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India’s External Engagement a
Whopping 500 Billion
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05. INFOTECH |
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SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY
ISRO and NASA Sign MOU on Chandrayaan-1 Lunar
Mission |
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Mr G Madhavan
Nair, Chairman, ISRO, and Dr Michael Griffin, Administrator, National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of USA today signed Memoranda
of Understanding (MOU) at ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC), Bangalore,
on inclusion of two US Scientific instruments on board India's first
mission to Moon, Chandrayaan-1. These instruments are - Mini Synthetic
Aperture Radar (Mini SAR) developed by Applied Physics Laboratory,
Johns Hopkins University and funded by NASA and Moon Mineralogy Mapper
(M3), jointly built by Brown University and Jet Propulsion Laboratory
(JPL) of NASA.
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Chandrayaan-1,
scheduled during 2007-2008, is India's first unmanned
scientific mission to moon. The main objective is the
investigation of the distribution of various minerals
and chemical elements and high-resolution three-dimensional
mapping of the entire lunar surface. ISRO's Polar Satellite
Launch Vehicle, PSLV, will launch Chandrayaan-1 into a
240 km X 24,000 km earth orbit.
Subsequently, the spacecraft's own propulsion system would
be used to place it in a 100 km polar orbit around the
moon.
The Indian payloads on board Chandrayaan-1 include: a
Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC), a Hyper Spectral Imager
(HySI), a High-Energy X-ray spectrometer (HEX), a Lunar
Laser Ranging Instrument (LLRI) and a Moon Impact Probe
(MIP).
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The
two US instruments, Mini SAR and M3, were selected on
the basis of merit out of 16 firm proposals fromall over
the world received in response to ISRO's announcement
of opportunity. The main objective of Mini SAR is to detect
water in the permanently shadowed areas of lunar polar
regions. The objective of M3 is the characterisation and
mapping of minerals on the lunar surface.
Earlier, three instruments - Chandrayaan-1 Imaging X-Ray
Spectrometer (CIXS) from Rutherford Appleton Laboratory,
UK, developed with contribution from ISRO Satellite Centre;
Near Infra-Red Spectrometer (SIR-2) from Max Planck Institute,
Germany; and Sub keV Atom Reflecting Analyser (SARA) from
Swedish Institute of Space Physics developed in collaboration
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ISRO's
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre - were selected from the European
Space Agency besides a RAdiation DOse Monitor (RADOM) from the
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
The inclusion of US instruments on Chandrayaan-1 has added fillip
to the Indo-US cooperation in the space arena which dates back
to the very beginning of the Indian space programme. More recently,
the India-US Conference on Space Science, Applications and Commerce
held at Bangalore during in June 2004 led to the setting up
of a Joint Working Group to enhance the cooperation in civil
space between India and USA. The Joint Working Group, comprising
representatives of government, academic institutions and industries,
had its first meeting in Bangalore in June 2005.
During the signing of MOU today, senior NASA and US Embassy
officials and senior officials from ISRO and Ministry of External
Affairs were present. Dr Griffin also visited the laboratories
at ISAC and interacted with senior scientists. He would also
be visiting Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre at Thiruvananthapuram
and Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR at Sriharikota. |
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India
on board Galileo
The Galileo programme, a joint European Commission and
European Space Agency initiative, represents the first
global satellite positioning and navigation system deployed
at an estimated cost of 3.4 billion euro. Conceived as
a core infrastructure upon which applications would be
built, it is designed to meet the specific needs of users
in every transport domain, especially aviation, maritime,
road and rail transport. India has invested around $200
million in the project and its involvement in the project
comes at a very late stage, said Olivier Brun, export
director, EADS Astrium. China too has pledged 200 million
Euro for the Galileo project. „Cooperation will be
now confined to the consolidation of the programme and
ISRO's expertise will be utilised in synergising the satellites
and launch vehicles," he said.
A number of Indian private companies involved in the country's
space programme had also shown keen interest in participating
in the Galileo project. Interestingly, EU had been keen
on India's financial participation in the project, but
it had reservations about its involvement in the operational
aspects of the project. Nevertheless, with 30 satellites
under its umbrella, Galileo is |
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expected to have some 400 million
users by 2015 and create 100,000 jobs. And, with its
collaboration, India could see itself as a rising space
power.
3 Indian projects
for ‘Green Oscar’
Three Indian projects are among 11 vying for this year‚s
Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy, popularly known
as the ‘Green Oscars’.
The awards, now in its 6th year, rewards outstanding
initiatives that use sustainable technologies to meet
the needs of local communities and at the same time
address the urgent challenge of climate change. The
total prize money involved in the global awards is 200,000
pounds (USD 373,060).
The three Indian finalists are
Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI) in Maharashtra,
International Development Enterprises India (IDEI) and
Vivekananda Kendra - NARDEP (VK-Nardep) in Tamil Nadu.
The awards will be presented here on June 15. ARTI is
chosen for designing a revolutionary biogas system that
uses food waste and other sugar, starchy substances
rather than dung to produce gas for cooking.
List of Top 20 IT Software and Service Exporters Released
NASSCOM, the premier trade
body of the IT software and service
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industry in India has released
the rankings of Top
20 IT Software and Service exporters in India (excluding
ITES-BPO revenues). According to the survey, TCS has
retained its lead followed by Infosys and Wipro respectively.
According to NASSCOM, „India's services exports
grew by over 33 percent in FY06 to clock revenues of
USD 17.3 billion, led by a strong demand and increased
traction for traditional services like ADM, new services
like EAI and package implementation, and new areas like
engineering services. The industry has been able to
maintain this growth, despite a larger base, through
large client wins, cross-border mergers and acquisitions,
and the movement of the industry towards a stable pricing
model. We have a trend where companies are increasingly
winning multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts with
global firms. It is also interesting to note that India
has become a hub for global MNC firms for software development,
supply chain management and other services. These players
are beefing up their presence in the Indian market by
investing over a billion dollars and setting up establishments
here, indicating a vast and yet untapped market for
Indian software companies,” it added.
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