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India To Launch Its First GSLV Satellite
NeoCode writes: "Tomorrow, India will launch its first GSLV satellite using the Russian launchers. Its an amazing feat since they have built the satellite from scratch. If the launch is successful, India will become the sixth nation (US, Russia, China, Japan and the European Space Agency being the others) to build and launch a GSLV class satellite. Rediff.com has complete coverage on the story behind the making of this satellite. More details can found here @CNN, @TribundIndia.com and @Space.com."
We all inherited wheels - we didnt reinvent them all over. Its not stealing as some posts have indicated - its called knowledge-sharing as in open-source - come to think of it open-source should be exapnded to open-knowledge so more people can participate. The idiots who think somebody adopted a technology to build something are being as myopic as anybody can be. Indian sages thousands of years ago invented the number 0 and thus all scientific discoveries that follow are stolen from India ? Thats screwed up logic at best. Share the knowledge - rename open-source to open-knowledge - and see what the entire humanity can do.
According to CNN:
India is set to conduct the first test of a rocket to launch geostationary satellites this week.
India, which aims to launch a satellite with the GSLV after three successful tests, will join the United States, the European Space Agency, Japan, Russia and China as a member of the satellite launch club if all goes to plan.
Now according to this, it's a test of a ROCKET to put a satellite into geosync orbit (so it stays over the same point relative to the surface of the earth). After three tests of this rocket, THEN India will put a satellite up, presumably in geosync orbit.
Down with us? Why do you think the U.S.A. and the E.U. are "going down"?
Just curious.
I still don't get it... why do you think we're "going down" economically?
Recessions happen all the time, there have been a couple worse than the current one since I was born and I'm not that old. Or do you have other reasons for thinking so?
It says it's payload is an experimental communications platform. What are the odds, that this satellite might just help in say, I dunno targetting nuclear weapons ? Or maybe it's a spy satellite. The former scares the hell out of me, but, I'm paranoid. 'Side, the GSLV is also in the same general area as creating ICBMs.
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Insert Witty Sig Here
EVERY sattelite is built from scratch. There is no sattelite manufacturing facilities, or sattelite junkyards. You dont go to Martin-Lockheed and ask, Where's your base line sattelites, I'd like to check one out, What kind of mileage does this one get?
The amazing thing is that here in the US, a bunch of non-scientists garage hack mechanics and engineers build several sattelites over the past 3 decades and had them launched. Ham radio sattelites. They're up there and running well.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Sorry, I should have specified economically.
You say you want a revolution....
Merely a figure of speech. Yes, recessions do happen, but in a country such as India that still has a staggering poverty rate, if the effects of our recession start to affect them adversly, it affects them much more severly, as, unlike us, most of their population still lives in third world conditions. A recession happens here, and peoples standards of living go down.
There, for most people, the standard of living CANNOT go down, they just die.
You say you want a revolution....
It is Interesting to take a look at India and see just where they have been going recently.
They are the Tech Powerhouse of SouthEast Asia, and that is a lot considering all of the tech in SouthEast Asia. Their Economy is on the upswing. They may just be the next economic powerhouse.
Or their reliance on US and British goods will bring them down with us.
Either way, only the future will tell.
You say you want a revolution....
GSLV=geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle.
I guess we all speak space jargon, so there was not need to put that on the front page.
-josh
For the benefit of L-T-R English readers:
OTAN=NATO
UNO=UN
This kind of Frenchification of abbreviations is exactly why "ISO" is not an abbreviation of "International Standards Organisation".. If that were the case, the French would spoil the standardization process by calling ISO OSI (Organisation de Standardisation Internationale).. EEk!
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SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Them satellite images cost money, as does bandwidth. And it's adds to the "superpowers" bragging list. India has nukes, a blue water navy, subs, troops, satellites, etc. etc.
The real thing is to get a satellite up into geosynchronous orbit is a heckuva lot harder than to just get one into low orbit. Anyone with money to buy a SCUD missle can get something out of the atmosphere. Factor in the difficulty of space-hardening something that isn't explosive in nature, and is designed to last long enough to make a few bucks....
I'm not asking the moderators to mod this poster up (your own discretion).
However, I do wish to comment that this is a well-reasoned, well-written post. Quite enjoyed reading it.
Thanks for taking the time to write it.
