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Space

India To Launch Its First GSLV Satellite 129

Posted by timothy from the around-and-around dept.
NeoCode writes: "Tomorrow, India will launch its first GSLV satellite using the Russian launchers. Its an amazing feat since they have built the satellite from scratch. If the launch is successful, India will become the sixth nation (US, Russia, China, Japan and the European Space Agency being the others) to build and launch a GSLV class satellite. Rediff.com has complete coverage on the story behind the making of this satellite. More details can found here @CNN, @TribundIndia.com and @Space.com."
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India To Launch Its First GSLV Satellite More

India To Launch Its First GSLV Satellite

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  • What's GSLV.....while you're at it (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I guess if you have to explain that, might as well explain "geosynchronous"

    So what does geosynchronous mean?

    Geosynchronous means in step with the earth's rotation.

    When the satellite completes an orbit, it will be very close to it's starting location (relative to the Earth)

  • Re:The race to come - 1984 true after all? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    China without a shared sense of history? A post colonial entity? Your books on history must be very different from mine... I thought that China had been one of the prototype nation states, with a strong central government, for quite some time. But that's the european version of history. Your milage may vary.

  • Re:The race to come - 1984 true after all? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Nice troll.
    "largest economic area"? You're comparing a country to a region ... include Canada and Mexico and North America beats Europe in GDP.
    "leadership of the French"? (try UK/Germany)
    No "shared sense of history" in China? (Confucius et al)
    And still modded up -- I have much to learn ...
    (Must be the length of the response + use of terms like 'exosphere' and 'global government')

  • Re:Hee hee (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    >The Chinese dropped the ball. If they had put any real effort into pushing their geopolitical boundaries into Europe, the British wouldn't have whipped their asses in the Opium wars, which led them into subservient colonial status for the next 150 years.

    Er, wrong. It was the Manchus who dropped the ball (they certainly don't see themselves as Chinese, even moreso during WWII when they sided with their Japanese masters, forming Manchuko as a puppet state). You see, back in the 1600s, these people called the Manchurians were simply barbarians who managed to overthrow the Ming Dynasty (who earlier overthrew the Mongol dynasty) by colluding with corrupt gov't officials. After their conquest, the Manchurians forced their 'culture' (hairstyles, dress-styles, etc) on everyone in China and those who didn't faced severe punishment. Not only that, they erroded every part of the gov't, including it's military, to the point where the British and all other invading nations easily colonized China. If you want to blame someone for the fall of ancient China, blame the Manchus. They obviously had no concern for maintaining a stable nation.

    >They'd stand a better chance of being a superpower now if they hadn't wasted so much of their internal energy on Maoism and crushing internal dissent. As it stands now their political and economic systems are grossly corrupt. Their foreign policy bent on selling destablizing technology to anti-American nations rather than actually working to expand their influence.

    One of the chief goals of Maoism was to promote national unity (one of the many victims under Manchu rule). Incidentally, facing nothing but criticism from the West allowed the Communist hardliners to gain support by painting the West as anti-Chinese (when was the last time the West said anything positive about China?). As noted, some of those same hardliners are also those furthering corruption under the shadow of Western criticism (West criticises => hardliners gain support and abuses of power => more criticism for the West => more support for hardliners and more corruption).

  • creating from scratch is a myth (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    We all inherited wheels - we didnt reinvent them all over. Its not stealing as some posts have indicated - its called knowledge-sharing as in open-source - come to think of it open-source should be exapnded to open-knowledge so more people can participate. The idiots who think somebody adopted a technology to build something are being as myopic as anybody can be. Indian sages thousands of years ago invented the number 0 and thus all scientific discoveries that follow are stolen from India ? Thats screwed up logic at best. Share the knowledge - rename open-source to open-knowledge - and see what the entire humanity can do.

  • Wha...? (Score:3)

    by Enry ( 630 ) <enry.wayga@net> on Tuesday March 27, 2001 @12:34PM (#336620) Journal
    According to CNN:

    India is set to conduct the first test of a rocket to launch geostationary satellites this week.
    India, which aims to launch a satellite with the GSLV after three successful tests, will join the United States, the European Space Agency, Japan, Russia and China as a member of the satellite launch club if all goes to plan.

