Japan's Earth quake on 11th March,2011 gives rise to doubts on Nuclear power

There was an earth quake and Tsunami in Japan on 11th March,2011. Due to this earth quake and Tsunami there was a great loss to the properties and lives of people of Japan.

There were explosions at the three nuclear reactors in Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex after the quake. This has put a question mark on the future of the nuclear power and the nuclear industry. People are fearing about what would happen if the radiation was leaked. It is not known what would be the impact of the explosions on the health, and environment. This explosion has created lot of fears among the people there. The nuclear plant showed dangerously low water levels, which exposed the nuclear fuel rods which may increase the threat of radiation to reach nearby public. It is known that at least 190 people were exposed to the radiation. Nearly 1,85,000 people were vacated from the place near the nuclear power plant.

But according to Mr. Ravi Krishnaswamy, Frost & Sullivan's Asia-Pacific Vice President of Energy and Power systems practice, Japan's nuclear power sector has a safety record for several decades.

The Japanese government also assures the public and international community that the health danger from release of radio active steam from the explosions is very very low and it seems the containment wall for the nuclear plant seems to be intact.

There is an increasing list of plans for nuclear power plants. As of 2010, we can see almost 56 nuclear reactors constructed worldwide and Asia-Pacific region accounts for more than half of these nuclear reactors.

Now there is a requirement for all the nuclear power plants which are currently in operation to undergo a review of safety processes whether they are located in earthquake-prone zone or not.

GSLV F06 Launch fails

The GSLV-F06 carrying GSAT-5P spacecraft was launched on saturday, 25th Decembe,2010. But the launch ended in failure due to technical snag in the first stage of the rocket. After smooth and flawless countdown for 30 hours, the GSLV-F06 lifted off from the launch pad at 4:04 PM and ascended majestically into the sky. After few seconds the rocket lost its trajectory and exploded into a ball of fire. Immediately the sky filled with white, reddish-orange and dark-grey smoke.

The flames and the debris from the rocket came down like a shower into the Bay of Bengal.

For more details please read the news from Indian Express.

ISRO launches 10 rockets to study Solar Ecplise

The India Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched 10 rockets in two days to study the partial annular solar eclipse, which was observed by many people on its path, which included many African and Asian countries.

The fleet of small suborbital rockets was launched for the purpose of studying the effects of a sun-moon alignment on Friday the 15th Jan,2010. The eclipse was the longest eclipse of the millennium. The Rohini series indigenous sounding rockets were launched by the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) from the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station and the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.

The VSSC launched two each of the type RH 300 Mk II and RH 200 on Thursday while three sounding rockets of the type RH 300 Mk II and two sounding rockets of RH 200 from Thumba were launched on Friday.

The RH 300 Mk II and RH 200 rockets can attain an attitude of 116 km and 70 km, respectively. Another larger rocket of RH 560 Mk II series was launched from Sriharikota on Friday with the capability to attain an altitude of 548 km.

The rockets aimed at collecting relevant data on atmospheric structure and dynamics at different altitudes from the earth. The eclipse was at its peak at about 1:15 p. m. local time in India. The launch took place from Sriharikota at 1.15 PM.

The Solar eclipse gives us an opportunity to study how such events impact the photochemistry and electrodynamics within Earth's atmosphere and additionally drop in sunlight; lower temperatures and decreased levels of ionization within the atmosphere can also be observed.

The Solar Ecplise on 15th Jan,2010 offered a unique opportunity to scientists to investigate the effects of fast varying solar flux on the photochemistry and electrodynamics of the different atmospheric regions, especially the equatorial mesopause and ionosphere-thermosphere regions.”

The data collected by the rockets would be linked to the observations made from the ground to get insights into various phenomenas which occur during the eclipse.

India Launches OceanSat-2 Spacecraft into its orbit

Oceansat-2 is ISRO’s second in the series of IRS satellites dedicated to ocean research. Oceansat-2 Spacecraft will gather systematic data for oceanographic, coastal and atmospheric applications. This spacecraft will study surface winds and ocean surfaces strata, and will study atmospheric aerosols and suspended sediments in the water.