"Tomorrow, India will launch its first GSLV satellite using the Russian launchers.
GSLV is not a satellite. It is a launch vehicle - Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle.
Its an amazing feat since they have built the satellite from scratch.
India had been building satellites for two decades now. This is not her first indegenious satellite. In fact, the one on GSLV-D1 is an experimental satellite with few useful payloads that are not very critical to indian communication infrastructure.
If the launch is successful, India will become the sixth nation (US, Russia, China, Japan and the European Space Agency being the others) to build and launch a GSLV class satellite.
GSLV satellites? I guess he means the geosynchronous satellites. ISRO's previous launch vehicle series, PSLV was used for launching satellites in a polar orbit. The latest Indian Remote-sensing Satellites (IRS series) had been launched using PSLV rockets.
The GSLV rockets currently use some Russian cryogenic engines. It is still a major stepping stone for indian space industry.
There's a difference between geosynchronous (orbit period same as the earth's rotational period) and geostationary (orbit period same as earth's rotational period AND orbit plane is the same as the plane of the earth's equator).
The orbit plane of a satellite passes through the center of the earth. So a geostationary satellite will appear to sit over the same spot at the equator. A geosynchronous satellite would move up and down in latitude over the course of an orbit.
That's why orbital "real estate" over the equator is so valuable.
Indeed. India has been launching satellites since the late 70s - the INSATs, Rohini, etc. This is merely the test of a launch vehicle capable of reaching geosynchronous orbits (hence GSLV, as opposed to the polar orbits PSLV, the last generation, could reach).
OTOH, Pakistan already has missiles that can reach well into the Indian heartland, so sending up a few million people in a puff of nuclear smoke is not such a difficult task for them either. Especially when you consider that India has 1.02 billion people now.
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
Err, according to the respectable Webster dictionnary :
invent :
1 - discover, find
2 - to devise by thinking : fabricate
3 - to produce
Hence usage 1, although somewhat archaic, is correct. Marie Curie indeed invented radiocativity.
I'm dumb.
Geosynchronous means that if the sattelites TRULY are geosynchronous, then they'd NEVER collide, because they're (relative to earth) not moving and would never share a path.
do these sattelites ONLY orbit at the equator, though? I mean, if a sattelite is orbiting over, say, argentina, it would be travelling over a smaller "orbit" than a sattelite travelling over southern Mexico.
If they DO orbit only over the equator, then the math would be one dimensional, as you say, otherwise, my two dimensional (orbital plane) math is correct.. I think. (-: I'm a web developer. My math skills have been largely unused since school. (-:
[these numbers could be wrong... fair warning]
Geosynchronous Sattelite orbit is approx. 35,000km above earth's surface.
The earth's radius is at the surface ~6400 km.
So, the surface area (s) of of a GS sattelite's orbital plane would be:
s = 4(pi)(radius)^2
s = 4(3.14159)(35000 + 6400)^2
s = 4(3.14159)(41400)^2
s = 4(3.14159)(1713960000)
s = 21538238385.6
~21 _billion_ square kilometers is a whole lotta sky to plug up. AND, that's assuming that all GS sattelites travel on the same orbital plane.
BUT, assuming it's a plane, we have to worry about sattelites orbital paths intersecting at a time when both sattelites are at the intersection points of their orbits.
I'm sure that sattelite collisions are MUCH more more of a problem than "crowding the skies with junk".
Germany and France? That's not the big news. The big news is that nobody has partitioned Poland for more than 50 years! (European History joke ;)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Population equaled power a hundred years ago. Now its more of a nuisance than anything else. The problem is that the tax base doesn't grow proprotional to the population, since much of it is tax-exempt. Bangladesgh, for example (a small country next to India) tax-expempts 90% of its population of 120 million. If that population was around 20 million (appropriate for a country of that size) then the tax base wouldn't be smaller, and might even be larger because the average wealth of people would increase. That's why organizations like USAID (US deparment for foreign development) are working to spread birth control to third world countries.
PS> A funny tidbit. The US maintains several Pentium II computers each connected to its own private T-1 line to track US condom shipments to foreign countries.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
France and Germany are both using the term "super-state".
And what strange bedfellows they make, considering their histories towards each other. I'm glad they're finally able to put their differences behind them; it gives me hope for the rest of humanity.
