Source: THE HINDU-17th February,2020
This satellite will keep a constant watch on borders: official
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is preparing to launch
GISAT-1, a new earth observation satellite, in the first week of March.
GISAT-1 — Geo Imaging Satellite — will be the first of
two planned Indian EO spacecraft to be placed in a geostationary orbit of
around 36,000 km. It will apparently be in a fixed spot looking over the Indian
continent at all times.
All Indian EOs have been placed so far in a 600-odd-km
orbits and circle the earth pole to pole. GISAT-1 will be launched from
Sriharikota satellite launch centre. “With this satellite, which has
high-resolution cameras, we can keep a constant watch on our borders, monitor
any changes in the geographical condition of the country, etc.,” said Alok
Kumar Srivastav, Senior ISRO scientist and Deputy Director, U R. Rao Satellite
Centre, Bengaluru.
About the ambitious Chandrayaan-2 project, he said
that after the failed lunar landing of the project owing to technical reasons,
ISRO has planned to repeat the project. “The government has already approved
the [Chandrayaan-3] project. We are working on it. We are planning to re-launch
the project within a year. I am hopeful that this time we will be successful in
our endeavour to land our rover near the lunar southern where no rover has
landed so far,” he said.
ISRO is expected to develop its own space station within a decade. “ISRO
scientists are making every effort to develop our own space station. Hopefully,
in the next ten years, India will have its own space station like the U.S. and
China,” Dr. Srivastav said. To achieve this gigantic target, preparations are
already under way at ISRO. He said ISRO has planned to first send two unmanned
spacecraft within a couple of years, and later a crewed mission in the third
phase.
“Our astronauts are already undergoing training in
Russia. After the completion of their training, they will be part of the first
manned mission. The success of the mission will open new avenues for the
setting up of our own space station, which will be possible within a decade
from now,” he said.
On whether life exists anywhere else in the universe
besides on earth, Dr. Srivastav said that as a space scientist, he was
enormously hopeful that life existed in some or the other form somewhere in the
galaxy. “We are searching for them, and possibly they are searching for us, and
hopefully some day we will meet.”