    Now according to this, it's a test of a ROCKET to put a satellite into geosync orbit (so it stays over the same point relative to the surface of the earth). After three tests of this rocket, THEN India will put a satellite up, presumably in geosync orbit.
  • OTAN and ONU are the spanish accronims(sp?) of NATO and UN, but I agree, is easier to use only one accronim(sp?) for each organisaion, regardless of the language.
  • Not only that, looks like a lot of slashdotters cannot read. It's clearly written that you posted the story, but almost everybody blame Timothy for the mistake -_- and forget the fact that readers post the stories and the editors select wich ones get posted.

    sigh....

    P.S. Good story =)
  • ... former H1's who couldn't stay in America longer than 6 yrs and were replaced by inexperienced graduates in need of training?
  • > a shared military

    There is no "united european army" because of language barriers mostly. But beyond smaller military baselevel-organisation there is a multitude of combined efforts. E.G. most administration and development is united, mostly at NATO-level, but also at european-level.

    The european comission and parlament is a fourth level of government. While most federal countries only have three levels (county/city, state, nation), the EU is a fully qualified fourth level (county/city, state, nation, union). It has actual power in nearly all fields of european life, it can create laws and enforce them. I would call that a government, even when it takes ages just to define the shape of a class 2b banana.

    I would also expect a stronger unification within the next decade. Some "not amusing actions" by the US made the nation-heads think... eg. espionage and privacy-violations, misusing standards or tradepower under US-control to apply political preasure, a very egocentric position in cultural and technological points (nice quote from a public servant in a newspaper "at least russia doesnt piss into our beer in public and expects us to say thanks.")

    The political ways are quite clear: The EU will become the most important power within the next ten years: 500 Million citicens, a GNP way above the USA, a size nearly twice as large as the usa (ok, half of the size is located in grenland, but hey, most regions in the US are not very interesting either :-) good connections to most nations on the earth (especially to most ex-east-block, arab and south-east nations), trading-, cultur- and military outpost all around the world (even including one or another old colony, which also makes the EU the only nation beside russia where the sun never sets :-).
  • Disagree.AFAIK, spy sattellites are usually in lower orbit (so they can move over a lot of countries), hence can not be geosynchronous. In a geosync orbit (about 36,000miles which is too-far out to take a nice picture), the satellite stays in a fixed position relative to earth, and hence a the footprint is smaller.

  • Down with us? Why do you think the U.S.A. and the E.U. are "going down"?

    Just curious.

  • I still don't get it... why do you think we're "going down" economically?

    Recessions happen all the time, there have been a couple worse than the current one since I was born and I'm not that old. Or do you have other reasons for thinking so?

  • Canada is the best. But seriously, shouldn't Israel be on the list?

    D
  • You are wrong. You are closed minded and a bigot.

    The only way any non-white country ever did anything technical is by stealing it from someone else, right?!

    dimwit
  • Please ask the Germans and British how they feel about the suppression of their political independence under this "United States of Europe" vision.

    One thing the EU currently has in droves is an absence of security-related capabilities -- see Bosnia without US involvement.

    I also do not see any European Union controlled nuclear weapons in evidence. Oh wait, the French have them, so that is the continent's nuclear deterrent taken care of.

    Funny how a deployed and working missile defense system will invalidate it completely. And the Chinese arsenal is also likely to dwarf that of "Europe". Leaving the US and Russia (the dinosaurs) with the nuclear potential to destroy humanity.

    And the "united europeans" standing on the sidelines. Kibitzing.

  • It says it's payload is an experimental communications platform. What are the odds, that this satellite might just help in say, I dunno targetting nuclear weapons ? Or maybe it's a spy satellite. The former scares the hell out of me, but, I'm paranoid. 'Side, the GSLV is also in the same general area as creating ICBMs.

    ---
  • EVERY sattelite is built from scratch. There is no sattelite manufacturing facilities, or sattelite junkyards. You dont go to Martin-Lockheed and ask, Where's your base line sattelites, I'd like to check one out, What kind of mileage does this one get?

