mars and hunt for signs that life may once have existed on the red planet.

The Mars Science Laboratory, a six-wheeled vehicle powered by nuclear fuel, is scheduled to begin its journey at 10:02 a.m. (1502 GMT) November 26  from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida atop an Atlas V rocket.

“This is a Mars scientist's dream machine,” Ashwin Vasavada, MSL deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told reporters. “This is the most capable scientific explorer we have ever sent out... We are super excited.”

At a price of $2.5 billion, the rover, known as Curiosity, aims to provide scientists with detailed information about the rocks on the surface of Mars, and clues about whether life ever existed on Earth's nearest neighbour.

To do that, the SUV-sized rover is equipped with a robotic arm, a drill, a set of 10 science instruments including two colour video cameras, a laser beam for zapping interesting rocks and a tool kit for analysing their contents. 

Rock samples

If all goes as planned and Curiosity lands intact in about nine months, on August 5, 2012, the rover will be able to report back to scientists on what it finds without ever bringing the rock samples back to Earth.

NASA's exploration of Mars began with the 1976 landing of the Viking spacecraft and has continued with, most recently, the twin rovers known as Spirit and Opportunity that began tooling around on the Martian surface in 2004. Spirit finally died last year, but Opportunity is still working.

NASA sees Curiosity as the midway point in a long journey of Mars discovery that may lead to a human mission there, or to one of its two moons, in the 2030s.

Any clues it can send back about the habitability of the fourth planet from the Sun, and about the radiation levels there will be important to NASA as it devises future exploration missions.

The landing spot, the Gale Crater near Mars' equator, was chosen after lengthy study because it contains a three-mile high mountain and many layers of sediment that could reveal a lot about the planet's wetter past.

The crater itself is at a low elevation so scientists believe that if water ever did pool on Mars, it likely found its way there and may have left behind traces of life.

Everywhere that water exists on Earth, so does some form of life. So scientists are hopeful that they may find more than just hints that life used to thrive there — perhaps even signs that microbial life still does.

Space mission a success: China

China's mission to achieve a first-ever docking exercise in space, part of plans to build its own space station, was “a complete success”, said officials on Thursday as the unmanned Shenzhou-8 aircraft returned to Earth following a more than month-long docking exercise.

As the spacecraft landed in the Gobi desert in the northern Inner Mongolia region by parachute, Chinese officials hailed its return as marking the completion of a key first step for China's space station ambitions.

Shenzhou-8 rendezvoused and docked with the Tiangong-1, or “Heavenly Palace”, space laboratory module. China is now only the third nation, after the United States and Russia, to achieve a docking in space, though it trails both nations, which completed this feat more than three decades ago.

Three more spacecraft

Following Shenzhou-8's success, China will launch three more spacecraft next year, with at least one of them a manned mission.

The successful docking, Chinese officials said, would pave the way for China's launching of its own manned space station by 2020. That is the same year the International Space Station (ISS) is brought down — a coincidence of events seen by analysts as reflecting China's resurgence and the West's decline in space programmes.

Cooperation

The state-run Xinhua news agency pointed out in a recent commentary that China “has been denied access to the ISS for two decades,” but struck a conciliatory note, saying China had invited Germany to conduct experiments with Tiangong-1 — “the first instance of international cooperation since the beginning of China's manned space programme.”

China's own space station, Xinhua said, would “offer more opportunity for collaboration among nations, with room for international experiments and possibly space for foreign astronauts”.

“The concept of a ‘space race' is now obsolete,” the commentary added. “International cooperation is the future trend and rivalry between so-called space powers will inevitably give way to more friendly cooperation.”

Russia launches space freighter after August crash

After a disaster that hit a cargo spaceship launch last August, Russia  successfully launched a freighter spacecraft with almost three-tons of supplies crucial for sustaining the manned missions on the International Space Station (ISS).

A Progress M-13M spaceship carrying nearly three tons of cargo for the ISS successfully blasted off from Baikonur at 15.41 IST today, ITAR—TASS reported quoting space officials present at the cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The spacecraft will dock with the space station on Wednesday.

The outcome of the mission will determine the future of manned operations at the ISS, local experts say.

It is the first launch of a Progress series cargo ship since a crash on August 24, first in over three decades of the regular launches.

The probe revealed that the launch vehicle’s third-stage engine shut down prematurely and later it was discovered that the problem was caused by a low fuel feed, and all engines currently in stock were returned to the manufacturer for inspection.

The Progress M-13M spacecraft is packed with 2.9 tons of food, fuel and supplies, including crucial stocks of oxygen and water.

It is also carrying a substantial load of maintenance gear, spare parts and a mini satellite Chibis-M, to study lightning and thunderstorms in the Earth’s atmosphere, Russia’s Federal Roscosmos space agency said.

China to launch Shenzhou-8 spacecraft

China will launch the Shenzhou-8 spacecraft on November 01 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, located about 1,600 kms from Beijing.

