Amidst the raging tariff war leading to telecom stocks getting hammered on the bourses, the country s total subscriber base crossed the 500-million mark in September, 15 month ahead of the targeted schedule of December, 2010.

According to figures released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Wednesday total telecom subscribers in the country increased to 509.03 million at the end of September from 494.07 million in August, registering a growth rate of 3.03%. With this tele-density has increased to 43.50% with wireless tele-density at 40.31. India is the second-biggest market for wireless services, lagging only China which has more than 600 million users, and is the fastest-growing market in the world.

Mobile opearators led by Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Essar and Tata Teleservices have been wooing the customers with innovative tariff packages in a market where call rates are already ruling at the rock bottom and is the main driver of the growth. New tariff plans such as per-second billing introduced by most of the operators are likely to see huge subscriber addition in the coming months.

News source: Yahoo

Pictures source: Vivek Mishra & IANS

Along with the Oceansat-2, 6 nano satellites (4 CUBESATS and 2 RUBIN) were also launched.

CUBESATs : The four CUBESATs are educational satellites from European universities, each weighing around one kg. and developed to perform technology demonstration in space. The satellites are launched inside a Single Picosatellite Launcher (SPL) also weighing one kg., which is a dedicated European launch adaptor to deploy a CubeSat.

CUBESAT-1: UWE-2, from the Universität Würzburg, Germany
UWE-2 is a pico satellite, with the mission objective of demonstration of a newly developed Attitude Determination and Control system (ADCS) and the technology demonstration of a GPS on a Cubesat.

CUBESAT-2: BeeSat, from the Technische Universität Berlin, Germany
BeeSat is a pico satellite project of the Technical University of Berlin with the main objective of on-orbit verification of newly developed micro reaction wheels for pico satellite applications and will demonstrate the use of coin sized micro reaction wheels for attitude control of pico satellites in orbit as one of the key elements

CUBESAT-3: ITU-pSAT1, from Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
The primary mission of the satellite is to examine the performance of an on-board passive stability system consisting of a magnet which will align the satellite to the magnetic field of the Earth with an error of about 15 degrees according to simulations, and to verify this figure. A secondary objective is to download photographs taken using a camera with a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels

CUBESAT-4: SwissCube, from Ecole Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne, Switzerland
The SwissCube mission objective is to house a science payload and take optical measurements and characterize the airglow intensity over selected latitudes and longitudes thereby demonstrating that the airglow emissions are strong enough to be measured by an off-the-shelf detector and validating the concept for the development of a low-cost Earth sensor.

RUBIN-9
RUBIN-9 consists of two Spacecrafts Rubin-9.1 and Rubin-9.2 weighing 8kg each and will primarily be used for the Automatic Identification System (AIS) for Maritime applications. These are non-separable payloads that will be mounted at an angle of 45deg to the PSLV EB deck.

Rubin-9.1 is developed by Luxspace and has a mission objective of providing an insight into the issue of message collisions that limit detection in areas of dense shipping.

The main purpose of the Rubin-9.2 spacecraft is to test and qualify nano technologies from Angstrom company Sweden and to continue space based maritime Automatic Identification System (AIS) receiver experiments (started with Rubin-7 and Rubin-8 missions). Rubin-9.2 is similar to the Rubin-8 launched on PSLV-C9 in April 2008.

More information on the launch here

All information & pictures source: ISRO

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PSLV C-12 at the launch pad early morning today

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, weighing 230 tonnes at the time of launch, soared into a clear sky at 6.45am(local time) from the spaceport here, about 90 km north of Chennai. This is the 15th flight of ISRO’s workhorse PSLV, which had launched 30 satellites (14 for India and 16 for foreign countries) into a variety of orbits since 1993.

The launch vehicle carries two payloads – RISAT-2 (with all weather capability to take images of Earth) and ANUSAT (the first satellite built by an Indian University to demonstrate the technologies related to message store and forward operations).

The ANUSAT satellite made by the Anna University, Chennai

The rocket would place both the satellites in their orbits around the earth shortly. The SAR, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries, gives RISAT defence capabilities.

ANUSAT is the first satellite developed by an Indian university (Anna University), which would demonstrate the technologies related to message storing and forward operations. University sources said scores of students and faculty from different streams had worked on this satellite for the last six years.

ANUSAT is a store-and-forward communication satellite that will help transfer confidential academic materials, including exam question papers, to prevent question paper leakages. It will also help monitor drought and wasteland, urban planning and other studies.