    The amazing thing is that here in the US, a bunch of non-scientists garage hack mechanics and engineers build several sattelites over the past 3 decades and had them launched. Ham radio sattelites. They're up there and running well.
  • Sorry, I should have specified economically.
  • Merely a figure of speech. Yes, recessions do happen, but in a country such as India that still has a staggering poverty rate, if the effects of our recession start to affect them adversly, it affects them much more severly, as, unlike us, most of their population still lives in third world conditions. A recession happens here, and peoples standards of living go down.

    There, for most people, the standard of living CANNOT go down, they just die.

  • New Power? (Score:3)

    by Ravenscall ( 12240 ) on Tuesday March 27, 2001 @11:57AM (#336635)
    It is Interesting to take a look at India and see just where they have been going recently.

    They are the Tech Powerhouse of SouthEast Asia, and that is a lot considering all of the tech in SouthEast Asia. Their Economy is on the upswing. They may just be the next economic powerhouse.

    Or their reliance on US and British goods will bring them down with us.

    Either way, only the future will tell.

  • What's GSLV? An answer (Score:5)

    by joshv ( 13017 ) on Tuesday March 27, 2001 @11:51AM (#336636)
    GSLV=geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle.

    I guess we all speak space jargon, so there was not need to put that on the front page.

    -josh
  • Yay China, I guess, since I'm Chinese.

    It's about time, too. It's sort of insulting, that one of the oldest civilizations on Earth is not quite a superpower, despite having developed and refined governement and buearacracy for the past 4000 years. Go team!

    The Chinese dropped the ball. If they had put any real effort into pushing their geopolitical boundaries into Europe, the British wouldn't have whipped their asses in the Opium wars, which led them into subservient colonial status for the next 150 years.

    They'd stand a better chance of being a superpower now if they hadn't wasted so much of their internal energy on Maoism and crushing internal dissent. As it stands now their political and economic systems are grossly corrupt. Their foreign policy bent on selling destablizing technology to anti-American nations rather than actually working to expand their influence.
  • The explanation I've always accepted was Chinese complacency led to a lack of expansion which in turn led to a lack of conflict. With no conflict you have no military advancement, hence British frigates easily sink the Junks and any hope of Chinese military power and political independence.

    Arguing that critcism of China perpetuates Chinese abuses is a little specious, like arguing that critcism of Stalin is responsible for his purges. While perhaps it may enable Chinese propaganda, it neither justifies Chinese repression and corruption nor explains away their own responsibility for it.
  • How does it currently work with a country who doesn't have its "own" satellite? Are they rented out? What advantage is is to have your own GSO satellite?

    Jethro
  • It's painfull to see so much BS on the front page of slashdot.

    GSLV == Geosynchronous Space Launch Vehicle.
    used to launch upto two-tonne(metric) satellites in an orbit 36,000KM from the earths center, where their revolution around earth is at the same angular velocity as the rotation of earth around its own axis. This is usefull for COMMUNICATIONS satellites. The distance is too large for this to be put to any military use except military communications.

    India has been building its own satellites of all classes since almost two decades now. This is the next step in their LAUCH capability.Till now they used to have their geosynchronous satellites lauched thru the European Arienne Space. They have already succefully launched satellites in the polar (north-sorth) orbit, which is very usefull for remote sensing, weather prediction, and of course, spying).

    While it is true that the GSLV scheduled to be lauched tomorrow is designed and built in india, it incorporates a critical component which is not of indian manufacture: The Cryogenic Engine, and engine which works with liquid hydrogen to provide the high thrust, but thus requires to do a lot of its functioning at a very low (below Hydrogen boiling point) temperature. Under a cold-war-era deal, the USSR agreed to supply seven cryogenic engines to india for its initial use, while simultaneously tranferring the technological knowhow to ISRO ( NASA for INDIA) so they could manufacture their own later. This later part of the deal, the tech transfer was later cancelled, under intense US pressure, as the US was worried about the ICBM-related uses of cryogenic technology.