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The launch was aborted when flames were seen leaping up the side of the rocket shortly after the engines were ingnited.
Full story from BBC here.
Sarcasm aside, Canada isn't geographically positioned very well to do launches.
The closer your launch site is to the equator, the more of a boost you get from the rotation of the earth, meaning you can launch a bigger payload on the same device. This is why the ESA generally launches out of Africa - not Europe.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just a netadmin, not a rocket scientist.
What is a GSLV satellite? There is no such thing. India has created a launch vehicle, not a satellite. There are way more countries with domestically produced satellites than are on that list, because the list is of countries with launch capability.
Apparently, the employees of slashdot wouldn't know journalism if it bit them in the ass. (And, aren't some of them journalism majors? =) Why did fact checking not catch this? Because you don't do any? --
So, this leads me to suggest the following: A preferences feature that lets me add certain editors to an "ignore" list, so I don't keep having to read the false crap that timothy regularly decides is worthy of slashdot.
Oh, that's right, he doesn't have one yet. That's why there's nobody telling the President that the budget cuts in science and technology are wrong-headed.
As more people get involved in reaching into space, the costs of getting something out there will decrease. However, unless something changes for the better, we won't be able to guarantee that our lead in space exploration will be maintained.
I hope India's project is successful. And I hope that it reminds some people that we used to spend money on improving our ability to go into space, and that our Space Shuttles aren't getting any younger!
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
What else do you call a bunch of people with a shared currency, a shared military, a shared government and a shared space program?
France and Germany are both using the term "super-state". Meanwhile Britain is just sitting on the fence; too nervous to join, too scared to be left behind.
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The intro was rather confusingly worded. India has satelites. What the big deal here is is the *launch vehicle*. What that gets them is the ability to charge people for satelite launches.
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
"If the launch is successful, India will become the sixth nation (US, Russia, China, Japan and the European Space Agency being the others) to build and launch a GSLV class satellite."
You mean Canada isn't even on this list?!... but they are the BEST at EVERYTHING. Surely there must be a mistake!
My map of Europe must be out of date, because I don't remember that nation...
Must be in the Balkans...
Unlikely that common sense reigns here. India and Pakistan hate each other with a passion that makes the cold war look like a slight disagreement. This could be another flashpoint in the region, just like Israel.
Except the launch part was a bit optimistic. Better luck next time guys :-)
"We have already shown the world that we can build successful commercial satellites," he continues. "Now if we prove that we can launch it correctly, it would be the next step."
The article says they want to be able to deliver a complete solution, build a satellite and put it in orbit for the customer. Hope they have a better success than the Chinese Long March failures.
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There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
The launch failed! The BBC are reporting an aborted launch after the Russian engines ignited at the wrong end when fired. They also say that it'll take 3 years for India to develop their own engine. Personally I think it would be better for them to do that. Fresh ideas in the rocket arena wouldn't go amiss. Plus, knowing India, it'll probably end up being a fraction of the price of US, China or European rocket engines!
The only way any non-white country ever did anything technical is by stealing it from someone else, right?!
NO, but there is a history. For large progects like space and advance weps, things that we have done FIRST, tend to get riped off in other countries. My point was that the second( or sixth, seventh...) country to do something almost always watched the first and learned from them.
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Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
SpaceDaily is reporting a scrub due to a fire on the pad.
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
I agree that it is large, but it should be 2*PI*R*(20 meters or whatever you want to call the lateral dimension)...GEO satellites are only found at one inclination ~0 degrees, so there really aren't satellite intersections and it is only a circumference worth of space...still big though.
GSLV is not a satellite, its the rocket thats going to launch the satellite. India has a very successfull satellite program with first satellite built in early 70's. Since the 80's it is building INSAT series multipurpose telecommunication satellites which were launched either by Russia, ESA or NASA. India's indigenously built remote sensing IRS series satellites rank among the best in the world. It is also launching these using PSLV rockets into the polar orbit. The only thing missing was the capability to launch geosynchronous satellites. Russia was going to supply them with cryogenic engines which are required to lift the payload to geo orbit, but US threatened sanctions and the deal was called off. The reason given was that India may use these for missiles!!! How about killing the competition, since India can launch satellites at much lower rate commercially for others. This would be a great boost for the third world, and NASA would loose some market. As an Indian, I am proud of it and wish all the success to ISRO. They have worked hard for years to achieve this. Thanks for listening.
