New Delhi: The Comptroller and Auditor General report on the controversial Antrix-Devas deal tabled in Parliament has called it "a classic case of public investment for private profit". The report comes down heavily on the Department of Space saying that in its eagerness, it concealed facts from the Cabinet and violated several rules. The report also has harsh words for retired ISRO employees MG Chandrasekhar and D Venugopal. The report...
02:21 PM, May 15, 2012
Hyderabad: "Mar ke bhi chain na paya to kidhar jayenge? (If there is no peace in death, then where will I go?" This Urdu couplet from Ibrahim Zauq aptly sums up the problem of the dead in Hyderabad. In this booming metropolis, where thousands struggle for a place to live in, even death offers no solution. Rapid urbanisation, burgeoning population, escalating land prices and shrinking graveyards due to encroachments have...
12:58 PM, May 15, 2012
Mumbai: After MiD DAY reported how over a 100 vehicles jostle for one parking spot in Mumbai, it emerges that the citys fleet of 42,000 cabs might widen the ratio even more, competing as they are with private vehicles for parking space at select locations in the city and the suburbs. The system of operating prepaid taxi stands outside various railway stations, and of share-a-taxi stands on several arterial roads...
12:50 PM, May 14, 2012
Bangalore: The Indian space agency will on Saturday conduct a crucial test on an indigenously built cryogenic engine for launching its heavier rockets from its spaceport, a top official said on Friday. "The cryogenic acceptance test will take place on Saturday in our Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre at Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu. If it succeeds, we will use the cryogenic stage in the geostationary satellite launch vehicle (GSLV) rocket later...
12:50 AM, May 12, 2012
Jakarta: A Russian-made plane carrying 46 people lost contact with air controllers while flying over mountains during a demonstration flight on Wednesday in western Indonesia, officials said. Search and rescue teams were heading to the area, said Bambang Ervan, a spokesman for the Ministry of Transportation. Bad weather, however, forced at least two helicopters to turn back. The Sukhoi Superjet-100, a civilian plane, took off from Jakarta's Halim Perdanakusuma Airport...
06:16 PM, May 09, 2012
New Delhi: The government on Wednesday said China intruded twice into the Indian airspace last month when its helicopters were found flying over territories of Himachal Pradesh. "There was an incident of air violation on March 16 when two Chinese helicopters were observed flying on Indian side of international border in Himachal Pradesh," Defence Minister AK Antony told Rajya Sabha in a written reply. Another such incident took place on...
02:04 AM, May 03, 2012
Chennai: India will ferry two foreign satellites - French and Japanese - on board its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C21) rocket in August this year for a price, said a senior official. "The next rocket launch will be in August. We will be sending our PSLV rocket with French satellite SPOT 6 (800 kg) and a small Japanese satellite weighing around 15 kg. Though the rocket is called PSLV-C21 it...
01:29 AM, Apr 30, 2012
Pyongyang: In North Korea, the choreography can be part of the geography. The country is famous for organising crowds of thousands of people using coloured cards to spell out political slogans and images in stadiums or large squares, and the gathering last week to celebrate the 100th birthday of national founder Kim Il Sung was no different. This time, however, the spelled out message in a central square in the...
08:14 AM, Apr 29, 2012
New York: In a city understandably wary of low-flying aircraft, New Yorkers and tourists alike watched with joy and excitement on Friday as space shuttle Enterprise sailed over the skyline on its final flight before it becomes a museum piece. Ten years after 9/11, people gathered on rooftops and the banks of the Hudson River to marvel at the sight of the spacecraft riding piggyback on a modified jumbo jet...
04:01 PM, Apr 28, 2012
New Delhi: RISAT is the name of a series of radar imaging reconnaissance satellites, commonly called spy satellites, deployed in the space by India. Till now, India has two of these operational. The first one, named RISAT-2 was prioritised over RISAT-1 in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks as the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) needed some time to develop its own synthetic aperture radar. It is not...
09:52 AM, Apr 27, 2012
New Delhi: India has launched its first radar imaging satellite that can deliver crystal clear pictures in all weather conditions. It can even peer through jungle and dense tree cover. RISAT 1, India's heaviest remote sensing satellite, soars into space aboard an extra powerful PSLV XL rocket. K Radhakrishnan, Chairman, ISRO, says, "RISAT took Rs 378 crore to make. This includes research and development costs. The PSLV XL rocket cost...
07:16 PM, Apr 26, 2012
New Delhi: They call her RISAT 1 - short for Radar Imaging Satellite. She's the first such machine India has built on its own. While most remote sensing satellites need light to snap pictures, RISAT uses microwaves - similar to the ones in your kitchen oven. Just like your camera fires a flash of light, RISAT-1 fires microwaves, which the ground reflects back. A radar inside the satellite uses those...
08:19 AM, Apr 26, 2012
Chantilly: Space shuttle Discovery soared around the Washington Monument and the White House in a salute to the nation's capital on Tuesday before landing for the last time near its new museum home. The world's most travelled spaceship took off at daybreak from Cape Canaveral, Florida, bolted to the top of a modified jumbo jet for the trip. Three hours later, the pair took a few spins around Washington at...
11:06 PM, Apr 17, 2012
Chennai: The Indian rocket that will carry the 1,850 kg indigenous surveillance satellite - Radar Imaging Satellite (Risat-1) - to the skies this month will be controlled by the new mission control centre at Sriharikota, said a senior official of Indian space agency ISRO. "The second mission control centre was inaugurated by President Pratibha Patil this January. The forthcoming rocket launch would be controlled and monitored from the new mission...
03:32 PM, Apr 09, 2012
Bangalore: Indian Space Research Organisation has signed a deal, believed to be valued at around Rs 100 crore, to launch an 800 kg satellite of ASTRIUM SAS, a Company under EADS, France. ISRO said in a statement a commercial launch services agreement between Antrix Corporation Limited (ANTRIX), its commercial arm, and ASTRIUM SAS, has been inked but gave no financial details of the deal. But sources in the Bangalore-headquartered space...
10:08 PM, Apr 03, 2012
Exactly on April 3, 28 years back, IAF Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma strapped himself inside a Soyuz T-11 mission capsule. As the rocket, essentially a gigantic intercontinental ballistic missile, carrying the 6850-kg spacecraft, blasted off from its launch pad in Baikonur in Kazakhstan, Sharma became the first Indian cosmonaut, the first Indian in space. Born on January 13, 1949, in Patiala, Punjab, to Hindu Gaur parents, Sharma joined the Indian...
12:22 AM, Apr 03, 2012
Cape Canaveral: Space enthusiast and entrepreneur Jeff Bezos has found the rocket motors used to send the Apollo 11 astronauts to the moon and plans to mount a recovery expedition soon, the Amazon.com CEO and founder reported on a blog post. The five F-1 engines were fired up on July 16, 1969, sending the massive Saturn 5 rocket on its way to the moon. The motors burned out a few...
09:50 AM, Mar 30, 2012
Washington: India's Sachin S Kukke is the Asia-Pacific region winner and one of the six global winners of the YouTube Space Lab 2012 contest for young people to design experiments that could be performed in outer space. The winners of the contest by YouTube and Lenovo, in cooperation with Space Adventures, NASA, ESA (European Space Agency), and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) were announced at a ceremony at the Newseum...
10:53 AM, Mar 27, 2012
New Delhi: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak in Seoul on Sunday. The duo issued a joint statement post-meeting that said that the two leaders pledged to enhance cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space as envisaged in the MoU on cooperation between the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI). The full text of the deal India -...
03:26 PM, Mar 25, 2012