According to the Chinese space agency (CNSA), the spacecraft will be remotely docked with the Tiangong 1 space module (launched on September 29), Xinhua reports.

This unmanned docking attempt - China's first - will be followed in 2012 with the manned Shenzhou 9 mission, which will perform a manned docking (also China's first) with the Tiangong 1 module.

Shenzhou 8 will feature a Russian androgynous docking module in place of the usual orbital module, and will perform its docking operation under ground control.

An unprecedented step in space cooperation

A Soyuz rocket lifted off on October 21 on its maiden flight from Europe's space base here, carrying the first two satellites in the Galileo geo-positioning system.

The launch marked an unprecedented step in space cooperation, being the first by the veteran rocket beyond Russia's historic bases at Plesetsk and Baikonur.

As mission controllers counted off the final seconds, Soyuz's main engines ignited, a cluster of umbilical masts flipped back and at 1030 GMT the rocket clawed its way skywards through a pounding tropical rain.

After a nine-minute flight through Earth's atmosphere, its final stage, the Fregat, fired up to drive the satellites toward their orbital slots, a last leg that should take more than three hours.

“The first part of this mission has gone well,” said Jean-Yves Le Gall, chief executive of Arianespace, which markets launches at Kourou.

October 21st  launch came after a 24-hour postponement caused by a faulty valve in a ground system designed to disconnect fuel lines to the rocket's third stage just before flight.

Soyuz is a space legend, for it traces its lineage to 1957 with Sputnik, the first satellite, and to the first manned flight, by Yuri Gagarin, in 1961. October 21st  launch was the 1,777th in the Soyuz saga. It has a success rate of 94.4 per cent. A symbol of national pride in Russia, the rocket was deployed at a specially-built pad at Kourou under a 2003 deal intended to complete Arianespace's marketing range.

Arianespace says it has orders for 14 Soyuz launches from Kourou, including the third and fourth satellites in the Galileo constellation next year. Galileo is intended to give Europe independence in satellite navigation, a vital component of the 21st-century economy, from the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS). When completed in 2020, it will comprise 27 satellites and provide accuracy to within a metre, compared to three to eight metres for the GPS.

PSLV-C18 to put four satellites in orbit

Preparations are on for the lift-off of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C18) from the spaceport at Sriharikota at 11 a.m. on October 12.

Global tropical weather

The rocket will put four satellites in the orbit: Megha-Tropiques, built by India and France to understand global tropical weather and climate; SRM Sat, built by the students of SRM University, near Chennai; Jugnu, a satellite integrated by students of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur; and VesselSat from Luxembourg.

The information sent by the instruments on board the Megha-Tropiques will help understand the behaviour of Indian monsoons and occurrence of cyclones, floods and droughts.

Heat shield

The PSLV has been fully integrated, said K. Radhakrishnan, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), on Tuesday from Bangalore. “The Megha-Tropiques and the three co-passenger satellites have been fully integrated with the vehicle. The heat-shield was closed last morning.” The heat-shield around the satellites protects them from the intense heat during the launch and the vehicle's ascent into the atmosphere. After the rocket reaches a certain altitude, the heat-shield falls off.

Dr. Radhakrishnan said the final checks were under way. “On October 8, we will have a launch rehearsal. The vehicle readiness review will take place on October 9 followed by the Launch Authorisation Board meeting the same day itself. As of now, the launch is scheduled on October 12 at 11 a.m.”

The PSLV-C18 — which will be the 20th PSLV to be launched — is the core-alone version of the four-stage PSLV, without the strap-on booster motors that will put the four satellites in orbit.

Megha-Tropiques (Megha in Sanskrit means cloud and Tropiques in French is tropics) is one of the most advanced and complex satellites built to monitor the weather in the short-term and climate in the long-term in the tropical regions of the world. It is a joint project of ISRO and the French space agency, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES).

Thermal engine

ISRO officials said the 1,000-kg satellite had been built to investigate the tropical regions which received the maximum energy from the sun than they radiated back into space.

The excess energy received in the tropical region is used as a thermal engine and provides circulation in the atmosphere and the oceans.

‘Life cycle'

“The complex processes between solar radiation, water vapour, clouds, humidity, precipitation and atmospheric motion determine the life-cycle of convective systems and influence the Indian monsoon in the tropical region,” the ISRO officials explained.

From its perch in the sky at an altitude of 867 km, the Megha-Tropiques would help study, on a sustained basis, the rapidly developing weather systems in the entire tropical world. Thus, the information beamed by the Megha-Tropiques will be useful not only to India but to all the countries in the Indian Ocean region and other parts of the world.

Scientific payloads

The satellite has four scientific payloads. The Microwave Analysis and Detection of Rain and Atmospheric Structures (MADRAS), built by ISRO and the CNES, will provide an estimation of rainfall, water vapour, liquid water, ice and surface wind. Scanner for Radiative Budget (SCARAB) will study the radiation received by the earth and reflected by it. The third instrument, Sondeur Atmospherique du Profil d'humidite Intertropicale par Radiometrie (SAPHIR) will investigate the humidity present in the tropical atmosphere.

