** June 29: **India is set to break new ground in space field in the second week of July with the first-ever launch of an Insat-class satellite, the heaviest till date, for commercial gains from home soil.
Indian space research organisation officials are talking about a July 10-15 timeframe for the launch of insat-4C by a geo-synchronous launch vehicle from the spaceport here, giving a boost to direct-to-home television broadcast.
It’s for the first time that India’s space agency is putting into space a two-tonne class satellite. Equipped with 12 high-powered KU band transponders, the 2,180 kg spacecraft is designed for a mission life of 10 years.
“Preparations are on for the launch from the second launchpad,” director of Satish Dhawan Space Centre Shar M Annamalai said on the East coast of Andhra Pradesh, about 80 kms North of chennai.
ISRO officials say launch from a homegrown rocket meant cutting launch costs by one-third - if the same was to be launched from the spaceport of Kourou in French Guiana by an ariane vehicle, India has to pay 30 to 35 per cent more.
Insat-4C is also seen by analysts as another “cash-cow” for ISRO. All its transponders have been booked well in advance, including by the Sun TV. ISRO, headquartered, is keen to ride the impending boom in the DTH services segment. The 1950 kg EDUSAT was the first Insat-class satellite launched from home soil. Launched in September, 2004, it was mainly intended to meet the demand for an interactive satellite-based distance education system.
If India wants to go to the Moon, why don't just all the Indians stand on top of each other. There are so many of them that they could reach the moon that way. No need for a spaceship.
Personally I wouldn't want Pakistan to launch a satellite by itself, it wouldn't be economical, let US/China/Russia do the job for us... its not like we will be sending a satellite every 2-5 years, not just yet.
Well actually Pakistan foccusses on its ballistic missile program and India has foccussed on its space program as well.
Well I dont think like I would be exaggerating if I say India's space programme is something 25 years ahead of Pakistan's.
wow chineese must be really hard considering it takes you frekin 25 years to translate it (way to redicule your education system) …NO…but then only you know how difficult chineese and russian are now isint it…
bottom line. be admitting and not ignorant.
Actually Russia never gave any technology to India. The only major transfer was that of cryogenic engines without technology in 1991. This was because according to US it violaes MTCR.
Well about 10 days from now, India will launch its heaviest satellite to date at a geosynchronous orbit. Only some 5 nations have this capability. Realistically, Pakistan which has not launched a satellite on its own soil, in my opinion, has atleast a couple of decades catching up to do before they can come close to this capability.
actually both india and pakistan were set up with the help of other nations particularly china and russia. Now this is quite understood because only those nations could have the economic and technological ability to run independent space programs (apart from usa ofcourse) at the time.
India’s first ever sattelite went up in 1975 with the help of soviet Cosmos-3M lauch vehichle. However, pakistan’s space program began in 1990 with the help of the chineese as the country had no spaceports in place. pakistan’s first sat was called badr-1 which was deployed from a chineese space port.
I think it is quite hard to guess how much the pakistani space program lags behind the indian, but it is behind quite a lot which is evident if you look at both countries launches and spaceports.
btw, is there any website for the pakistani space program.
Actually I have read Gary Millhonin’s ill-informed articles before. What he has written is nothing top-secret as President APJ Kalam has fully documented about the Scout program which was developed into SLV-3 when NASA sold India its designs, and his six-month trip to NASA. All this is also in Gopal Raj and Raj Chengappa’s books on evolution of India’s rocket program.
The website one must refer is nti.org (Nunn Turner Initiative). It contains an almost date-by-date and unbiased chronological account of the nuclear, missile, and space programs of major nations unlike Millhonin’s short tabloid-gossip essays.
If Millhonin bothered to find out, most of the initial US rocket program and the Apollo Lunar program was headed by a captured Nazi scientist called Werhner von Braun and his former Nazi associates. USSR’s Scud rockets were also directly based on his designs (they captured other members of von Braun’s team). This guy’s involved in inventing the V-2 rocket.
So no nation is completely “innocent”.
Those Scout rockets that India launched in the 1960s went into upper atmosphere and launched a parachute.
Today, India launches satelites from all over the world on PSLVs, GSLVs and in a few days from now it shall launch 3 sats into a geosynchronous orbit. I would call that a very good achievement.
And now Millhonin is ill informed, WoW!!!so lets use common sense than shall we. And no beat around the bush please…
So if Millhonin is ill informed how about Nichis logic is that moronic too…
He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk.
After 30 years you could not produce a piston engine for a lousy tank that produce more than 500HP and you had to import every thing from abroad… BUT BUT BUT you make massive space vehicles that fly…
I am sure Shri Nichi must be turning in his grave… NO…
But than in the end no matter how you put it it is an international product in Indian paint…
Bharat is ahead of Pakistan in the civilian space race. However Pakistan is not too far behind.
Our obstacles are more in policies and a lot less in technology. So far, Pak's policy makers have not felt the need to push the civilian launch vehicles in its space program. I think it is a mistake.
We should immediately outsource large portion of our missile testing process to SUPARCO. Let them test and refine the gyros, the propulsion system, and improve payload capacity. That doesn't mean Pak army's missile defense units should quit working.
SUPARCO in Pakistan, and ISRO in Bharat are great for good PR. Also they help lower the temperature in the region. That is good for the region in particular and the world in general.
Having said that, let me add that the true space leaders are the group of 4. That G4 includes: US, Russia, Europeans, and Japan. They all have basic technological expertise to help propell the space program.
China, Pakistan, Bharat, and to some extent Brazil are still dependent (by varying degrees) on the dole out of G-4.
p.s. We ought to make sure, there is no sell-out in SUPARCO (like that well-known Iranian agent AQK in atomic program) who would go around the "Islamic world", selling our precious know-how.