OCEANSAT-2 : One more Indian Star in Orbit
India is an emerging nation in almost all fields of develpoment.World countries are watching India's movement and anxiously looking what India's opinion is on various matters.It is expected that India will become one of the most powerful economy in the world.This is to be considered well since the present leaders like America and its currency are going down and down.
Regarding nuclear power, even USA and Russia had made treaties and coperative signs with India.Both the world powers had realised that India will hold the market in recent years and to be a friend of India or making some treaties already signed will be good in future. Many developing countries also request the assistance of India in this regard and we co-operate with them in all possible manners.
Regarding space research India had very very bright future.Eventhough we had sent only one man Mr.Rakesh Sharma to space two of India origin ladies Ms. Kalpana Chowla and Ms. Sunitha Williams had reached space from USA. Kalpana Chowla's sad demise during her second space voyage made all Indians to weep. Sunitha Williams created history by walking for the longest hours in space.
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is the main body that works on our space programes. ISRO had a lot of stations all over India. Most of our satellites were launched from Kauru in French Gayana earlier. But now our scientists had proven their ability and self confidence by launching our satellites from our stations like Tumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station ( TERLS ) , Thiruvananthapuram , Kerala and Sathish Dhavan Space Centre, Sreeharikkotta in Andhra Pradesh. Most of the new generation satellites are developed indigenously. Also in earlier days our satellites were failure continuously. But now all of them are getting launched successfully.So other countries are depending on India or seeking assistance of India to launch their satellites to space. ISRO had made history by making two hundred crores profit recently before launching the satellites. Even USA had requested India's assistance to put one of their expedition vehicle to moon through India's historic moon mission Chandrayan.The OCEANSAT-2 is also going to carry other country's satellites to space.The main countries that co operate with ndian Space Research Organisation in OCEANSAT-2 mission are Germany , Turkey , Switzerland and Italy. We are proud Indians because all these countries are economically better than India yet intelligently behind India.
And as a sign mark in Indian Space Research Program the OCEANSAT-2 reached in its orbit on last Wednesday. It is the successor of OCEANSAT-1 which was launched ten years ago. The launching was from Sathish Dhavan Space Centre, Sreeharikkotta in Andhra Pradesh. The 960Kg satellite had placed in an orbit 720KM above earth’s surface. The expected lifespan of OCEANSAT-2 is five years.
The OCEANSAT-2 was launched by PSLV, India’s prestigious home built satellite launching vehicle. This was the 15th successful launching of PSLV. Besides OCEANSAT-2 six other nano satellites also have a piggy ride to space in PSLV. Nano satellites are the new comers in satellite family. As the name indicates they are nano in size. Their weights are very very less compared to original satellites. They vary from one kilo gram to a maximum of ten kilogram. Yes , beleive it or not , that is why they are called nano satellites.The satellites were
1) Cubesat 1 ( Wurzburg University , Germany)
2) Cubesat 2 or Beesat ( Technical University , Berlin, Germany)
3) Cubesat 3 or ITU-pSAT 1 ( Istanbul Technical University, Turkey)
4) Cubesat 4 or Swiss Cube ( Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne, Switzerland)
5) Rubin 9.1 and
6) Rubin 9.2
The Cubesats have almost 1Kg weight and are educational needs of the European Universities. The Rubinsats have 8Kg each.
As the name indicates OCEANSAT-2’s main missions are climate study (prediction of cyclone and rainfall),coastal area study and to find out the potential fishery zones in Indian seas. The satellite can give the information about wind path as well as the direction, strength and height of waves. Hence secure fishery is possible in future days.For climat study India had launched Kalpana 1 earlier ( named after our proud Kalpana Chowla ).Still for more studies another satellite was required and that lead to launching of OCEANSAT-2.
India had sent many remote sensing satellites to space.Most of them are in use now itself.Some of the satellites life span had expired.The last day launched OCEANSAT-2 is India’s 16th Remote Sensing Satellite. It carries mainly three instruments to study the ocean surface. The main instrument is OCEAN COLOUR MONITOR (OCM).It is with 360 meters spatial resolution and a swath of 1420 KM. Another instrument namely Ku-Band Pencil beam Scaterometer (SCAT) can cover an area of about 1400KM.The third instrument that OCEANSAT-2 carries is Radio Occultation Sounder for Atmosphere (ROSA) of Italian Space Agency (ASI).Yes, many many countries pay their faith on Indian Space Research Organisation to make them also a member of space.
OCEANSAT-2 is monitored from many parts of India as well as world. Mainly OCEANSAT-2 is monitored from ISTRAC (ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network) in Peeniya near Bangalore, Karnataka. Besides this the helps from ground stations in Lucknow of Uttarpradesh in Indiaitself, Mauritius, Biac of Indonesia , Swalbard of Norway , Tromso of Norway and Troll of Antarctica are also utilized.The space reserch programes and the monitoring stations of many other countries are also utilised by Indian Space Research Organisation as this OCEANSAT-2 has many co operating countries.
After the successful launching of OCEANSAT-2 India is planning some more joint ventures in space reaserch.Many countries had put forth their interest to put hand in hand for their countries space research programs. Really this is a boost to Indian Space Research Organisation as well as to all aspirants of Indian Space Research Organisation. In near future we can hear a lot of such joint ventures. The recent among them is the successor of OCEANSAT-2 itself.OCEANSAT-2 is expected is to be followed by SARAL and MEGHA Tropiques , a joint venture by India and France.
So be proud to be an Indian.
- Abid Areacode
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