    So although this still is a big deal for a third world country to achieve, it is not true to claim that the GSLV is totally indigenous. To the credit of ISRO, they assert they will be ready with a completely indigenous cryogenic stage in the next 3-4 years. Thus the US-mandated ban could be a blessing in disguise for domestic indian R&D, repeating the success story of the Indian Supercomputer, PARAM, built from scratch indigenously, after the US refused the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, permission to import a CRAY-YMP from the US.
  • See the latest news:
    There was some problem and the launch didn't take place:

    http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/mar/28gslv1.htm
    http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/mar/28gslv2.htm

  • Re:And what a nation! (Score:3)

    by wfberg ( 24378 ) on Tuesday March 27, 2001 @03:31PM (#336642)
    a shared military, a shared government ??? You really seems as ignorant as G. Bush !! Military relation between France and Germany are like those between France and USA in the OTAN... And shared government: wtf ! Don't you learn in school what is a governement, but perhaps you think we (the world) are all under the governship of the ONU...

    For the benefit of L-T-R English readers:
    OTAN=NATO
    UNO=UN

    This kind of Frenchification of abbreviations is exactly why "ISO" is not an abbreviation of "International Standards Organisation".. If that were the case, the French would spoil the standardization process by calling ISO OSI (Organisation de Standardisation Internationale).. EEk!
    --

  • Wow, stop ! The Twelve stars don't represent countries, like the stars on the US flag do.

    The EU's Twelve stars (which have been twelve since the inception of this flag) are a symbol of completness and perfection (citing europa.eu.int from memory. Aaaah, when will we have plain .eu as a ccTLD...)

  • Them satellite images cost money, as does bandwidth. And it's adds to the "superpowers" bragging list. India has nukes, a blue water navy, subs, troops, satellites, etc. etc.

    The real thing is to get a satellite up into geosynchronous orbit is a heckuva lot harder than to just get one into low orbit. Anyone with money to buy a SCUD missle can get something out of the atmosphere. Factor in the difficulty of space-hardening something that isn't explosive in nature, and is designed to last long enough to make a few bucks....
  • I'm not asking the moderators to mod this poster up (your own discretion).

    However, I do wish to comment that this is a well-reasoned, well-written post. Quite enjoyed reading it.

    Thanks for taking the time to write it.
  • There must be other things to consider as well, as the only launch site (as far as I know) in Sweden is located in the very north of this country. (I'm talking about Esrange in Kiruna, http://www.ssc.se/esrange/)

    If it's always preferable to be near the equator, Canada can find much sites way south of Kiruna (Just about pick any location at random in the country).

  • This is why the ESA generally launches out of Africa - not Europe.

    So French Guyana is in Africa? How fascinatingly clueless...

  • I actually think the EU is one of the smaller economic areas, in comparison to the US or to the Asias; do you remeber Japan, Taiwan, China, and Korea? They form a formidable engineering and technology quartet, with India rising quickly too. But this is an uninformed 'opinion' post, on my part.

    Either you are comparing apples to oranges : Europe[an Union] is tightly-bound politically and economically, which is definitely not the case in Asia in general;
    or you just don't care about the numbers. The European Union is the biggest economic zone in the world (GNP, production, intra-zone/inter-country and inter-zone commerce, etc.). And, yes, bigger than NAFTA.

  • Modded offtopic eh? Of course moderaters don't understand a quick light jab at "funny" do they?

    *sigh*

    -PovRayMan

    ----------

  • A Few Corrections (Score:3)

    by Sivaraj ( 34067 ) on Tuesday March 27, 2001 @12:50PM (#336650)
    "Tomorrow, India will launch its first GSLV satellite using the Russian launchers.

    GSLV is not a satellite. It is a launch vehicle - Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle.

    Its an amazing feat since they have built the satellite from scratch.

    India had been building satellites for two decades now. This is not her first indegenious satellite. In fact, the one on GSLV-D1 is an experimental satellite with few useful payloads that are not very critical to indian communication infrastructure.

    If the launch is successful, India will become the sixth nation (US, Russia, China, Japan and the European Space Agency being the others) to build and launch a GSLV class satellite.

    GSLV satellites? I guess he means the geosynchronous satellites. ISRO [isro.org]'s previous launch vehicle series, PSLV was used for launching satellites in a polar orbit. The latest Indian Remote-sensing Satellites (IRS series) had been launched using PSLV rockets.
    The GSLV rockets currently use some Russian cryogenic engines. It is still a major stepping stone for indian space industry.
  • There's a difference between geosynchronous (orbit period same as the earth's rotational period) and geostationary (orbit period same as earth's rotational period AND orbit plane is the same as the plane of the earth's equator).