The CNES has built the SCARAB and the SAPHIR. The GPS-ROS (Global Positioning System- Radio Occultation System) from Italy will study the temperature and humidity at different altitudes.

The ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore, integrated the entire satellite.

The 10-kg SRM Satwill help in understanding global warming and pollution by studying carbon-dioxide and carbon-monoxide present in the atmosphere. The three-kg Jugnu has a camera to take pictures of the earth to monitor, vegetation, reservoirs, lakes, and ponds. VesselSat will help in locating the ships in the sea-lanes of the world.

China launches space lab module

China on September 29 evening successfully launched its first space laboratory module, a key first step in its objective of becoming only the third country, after Russia and the United States, to assemble its own space station by 2020.

The unmanned module, launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwestern China, will dock with a spacecraft, Shenzhou-8 after orbiting the earth for about a month, officials said. The 8.5-tonne Tiangong-1, or Heavenly Palace, laboratory module has a 15 cubic metre space where two or three astronauts can work and live, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The launch of the module, analysts said, reflected China’s rising ambitions as a major space power, with the country seen as only trailing the U.S. and Russia in its capabilities. Both the U.S. and Russia launched their space stations more than three decades ago.

A commentary in the State-run Xinhua news agency hailed the launch as “the latest showcase of the nation’s growing prowess in space, and comes while budget restraints and economic tailspin have held back the once dominant U.S. space missions.”

The launch was timed to coincide with a national holiday, which will be celebrated this weekend on October 1. The recent successes of the space programme have been frequently framed by the Communist Party’s official media as underscoring the country’s status among an elite group of global powers, as well as the technological advancements achieved under its rule.

According to Zhang Shancong, deputy chief designer of Tiangong-1, the module would be used to take hyperspectral images of China’s farmlands to detect heavy metal pollution, residue of pesticides and plant diseases, Xinhua reported.

The module was carried by a Long March-2FT1 rocket, a modified version of a rocket that earlier had a failed launch.

The launch of the module is a milestone for China’s rapidly growing home-grown space industry, which has, in recent months, made waves by spreading its interests overseas. China has, in recent years, offered its Long March rockets to launch more than 20 satellites for a number of countries, according to reports in the official media.

Most recently, China launched Pakistan’s first communications satellite, last month, seen as marking a deepening in technological ties between the two countries.

The PAKSAT-1R, sent into orbit from western Sichuan on a Long March-3B carrier rocket, was developed and launched with the help of the government-supported China Great Wall Industry Corporation (GWIC), which has reached out to developing countries, offering both technological expertise and financial assistance to help their space programmes.

China has also joined an elite group of nations in launching its own global navigation system, called Compass or Beidou, which will function similar to the American Global Positioning System (GPS), and will be used by both the Chinese military and to develop the telecommunications industry.

China’s increasing investments in its space and satellite programme, which serve both military and civilian purposes, has stirred debate over the country’s possible strategic motivations.

Responding to concerns voiced by some countries that the Tianggong-1 launch “would possibly lead to a new wave of space race,” a Xinhua commentary published on Thursday responded, “China is neither the first country to seek explorations in outer space, nor the country with the most advanced technology, [so] it seems incomprehensible that China should cause concern to others.”

China's space module launch

A spokesperson for China's manned space programme said on September28 that fuel had been injected into the Long March-2FT1 carrier rocket in preparation for launching the Tiangong-1 space module on September 29 as planned.

The Long March-2FT1 is the latest modified model of the Long March-2 rocket series and features a more powerful thrust force, said spokeswoman Wu Ping at a press conference at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.

The Long March-2FT1, given more than 170 improvements, is 52-metre long with a payload to low Earth orbit of 8.6 tonnes,said Mr. Wu.

The modifications came after an unsuccessful launch in August when a Long March-2C rocket failed to send an experimental satellite into orbit. Engineers conducted comprehensive technical evaluations and made modifications to Tiangong-1's Long March-2F carrier rocket, which shares most of its components with the failed Long March-2C.

To contain the Tiangong-1 module, which is larger than China's Shenzhou manned spacecraft, the Long March-2FT1 has a larger nose fairing, according to Jing Muchun, chief designer of the Tiangong mission's carrier rocket system.

The shape of the rocket's boosters has also been modified to allow for greater fuel volume than the Long March-2F model, resulting in an increase in its thrust power, said the chief designer.

Compared with carrier rockets that the United States and Russia have used to launch Moon-landing vehicles and space station components, China's Long March rocket series is much less powerful.

For example, a carrier rocket must have a payload capacity of at least 20 tonnes to send one single part of the International Space Station into low Earth orbit. “China's manned space programme aims at building up a space station, so we need a more powerful carrier rocket,” Jing told Xinhua at the launch center.

“Research and development on a new, bigger carrier rocket that burns more environmentally-friendly liquid-oxygen-kerosene fuels is in progress,” he said.