Above news from: TimesofIndia & pics from ISRO

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Weighing 34 kg at the time of its launch onboard Chandrayaan-1, the box shaped MIP carried three instruments – a video imaging system, a radar altimeter and a mass spectrometer. The video imaging system was intended to take the pictures of the moon’s surface as MIP approached it. The radar altimeter was included to measure the rate of descent of the probe to the lunar surface. Such instruments are necessary for future lunar soft landing missions. And, the mass spectrometer was for studying the extremely thin lunar atmosphere.

MIP’s 25 minute journey to the lunar surface began with its separation from Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft at 20:06 hrs (8:06 pm) IST. This was followed by a series of automatic operations that began with the firing of its spin up rockets after achieving a safe distance of separation from Chandrayaan-1. Later, the probe slowed down with the firing of its retro rocket and started its rapid descent towards the moon’s surface. Information from the its instruments was radioed to Chandrayaan-1 by MIP. The spacecraft recorded this in its onboard memory for later readout. Finally, the probe had a hard landing on the lunar surface that terminated its functioning.

Thus, India’s very first attempt to send a probe to the moon’s surface from its spacecraft orbiting the moon has been successfully concluded.

With the switching ON of two of Chandrayaan-1’s payloads – Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) and Radiation Dose Monitor (RADOM) – on its journey to moon and with MIP’s successful impact on the lunar surface today, it is planned to switch ON and test the remaining eight payloads of the spacecraft in the coming few days.

It may be recalled that Chandrayaan-1 was successfully launched by PSLV-C11 on October 22, 2008 from India’s spaceport at Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota into its intended initial elliptical orbit around the Earth. Following this, the spacecraft’s orbit was raised in steps and it was made to pass near the moon by repeatedly firing its 440 Newton liquid engine. After Chandrayaan-1’s entry into its planned lunar orbit on November 8, 2008, the orbital height was reduced in steps to its intended operational altitude of 100 km from the lunar surface.

Since its launch, the health and orbit of Chandrayaan-1 is being continuously monitored from the Spacecraft Control Centre of ISRO’s Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Bangalore with critical support from antennas of Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) at Byalalu. IDSN antennas have also received the images and scientific information gathered by TMC, RADOM, and more recently, by MIP.

Above article & pictures courtesy: ISRO, Rediff

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Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) at Byalalu supported the crucial task of transmitting commands and continuously monitoring this vital event with two dish antennas, one measuring 18 m and the other 32 m.

Chandrayaan-1’s liquid engine was fired when the spacecraft passed at a distance of about 500 km from the moon to reduce its velocity to enable lunar gravity to capture it into an orbit around the moon. The spacecraft is now orbiting the moon in an elliptical orbit that passes over the polar regions of the moon. The nearest point of this orbit (periselene) lies at a distance of about 504 km from the moon’s surface while the farthest point (aposelene) lies at about 7502 km. Chandrayaan-1 takes about 11 hours to go round the moon once in this orbit.

moon impact probe

The performance of all the systems onboard Chandrayaan-1 is normal. In the coming days, the height of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft’s orbit around the moon will be carefully reduced in steps to achieve a final polar orbit of about 100 km height from the moon’s surface. Following this, the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) of the spacecraft will be released to hit the lunar surface. Later, the other scientific instruments will be turned ON sequentially leading to the normal phase of the mission.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00AvB-9RFUI&feature=related]

It may be recalled that Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was launched on October 22, 2008 by PSLV-C11 from India’s spaceport at Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota. As intended, PSLV placed the spacecraft in a highly oval shaped orbit with a perigee (nearest point to Earth) of 255 km and an apogee (farthest point to Earth) of 22,860 km. In the past two weeks, the liquid engine of Chandrayaan-1 has been successfully fired five times at opportune moments to increase the apogee height, first to 37,900 km, then to 74,715 km, later to 164,600 km, after that to 267,000 km and finally to 380,000km, as planned. During this period, the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC), one of the eleven payloads (scientific instruments) of the spacecraft, was successfully operated twice to take the pictures, first of the Earth, and then moon.

With today’s successful manoeuvre, India becomes the fifth country to send a spacecraft to Moon. The other countries, which have sent spacecraft to Moon, are the United States, former Soviet Union, Japan and China. Besides, the European Space Agency (ESA), a consortium of 17 countries, has also sent a spacecraft to moon.