They do have a lot of other satellites. The INSAT program and the PSLV satellites are comparable to the ones created US and Russia and even better in some aspects. You can get more info about the Indian Space Research Organization at ISRO's website.
Yay China, I guess, since I'm Chinese.
It's about time, too. It's sort of insulting, that one of the oldest civilizations on Earth is not quite a superpower, despite having developed and refined governement and buearacracy for the past 4000 years. Go team!
I wonder what you mean by the demise of the nation-state. A nation-state does not preclude the rise of geopolitical economic power structures, it just means that a nation-state has to be particularly large to achieve this. US is a good example of what could be potential 30 or so nation-states that collude and pool together to form a vaster, greater nation-state. So China already has that advantage, and the EU is finally catching up, in bits and pieces.
I actually think the EU is one of the smaller economic areas, in comparison to the US or to the Asias; do you remeber Japan, Taiwan, China, and Korea? They form a formidable engineering and technology quartet, with India rising quickly too. But this is an uninformed 'opinion' post, on my part.
I don't think America will be challenged by these entities at all. I think what will happen is that America will *assimilate* these entities. We've already swallowed a large amount of India's talent pool; when they go back to further grown India, they will have been corrupted by the influences of American culture(as we have been by their music, curries, and tandori chicken =). This is happening to China, to Japan, to Taiwan, and many other places.
As much as I want to see a global government, I don't think that will happen any time soon. Too many vast cultural divides exist for that to be possible in the near future. Heck, the Taliban still wages war on womanhood, how the heck would they coexist with great nations where women are prime ministers and leaders of technology, finance, and economy?
I hope the US becomes a great force in this global govt, by assimilating and adapting all the relevent cultural forces and movements into itself, and spreading it's own sense of culture and values (hopefully not at the expense of diversity!) into a global economy and existence.
Louis
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
It was mainly a joke response to LA,T's post, more than anything else.
Anyway, to address your points, if you're being serious;
What is civilised or refined about a nation that shoots it's own students (Kent State)? or Murders it's people(Waco, Ruby Ridge)? Or kills babies (abortion)?
No, USA is not civilised or refined by any benchmark, indeed, it makes me wonder if you are just a fool?
Do you see what I'm saying? China breaking into superpower status is not tied to becoming a democracy. Being a democracy does not prevent a nation from being brutish or evil.
History has shown that it is ambition, greed, and desire that makes a state 'super'. Freedom and Democracy just make it a nicer place to live, for the people; in the case of the US, it *is* arguably the reason the people are here, and it is the people who make the nation 'super', nothing else.
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
According to the BBC, the rocket caught fire and the launch was aborted.
We are seeing the demise of the nation state and the rise of geopolitical economic power structures.
The European Union we already know about - it has a lengthy history in space with the ESA, and this will only increase. Already the largest economic area on Earth, as it gains political cohesiveness it will come to challenge the mastery of America, under the leadership of the French.
China and India have never really been nation states anyway, being large multicultural post colonial entities without a shared sense of history. Nevertheless, they can be considered rising stars, already with resurgant middle classes and greatly increasing wealth.
America will be challenged by these new entities, and its time at the helm of the worlds power structure will surely pass. However, before that happens there will be a struggle for control of the exosphere through technology - I expect to see a flurry of satelite launches and space competition in the coming fifty years of history.
Perhaps the next round will involve the totla merging of these entities and the begining of a truly global government. Only then will space exploration be undertaken for its own sake alone.
The problem is that the USA in particular hangs on to an outmoded idea - the idea of the nation state. Hopefully it will see the light and not stand in the way of the new era.
--Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The
Okay, I can't be the first to think that relations between India and Pakistan aren't exactly the best possible. Once one of those nations started to do nuclear tests, the other followed suit within a week or so. I would go so far as to say they have started their own cold war between them--using the US and Russia whenever possible.
The problem I see here is that Pakistan is going to want to match/beat the Indians. The Pakistanis will certainly be fearful (and rightfully so) if India can place a satellite into orbit but they can't. Medium range missles only get their warheads into most of India, and the surviving portion of India would retaliate and live on. Pakistan wouldn't last past the first assault.
Of course, I could have everything completely wrong...
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
Mod down, this is the most useless comment I have ever seen.
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My real-life Karma is higher than my