PSLV-C34 Successfully Launches 20 Satellites in a Single Flight

PSLV-C34 Successfully Launches 20 Satellites in a Single Flight

In its thirty sixth flight (PSLV-C34), ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle successfully launched the 727.5 kg Cartosat-2 Series Satellite along with 19 co-passenger satellites today morning from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota. This is the thirty fifth consecutively successful mission of PSLV and the fourteenth in its 'XL' configuration. The total weight of all the 20 satellites carried on-board PSLV-C34 was 1288 kg.

After PSLV-C34 lift-off at 0926 hrs (9:26 am) IST from the Second Launch Pad with the ignition of the first stage, the subsequent important flight events, namely, strap-on ignitions and separations, first stage separation, second stage ignition, heat-shield separation, second stage separation, third stage ignition and separation, fourth stage ignition and cut-off, took place as planned. After a flight of 16 minutes 30 seconds, the satellites achieved a polar Sun Synchronous Orbit of 508 km inclined at an angle of 97.5 degree to the equator (very close to the intended orbit) and in the succeeding 10 minutes, all the 20 satellites successfully separated from the PSLV fourth stage in a predetermined sequence.

After separation, the two solar arrays of Cartosat-2 series satellite were deployed automatically and ISRO's Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Bangalore took over the control of the satellite. In the coming days, the satellite will be brought to its final operational configuration following which it will begin to provide remote sensing services using its panchromatic (black and white) and multispectral (colour) cameras.

The imagery sent by the Cartosat-2 series satellite will be useful for cartographic applications, urban and rural applications, coastal land use and regulation, utility management like road network monitoring, water distribution, creation of land use maps, precision study, change detection to bring out geographical and manmade features and various other Land Information System (LIS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) applications.

Of the 19 co-passenger satellites carried by PSLV-C34, two – SATHYABAMASAT weighing 1.5 kg and SWAYAM weighing 1 kg – are University/Academic institute satellites and were built with the involvement of students from Sathyabama University, Chennai and College Of Engineering, Pune, respectively.

The remaining 17 co-passenger satellites were international customer satellites from Canada (2), Germany (1), Indonesia (1) and the United States (13).

With today’s successful launch, the total number of satellites launched by India’s workhorse launch vehicle PSLV has reached 113, of which 39 are Indian and the remaining 74 from abroad.

A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket, a successful workhorse of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)

A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket, a successful workhorse of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), has blasted off from the launch pad of the space agency in Sriharikota, as a first attempt by the Indian scientists to send 20 satellites in one go.

The vehicle lifted off at 9.26 AM with Cartosat-2C, the 725.5 kg earth observation satellite for defence needs, and 19 other satellites for customers such as Google-owned Terra Bella and former NASA employee owned Planet Labs.

The mission is also an attempt to demonstrate the capabilities of the country's space organisation, which has achieved several firsts in the past, to launch a large number of satellites in a single launch. This is expected to attract countries and companies for small satellite launches, such as One Web, which is eyeing capacity to hurl over 700 small satellites into space within a short timeframe.

According to ISRO officials, the frequency of rocket launches is expected to increase from this year. The low cost of launching PSLV and its proven success rate is also expected to make the service more attractive to global customers.

It is also building a consortium which include Hindustan Aeronautics, Godrej Aerospace and Larson and Toubro to jointly assemble and launch the PSLV rocket by 2020 for both local needs and tap global customer launches.

The move would help crunch the time to launch a PSLV rocket once in three weeks from India's space pad in Sriharikota as against the current norm of once every two months.

The PSLV rocket launched today also carry a 85 kg maritime satellite jointly built by Canada's defence research agency and Canada's space agency, a 130 kg scientific satellite from Germany's aerospace centre, and a 120 kg earth observation satellite for Indonesia's space agency.

The mission also has Skysat-3, a 110 kg earth imaging satellite with capability to capture high definition videos designed and built by Terra Bella (formerly Skybox Imaging), a company owned by Google and the imaging satellite made of commercially available electronics of Planet Labs, the Silicon Valley firm started by former NASA scientists.

Besides, two nano satellites weighing less than 1.5 kg, built by College of Engineering in Pune and Sathyabama University for experimental studies on green house gases and help HAM operators will also ride piggyback on the rocket.

The biggest payload in the mission is the Cartosat-2C, the earth observation satellite with capability to identify objects of less than a metre to be used for strategic purposes. This satellite is similar to the earlier Cartosat-2, 2A and 2B.

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IISc Bangalore among top 30 Asian universities in THE 2016 ranking IISc Bangalore jumps 10 places to 27th rank in Times Higher Education Asia rankings; 16 universities from India find place in top 200

IISc Bangalore among top 30 Asian universities in THE 2016 ranking

IISc Bangalore jumps 10 places to 27th rank in Times Higher Education Asia rankings; 16 universities from India find place in top 200

The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru found a place in the top 30 Asian universities—the best yet for an Indian institution—in the Asian University Ranking 2016 by the UK’s Times Higher Education (THE).