Above news and pictures courtesy: ISRO

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Everything about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Nuclear Research Centre (CERN) in Geneva is big. The money spent on the project — $3.8 billion — is big. Thousands of scientists, thousands of instruments are part of this mega project.

The 27-km tunnel is the longest for a project of this kind. The instruments which line the tunnel are a few thousand in number, especially the super-sensitive, super-precision magneto-detectors which are key to the success of the super-duper experiment ever in theoretical physics. It is here that Indians make their dramatic appearance, though it is kind of a bit role in the lavish drama. Fifty per cent of those magneto-detectors have been engineered by Indian scientists, right from conception to execution and installation.

What is overlooked in all this number crunching of the elementary kind is that beyond the big budget, big site-laboratory, big instruments and big teams of scientists is that it all stems from a big idea — what is the source of the universe. Without the pioneers’ passion to cross the frontiers of knowledge, to go back to the ancient beginnings — now reckoned to be approximately 13.7 billions years or so — the whole enterprise would be a titanic empty shell.

Consider what nuclear means for most informed Indians? It just brings to mind nuclear power, nuclear bombs, nuclear medicine, not necessarily in that order. But very rarely would it also connote in the minds of these people the teasingly infinite, infinitesimal universe of sub-atomic particles.

Indians will be able to cross this mental frontier if they can stop thinking of science in terms of its utility, in terms of visible technology and its benefits to India.

Click here for the full article

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Acer Extensa 5620

Intel Core 2 Duo
2 GB DDR-2 RAM
320 GB Hard disk
15.4″ display
DVD RW
Bluetooth, Wirelss WIFI link, Gigabit network card
Integrated Crystal Eye 0.3 Miegapixel webcam

Nikon Coolpix L16

A 4GB memory card, a tripod, scratch resistant cover for the display LCD free along with the camera.

Always wanted to get a Digital SLR camera (preferably Nikon) , but then felt that the money is better spent investing.  Else, i would have another expensive toy rotting away in some corner of the house.  Just like the others. Anyway, am happy

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Everyone knows the aftermath of the testing, sanctions were imposed on India by the US, Japan and a host of countries. All form of technological assistance was frozen. And all forms of aid was cut.

10 years hence, the US accepts that India is indeed a nuclear power and offers an exclusive nuclear deal; the first such effort for a country that has refused to sign the discriminatory Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT). We are still bickering over the fine print of the deal. With elections around, i don’t see any party in power having the guts to go ahead with the deal. But one thing is for sure. Whichever party comes to power (either BJP or Congress) after the elections, is going to sign the treaty.

And for all those who worry that the timeline for the deal is expiring, can relax. India is too big a market for the US to ignore. The nuclear deal is just the beginning. India is planning to spend close to US$100 billion over the next 15-20 years to upgrade its military. And the US is not so stupid to antagonise any of the Indian political class and miss out on the cherry.

Ten years ago, on May 11, 1998, the Buddha smiled once again in the deserts of Rajasthan as the country undertook a series of nuclear tests in the Pokhran field range. The first-ever nuclear test by the country, code named ‘Smiling Buddha’, was also conducted in the same place on May 19, 1974.

The area of the tests is still kept under tight security. There are four gates spread over a 3.5 sq km area. The first is known as Kohinoor Gate and the last, Bhoochal Gate. But soon, footfalls in the sands which saw India’s strategic coming of age could increase as the government goes ahead with plans to set up a war museum in the Pokhran range.

“We are trying to set up a model of the Khetolai village in Pokhran where the blasts took place. A war museum would be set up here and the help of the Army and BSF has been sought to set up the museum,” said Ambarish Kumar, district collector, Jaisalmer.

Interestingly, then CIA director, George Tenet, in his book ‘At The Centre of Storm: My Years At The CIA’ admitted that India’s second nuclear explosion surprised the US. “In 1995, when the US got the hint that India was preparing for its second nuclear test, we managed to put pressure on India to stop it, but the US had no clue about the preparation of India in 1998 as our satellites failed to detect the preparations that were on in Pokhran.

Admittedly, it was our greatest failure and that gave us sleepless nights,” wrote Tenet.

Three laboratories had been set up for the purpose and the exact location where explosions took place later were being used for playing football and hockey. In all, 3,000 to 4,000 army personnel were involved, but hardly 100 knew the exact task they were involved in.

Full article here.

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