India’s space agency has successfully launched more than 100 foreign so-called nano satellites into orbit aboard a single rocket.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said the nano satellites — each weighing less than 22lbs — were sent into orbit on board its polar satellite launch vehicle from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in southern India.
The agency claimed the launching of the 104 satellites as a world record — or should that be a space record? — overtaking Russia’s feat of sending 37 satellites in a single launch in 2014.
WHAT ARE THE SATELLITES FOR?
The nano satellites belong to various companies in the US, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, the Netherlands and Kazakhstan, and three were from India itself, according to the ISRO, one of them being an Indian earth observation satellite.
Eighty-eight of the 104 satellites are called Doves, and they were sent into space to do research for Planet Labs, a private company based in California that sells data to governments and commercial entities.
Those 88 Doves are the largest satellite constellation ever put into space, and they will monitor such situations as deforestation and crop yields.
The ISRO is cock-a-hoop that the launch went faultlessly with all the satellites released in just 18 minutes and none of them colliding.
“All 104 satellites were successfully placed in orbit,” the Press Trust of India news agency quoted ISRO chairman AS Kiran Kumar as saying.
IS THIS A BIG STEP UP FOR INDIA?
It certainly is, because it shows that Indian space technology is developing quickly and it has by far the cheapest method of putting a small satellite in space.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that the “remarkable feat by ISRO is yet another proud moment for our space scientific community and the nation”.
He’s not wrong. India has been actively involved in the space race since the 1960s, launching an experimental two-stage rocket called Thumba in 1963.
Its first satellite went into space aboard a Soviet Union rocket in 1975, India being then an ally of the USSR. In 1980, India really entered the space race when it used its own rocket to launch the Rohini experimental satellites.
In recent years, India has been striving to become a player in the multi-billion pound space launch market. ISRO has successfully placed dozens of light satellites into orbit and it does so at a price reckoned to be a saving of 60 per cent or more than its competitors.
It is able to do that because the space industry in India is nationalised and labour costs are cheap.
BUT IT ONLY DOES SMALL SATELLITES?
That is true at the moment, but in September 2014, India successfully guided a spacecraft, the Mars Orbiter Mission, into orbit around the Red Planet. Only the US, the former Soviet Union and the European Space Agency had previously done that.
Prior to that, India also placed a spacecraft, the Chandrayaan 1 in orbit around the Moon in 2008.
A Moon Impact Probe was successfully launched from the mother craft, making India the fourth nation to have its flag on the Moon’s surface.
As well as surveying the lunar surface, Chandrayaan 1 also discovered the presence of water molecules in the lunar surface, a definite first which earned the designers — India uses only its own technology, it should be said — a raft of top awards.
They also conducted the whole mission at a price of $60 million, or less than half the budget of the space movie Armageddon in 1998.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR INDIA IN SPACE?
The Indian Government is currently looking at approving a £1.5 billion programme to put an Indian astronaut in space within seven years.
ISRO has already carried out two “re-entry” missions to prove that a manned space vehicle could be returned safely to Earth.
Only the USA, Russia (formerly the USSR) and China have achieved that.
Meanwhile ISRO is concentrating on building the capability of launching much larger satellites into space, and is also developing its launchers — so far some 60 launches have been mounted by ISRO. India has already put 180 small satellites from 23 different countries into space. Remarkably, eight of the satellites were developed by students at Indian universities and colleges.
IS IT ALL GETTING A BIT CROWDED OUT THERE?
You could say that, though the vastness of space ensures that there will always be room for more satellites and spacecraft. The problem for the US, UK, Europe and Russia is that the real “race for space” is now concentrated in Asia, with India and China leading Japan. China is shortly to send a “lunar rover” to the Moon and bring back rock samples, while India says it will send a mission to both Venus and the Sun. The sky is not the limit for India in space. They are already well beyond it.
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