According the rankings published on Monday, IISc jumped 10 places to be ranked 27th among the top 200 universities in Asia. Overall, 16 universities from India found a place in the top 200 list and eight of the top 10 Indian universities improved their rankings.

In Asia, the National University in Singapore was ranked the best, followed by Nanyang Technological University (also in Singapore) and Peking University in China. Among the top 10 Asian universities, Singapore, China and Hong Kong have two universities each, Japan has one and South Korea three.

Universities from 22 Asian countries participated in the ranking, which counts parameters such as learning environment, research, research citations, international outlook and industry income.

While IISc maintains its standing as the best institution in India, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay (43) was No. 2 and IIT Kharagpur (51) was the third best from India. The two IITs jumped 14 and 18 places, respectively, in 2016 from their ranking in 2015.

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IIT Guwahati and Jadavpur University, which were not in the top 100 list last year came in at 80 and 84.

Attributing the rise to a focus on excellence in education and research, IIT Bombay director Devang Khakhar said, “rigorous academic programmes and strong linkages with industry prepare our students very well for employment. We have been successful in recruiting excellent faculty members and our healthy faculty-student ratio is another major factor for moving up in the rankings”.

The ranking agency acknowledged the improved performance of Indian universities.

India is the leading South Asian country in the ranking, with 16 universities featuring in the top 200, ranking editor Phil Baty said in an email.

India’s “leading institution, the Indian Institute of Science, makes the top 30 for the first time, in 27th place”, he said.

“India has made great gains in this list in recent years—just three institutions appeared in the top 100 in 2013—but the nation still has a long way to go to compete with Asia’s leading university nations, such as China, Japan and South Korea, and scores particularly weakly on internationalization,” Baty said.

Indian universities traditionally lag behind on internationalization parameters. International faculties, international students and exchange programmes have been poor.

While government institutions are yet to improve the situation despite a clear demand from experts and industries, some private universities have started focusing on it.

For instance, in the QS Asian University rankings published last week, Amrita University in Kerala, promoted by spiritual guru Mata Amritanandamayi, did very well in all aspects of internationalization—much better than the elite IITs.

Of late, institutions and the government are trying to bring heterogeneity to campuses. IITs, Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and some other leading universities have now started making formal efforts to recruit both students and faculty staff from abroad to improve the international outlook.

The human resource development ministry has started new schemes through which it is inviting hundreds of top academics to teach and carry out research for short durations—a move that authorities believe will give the institutions more exposure to global standards, improve rankings and help improve the brand of Indian schools.

Although Baty pointed to the poor performance of several South Asian institutions due to a lack of funding and clear policy direction, he welcomed the Indian government’s move to select 20 institutions, across the public and private sector, for special funding to help them compete on the global stage.

From green slime to jet fuel: algae offers airlines a cleaner future Thomas Brueck, Munich TU’s associate professor of industrial biocatalysis, says that the biofuel from algaculture could cater for 3-5% of jetfuel needs by about 2050

From green slime to jet fuel: algae offers airlines a cleaner future

Thomas Brueck, Munich TU’s associate professor of industrial biocatalysis, says that the biofuel from algaculture could cater for 3-5% of jetfuel needs by about 2050

As airlines struggle to find cleaner ways to power jets and with an industry-wide meeting on CO2 emissions just months away, scientists are busy growing algae in vast open tanks at an Airbus site at Ottobrun, near Munich.

The European aerospace group is part-financing the Munich Technical University project to grow algae for biofuel and, although commercial production is a long way off, hopes are high.

Thomas Brueck, Munich TU’s associate professor of industrial biocatalysis, says that the biofuel from algaculture could cater for 3-5% of jetfuel needs by about 2050.

Algae can grow 12 times faster than plants cultivated on soil and produces an oil yield about 30 times that of rapeseed.

However, although aviation biofuel made from feedstocks such as flax or used cooking oil is already available, limited stocks and low oil prices mean only a few airlines, including Lufthansa and KLM, are using it on a trial basis.

“To substitute 100% of the kerosene use today, we will not do it with algae alone. We need a combination of different technologies to actually enable that substitution,” Brueck said.

Airbus also says the technology, in which it and the Bavarian government are investing more than €10 million ($11 million) between them, is still at an early stage and is not financially viable for airlines just yet.

“But we are sure that over time, we will make it possible to offer kerosene made of algae for a competitive price,” an Airbus spokesman said

World’s fastest supercomputer now has Chinese chip technology The Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer is more than twice as powerful as the previous winner occupied by Tianhe-2

World’s fastest supercomputer now has Chinese chip technology

The Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer is more than twice as powerful as the previous winner occupied by Tianhe-2

In a threat to US technology dominance, the world’s fastest supercomputer is powered by Chinese-designed semiconductors for the first time. It’s a breakthrough for China’s attempts to reduce dependence on imported technology.

The Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer, located at the state-funded Chinese Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, is more than twice as powerful as the previous winner, according to TOP500, a research organization that compiles the rankings twice a year. The machine is powered by a SW26010 processor designed by Shanghai High Performance IC Design Center, TOP500 said on Monday.

“It’s not based on an existing architecture. They built it themselves,” said Jack Dongarra, a professor at the University of Tennessee and creator of the measurement method used by TOP500. “This is a system that has Chinese processors.”

The new machine shows China’s determination to build its domestic chip industry and replace its dependence on imports that cost as much as oil. The world’s most populous country may also try to lessen its reliance on US companies for defence technology and security infrastructure. Supercomputers aren’t major consumers of chips. But being at the heart of the world’s most powerful machines helps processor makers persuade the broader market to consider their technology.

“This is the first time that the Chinese have more systems than the US, so that, I think, is a striking accomplishment,” said Dongarra. The Chinese had no machines in the 2001 list, he noted. In the latest, China has 167 entries compared with 165 for the US.

Previous supercomputer winners have had processors built on US technology from Intel Corp.—the world’s largest chipmaker—International Business Machines Corp. or a derivative of Sun Microsystems designs.

The top position was previously occupied by Tianhe-2, built on Intel chips by China’s National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou. That system is now second, according to TOP500.

Sunway TaihuLight’s victory is a particular challenge to Intel’s dominance in computer servers, where it currently controls about 96% of the market. It announced a joint venture with a Chinese organization to domesticate some of its technology earlier this year.

Supercomputers are multiple server computers linked together in a way that allows them to process huge data sets and run the most complex calculations. While they’re hugely expensive and relatively rare, they showcase new technologies that often make their way into corporate data centers.

An Intel spokesman declined to comment on the new rankings.

Other chipmakers such as Qualcomm Inc. are working with Chinese organizations to build processors in the country. Technology provider ARM Holdings Plc, whose products are at the heart of most smartphones, is also trying to grab a slice of the Chinese market. 

Earth continues to be on record-breaking spree Rising carbon dioxide, soaring temperatures and melting ice-sheets remain a cause for concern

Earth continues to be on record-breaking spree

Rising carbon dioxide, soaring temperatures and melting ice-sheets remain a cause for concern

Halfway into 2016, the Earth has already broken several records and the news is not good. Here’s a look at a few records that have been broken this year and why we should worry about these.

Rising carbon dioxide in Antarctica: On 15 June, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that the Earth passed another alarming milestone on 23 May when carbon dioxide surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm) at the South Pole for the first time in 4 million years.

According to NOAA, the South Pole has shown a steady upward trend in carbon dioxide, though it is the last to register the impacts of increasing emissions from fossil fuel consumption which is proven to be the driver of greenhouse gas pollution.

“The far southern hemisphere was the last place on earth where CO2 had not yet reached this mark,” said Pieter Tans, the lead scientist of NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network in a press release. “Global CO2 levels will not return to values below 400 ppm in our lifetimes, and almost certainly for much longer,” added Tans.

The agency further noted that every year since observations began in 1958, there has been more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than the year before. While last year was the fourth consecutive year that carbon dioxide grew more than 2 ppm, 2016 is expected to be the fifth.

Soaring temperature: Global temperature records were broken yet again in May 2016, making it the hottest May on record, according to Nasa, and the NOAA. The agencies further added that this was the hottest northern hemisphere spring on record.

NOAA said the combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces in May was 0.87°C above the 20th century average of 14.8°C, beating the previous record set in 2015 by 0.02°C . May 2016 marks the 13th consecutive month a monthly global temperature record has been broken—the longest such streak since global temperature records began in 1880.

“The state of the climate so far this year gives us much cause for alarm,” said David Carlson, director of the World Climate Research Programme. “Exceptionally high temperatures. Ice melt rates in March and May that we don’t normally see until July. Once-in-a-generation rainfall events. The super El Niño is only partly to blame. Abnormal is the new normal.”

Melting Greenland ice sheet: This year, the Greenland ice sheet melted much earlier than usual and broke records of previous melting by a month. Based on observation-initialized weather model runs by Danish Meteorological Institute, almost 12% of the Greenland ice sheet had more than 1mm of melt on 11 April, following an early start to melting. “We had to check that our models were still working properly,” said Peter Langen, a climate scientist at DMI on the Polar Portal website, which provides research by Danish research institutes on the Arctic.

Previously, the top three earliest dates for a melt area larger than 10% were all in May—5 May 2010, 8 May 1990 and 8 May 2006.

Another study on 9 June showed that there was a dangerous trend coming about in the Arctic. The study published in Nature Communications and conducted by researchers from the University of Sheffield and Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and other institutes showed that record-high temperatures and melting records that affected northwest Greenland in summer 2015 have been linked to the anticipated effects of a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification. This refers to the phenomenon of faster warming of the Arctic compared to the rest of the Northern Hemisphere as sea ice disappears.