Really Rocket Science

Nice job, Arianespace!

The mission was carried out by an Ariane 5 ECA launcher from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Liftoff was on Friday, September 28, 2012 at 6:18 pm local time in Kourou (5:18 pm in Washington, D.C., 21:18 UT, 11:18 pm in Paris, and on Saturday, September 29 at 2:48 am in Bangalore).

ASTRA 2F. Built by Astrium using a Eurostar E3000 platform, ASTRA 2F weighed 6,000 kg at launch. Fitted with active Ku- and Ka-band transponders, ASTRA 2F will be positioned at 28.2 degrees East. It will deliver new-generation DTH TV broadcast services to Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and offers a design life of about 15 years.

GSAT-10. Designed, assembled and integrated by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in Bangalore, southern India, GSAT-10 weighed about 3,400 kg at launch and offers a design life exceeding 15 years. The satellite is fitted with 18 C-band and 12 Ku-band transponders. Positioned at 83 degrees East, it will provide direct-to-home broadcasting, weather and radio-navigation services. Its coverage zone encompasses the entire Indian sub-continent.

Excellent idea: establish a space engineering school to assure a steady stream of qualified new employees for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). 150 graduates of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) will go straight to meaningful jobs at the ISRO. Via IBNLive…

“By the third week of June, the first batch will be out. The students are presently in the middle of their projects which should be completed by mid-June. By July, they will be posted to various units,” IIST director KS Dasgupta said. All students who achieve a specific cutoff mark set by the IIST will be directly absorbed into various units of the Space Department, he said.

The first batch has about 150 students in three BTech courses offered by IIST Avionics, Aerospace Engineering and Physical Sciences. Meritorious students have a job assured at the over 20 spacerelated units of ISRO, including research facilities such as the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL).

Five of the first-batch students are presently doing their projects at the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), US, while one is set to attend an advanced ninemonth course in aerospace engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

Inaugurated on September 14, 2007, by the then ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair, the IIST was ISRO’s answer to the acute human resources crunch the space agency expected to face in the immediate future. The USP of IIST was an assured job at some of the most technically advanced institutions in the country. The students also sign a bond promising their services for a minimum of five years.

For a time, IIST operated out of a temporary campus at Veli. In 2010, the IIST fully shifted to a permanent campus at Valiyamala adjacent to ISRO’s Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre.

Holy Wild Kingdom, Batman!! A wandering leopard could have risked the launch of PSLV C-16 the other day…

A prowling leopard in Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Shar at Sriharikota in SPSR Nellore district created a flutter among scientists in the space port on Thursday. According to information, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel guarding the Shar noticed the leopard late on Wednesday night near the second launching pad from where PSLV C-16 is slated for launch in the third or fourth week of April.

Wildlife officials of Sullurpeta swung into action after the CISF alerted them and beat drums and burst crackers to drive away the animal into the forest till the early hours of Thursday. The district forest officer, wildlife management, Mr Ch. Pardhananda Prasad, said that they became aware of the presence of a leopard in the Shar forest during January. Referring to the pugmarks they had spotted then, he said that the animal was about five years old. Speaking to this newspaper on Thursday, Mr Prasad struck down apprehensions about its movements, causing any obstruction to the proposed launching. “Shar is situated in the midst of 18,200 hectares of forest area which is a totally restricted zone. The leopard does not have to search for its prey since there is a sizeable population of deer and wild boars in the forest, among other animals.”

He ruled out rumours of trapping the animal, pointing to wildlife rules. He said that such a situation will arise only when animals turn into man-eaters. Mr Prasad said that they were ensuring that the animal was driven away from habitations in Shar with the help of their staff.

In the launch business, you’ve got to make sure you have every angle covered. Including leopards.

Nice job on the successful launch, by the way. Maybe we should introduce Florida Panthers to all the wild boars around The Cape.