ISRO propelled satellites and nation's dreams

Dear readers,
DNA is on a thanking spree, and today, in our Gratitude Series (year-enders), we thank Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Without hogging too might limelight, this space agency has been silently doing grand work to ensure that India shines among the stars all through 2018. Launching 31 satellites in a single flight, which is the first of its kind globally, is one of its many achievements this year.

India's premier space research body, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), had many feathers in its cap and continued to make the country proud by not just launching satellites for India but also for global customers.

It also launched GSAT-11, an important satellite that will contribute to India's e-banking, e-health and e-governance motives.

The first big stride of ISRO was in January when it launched 31 satellites in a single flight. ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, in its forty-second flight, successfully launched the 710 kg Cartosat-2 series remote Sensing satellite along with 30 co-passenger satellites from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota. There were two Indian and 28 international customer satellites.

The 28 international customer satellites belong to Canada, Finland, France, Republic of Korea, UK and the USA. So far, PSLV has successfully launched 51 Indian satellites and 237 customer satellites from abroad.

Another significant achievement was the discovery of a planet beyond our solar system. A team of scientists and engineers, led by Prof Abhijit Chakraborty of Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad, discovered a sub-Saturn or super-Neptune size planet around a Sun-like star, which propelled India to join a handful of countries to have discovered planets beyond the solar system.

The seminal research work appeared online in the coveted Astronomical Journal of the American Astronomical Society.

ISRO also contributed hugely to the digital India program by launching one of the heaviest satellite called GSAT-11, which was successfully launched from the spaceport in French Guiana.

"GSAT-11 will boost the broadband connectivity to rural and inaccessible gram panchayats in the country coming under the Bharat Net Project, which is part of Digital India Programme," ISRO Chairman Dr K Sivan said.

The Bharat Net Project aims to enhance the public welfare schemes like e-banking, e-health, e-governance among others. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C42) of ISRO also launched 2 foreign satellites -- NovaSAR and S1-4 -- from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota in September. The satellites belong to UK-based Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), which has a contract with Antrix Corporation Ltd, the commercial arm of ISRO. The satellite applications include forestry mapping, land use and ice cover monitoring, flood and disaster monitoring and maritime missions.

Another feather in the cap of ISRO is Astrosat or astronomical laboratories that they have put up in the orbit of the earth. The data of Astrosat has already started coming, which is used for astronomical research and many countries have evinced interest in using it.

Another thing that ISRO is aiding is encouraging to put student's satellite in space. As part of its Student Satellites programme, students from the College of Engineering, Pune (CoEP), and Sathyabama University, Chennai, have been working on two satellites—Swayam (since 2008) and SathyabamaSat (since 2009), respectively.

"ISRO is not only supporting scientific community and the military but also students endeavors. This is to ensure that tomorrow you will have a space-ready generation. In the last year, they are welcoming newer projects as well, subject to the space worthiness of the satellites that they build up," said Arvind Paranjpye, Director, Nehru Planetarium in Mumbai.