India Succesfully launched Oceansat-2 ( 16th remote sensing satellite of India) and six eoropean satellites within 1200 seconds. The launching took place at Sriharikota at exactly 11.51 AM on 23rd September, 2009.

At the end of 18 minutes of flight, the PSLV’s fourth stage injected Oceansat-2 into orbit at a velocity of 25,000 km an hour at an altitude of about 728 km. Thereafter, spring-loaded action mechanisms catapulted four nano satellites called Cubesat 1, 2, 3 and 4 into orbit one after another. Two more nano satellites named Rubinsat 9.1 and 9.2 remained permanently attached to the PSLV’s fourth stage. Soon after the satellites were put into orbit, Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) satellite tracking centres started monitoring them.

PSLV - C14 had four stages using solid and liquid propulsion systems alternately. The first stage, carrying 139 tonne of propellant, is one of the largest solid propellent boosters in the world. The second stage carried 41.5 tonne of liquid propellant. The third stage used 7.6 tonne of solid propellant and the fourth had a twin engine configuration with 2.5 tonne of liquid propellent.

Click here to Watch the Video of the launch

Chandrayaan-1 lost Radio contact with Earth

Earth has lost another Satellite, Chandrayaan-1. According to numerous reports in Indian media, contact was lost with the lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 abruptly -- in the middle of a communications session with Earth -- at 1:30 Indian time on Friday (Thursday, August 27, at 20:00 UTC). India's communications antenna at Byalalu had received data from the spacecraft up to that taken at 00:25 IST (18:55 UTC), including the results of a recent bistatic radar experiment conducted jointly with Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

But Chandrayaan-1 has done its intended work succesfully 90% of the work. Chandrayaan-1 was launched on October 22, 2008 and had been intended to conduct a two-year primary mission. During 312 days at the Moon it orbited more than 3,400 times and returned more than 70,000 images, plus other data. More than half of its instruments were provided by (or in cooperation with) ESA and NASA; several were copies of those on ESA's SMART-1, and one was a duplicate of the Mini-SAR instrument now in orbit on NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. ISRO has posted some images and data from the mission. The photos can be seen by Clicking Here.

India Plans to send astronauts to Space

A manned space flight is proposed before 2015, at a budget of Rs 12.4 billion ($242 million), using a fully autonomous orbital vehicle carrying two or three crew members to 400km (250 miles) low Earth orbit for up to 7 days and back. Development of fully autonomous orbital vehicle to carry a two-member crew into a low Earth orbit has already began. ISRO will set up full-fledged training facility in Bangalore for training astronauts. ISRO is also planning to build third launch pad at Sriharkota for manned mission with extra facilities like entry into the crew capsule and an escape chute.

A 100 acre astronaut training is planned to be completed on the outskirts of Bangalore by 2012 by ISRO in collaboration with IAM Bangalore at a cost of Rs 10 billion.


India and Russia signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Joint Activities in the Field of Human Spaceflight Program during the visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to India in December 2008.

As per the agreement, an Indian astronaut will first go on a space mission on a Russian spacecraft (Soyuz, 2013). This will be followed by an Indian manned mission to space in 2015.

The spacecraft is being designed for a seven day mission on completion of which it will splash down either in the Arabian Sea or the Bay of Bengal.

Jugnu - India's lightest Satellite to be launched

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur has come in to agreement with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) to launch a nano satellite. It will be the country's lightest and the institute's first satellite to be launched in the orbit from Sriharikoita.

Sanjay Govind Dhande, Director, IIT Kanpur said that regular review sessions are being carried out by ISRO to check the progress.

A team of 40 students and around 12 professors, led by Professor Nalinaksh S.Vyas are working out since December, 2008 on the project. The project is expected to be completed within a budget of 2-3 crores.

The Spacecraft weighs around 3.5 kgs and would be 34 cm long and 10 cm wide. Equipped with the micro imaging and micro electronic system, it will transfer the images to the IIT Kanpur campus. The high resolution pictures obtained will be used for different applications like drought monitoring, wasteland management, urban planning and flood risk management.

"Although the stipulated life time of the satellite is six months, we are optimistic that it will complete at least 12 months in the orbit," said Dhandhe.