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Govt plans
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04. NEWSMAKERS |
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President
Kalam on three-nation visit |
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President A P J Kalam
interacting with students from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in Singapore
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President
A PJ Abdul Kalam was on a ten-day three-nation visit to Singapore,
Philippines and South Korea. On the first leg of his tour, the
President visited Singapore till February three. From February
three to six, he was in the Philippines and from February six
to nine, he visited South Korea.
While in Singapore, he delivered
the Singapore Lecture and interacted with students and faculty
of the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technical
University. President Kalam also visited the Bharatiya Vidya
Bhavan, the Public Utility Board and a desalination plant there.
In the Philippines, the President called on President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo and addressed their National Assembly. President
also also interacted with locals, businessmen and the Indian
community in these countries. |
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ISRO Achieves
Breakthrough in Supersonic Combustion Technology |
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As part
of the Advanced technology initiative in the area of Air- Breathing
propulsion, the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre of ISRO at Thiruvananthapuram,
has successfully carried out the design, development, characterisation
and realisation of the Supersonic Combustion Ramjet (SCRAMJET). Through
a series of ground tests, a stable supersonic combustion has been
demonstrated for nearly 7 seconds with an inlet Mach number of 6 (i.e.,
six times the speed of sound). |
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Photo: ISRO
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As
such technologies are in a very nascent stage of development
the world over, ISRO considers this achievement as a major technology
breakthrough in Air- Breathing propulsion. Other than USA, which
has recently carried out in-flight demonstration of supersonic
combustion for a short duration, work related to supersonic
combustor designs in other countries like Japan, China, Russia,
Australia, Europe and others are either in their initial or
ground testing phase.
Currently, the space transportation systems are expendable in
nature and use the conventional chemical rocket systems for
their propulsion. The cost per kg of payload of such expendable
systems is quite high, and is in the range of $12,000 to $15,000
per kg. If we have to make the access to space more affordable,
this cost needs to be brought down by an order of magnitude
to something like $500 - $1000 per kg. This will require a two
pronged approach (a) the systems are made recoverable and reusable
(b) adopt more efficient propulsion systems like Air- Breathing
rockets. |
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In the coming years, ISRO is planning
to flight test an integrated SCRAMJET propulsion system comprising
of air-intake, combustor and nozzle, by using a cost effective two
stage RH-560 sounding rocket. Development of such a high technology
system will come in a big way towards meeting the futuristic space
transportation needs of our country. |
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