    The orbit plane of a satellite passes through the center of the earth. So a geostationary satellite will appear to sit over the same spot at the equator. A geosynchronous satellite would move up and down in latitude over the course of an orbit.

    That's why orbital "real estate" over the equator is so valuable.
  • Free slurpees, get it right! :)
  • Of course, I could have everything completely wrong...

    Indeed. India has been launching satellites since the late 70s - the INSATs, Rohini, etc. This is merely the test of a launch vehicle capable of reaching geosynchronous orbits (hence GSLV, as opposed to the polar orbits PSLV, the last generation, could reach).

    OTOH, Pakistan already has missiles that can reach well into the Indian heartland, so sending up a few million people in a puff of nuclear smoke is not such a difficult task for them either. Especially when you consider that India has 1.02 billion people now.

  • I really hope europe is not getting the same ridiculus law suits as the US have.
  • The stars used to be for every EU country, but when they reached 15 countries they stopped adding stars and decided to settle on 12 as the number is good anyway :)
  • Since when do the French run the EU? It's really a Franco-German axis driving the thing, with the Germans usually more dominant.

    It's more complex than that. Germany is usually dominant in economic and social matters, while France is dominant in military, diplomacy and cultural matters.
  • Oh wait, the French have them, so that is the continent's nuclear deterrent taken care of.

    As do the UK. Although in a US vs Europe war they'd probably side with the US, just like they always do when a small trade-wars between the two giants appear.

    Funny how a deployed and working missile defense system will invalidate it completely.

    You are under the impression that the US has technology the Europeans don't. What makes you think they don't have anti-missiles too, and counter-measures against anti-missiles ? Last time I checked the Patriots were pretty loosy anti-missiles compared to the French equivalent. Also most (all?) European nukes (French/UK) are lunched from nuclear-subs, so it won't be as easy to shot down as a loosy north-korean missiles traveling accross the whole pacific. The US army has a huge weak point : arrogance...
  • I actually think the EU is one of the smaller economic areas, in comparison to the US or to the Asias;

    Nope - the EU market is bigger than USA, both in population and in GNP. Of course if you add USA+Canada+Mexico, this might change, but then, USA+Canada+Mexico aren't united the same as the EU countries are. As for Japan+Taïwan+South Korea, they are way behind the two other behemoth.

    do you remeber Japan, Taiwan, China, and Korea? They form a formidable engineering and technology quartet, with India rising quickly too.

    The problem is, India is NOT part of the Asian block. I know for a fact that Chinese don't like Indian very much ("hate" would be a more adequate word), and I'm sure Indian have the same feelings in return. India and China will be both superpowers of their own, but definitely not together. Not in our lifetime at least.

    I hope the US becomes a great force in this global govt, by assimilating and adapting all the relevent cultural forces and movements into itself,

    I sure hope not - there are enough ugly McDonald's and KFC around the world today. And don't get me started on this loosy Hollywood "culture". One "Independance Day" movie is enough.
  • Under the leadership of the French? Maybe the Brits or the Germans, but the French? They haven't made any waves in civilization since the 1800's, except as Germany's punching bag.

    Well then I guess the invention of radioactivity, the cinema and a bazillion of other stuff just don't count in your definition of "civilization". But then I guess you are probably leaving in a cave anyway...
  • Err, according to the respectable Webster dictionnary :

    invent :
    1 - discover, find
    2 - to devise by thinking : fabricate
    3 - to produce

    Hence usage 1, although somewhat archaic, is correct. Marie Curie indeed invented radiocativity.
  • I'm dumb.

    Geosynchronous means that if the sattelites TRULY are geosynchronous, then they'd NEVER collide, because they're (relative to earth) not moving and would never share a path.

    do these sattelites ONLY orbit at the equator, though? I mean, if a sattelite is orbiting over, say, argentina, it would be travelling over a smaller "orbit" than a sattelite travelling over southern Mexico.

    If they DO orbit only over the equator, then the math would be one dimensional, as you say, otherwise, my two dimensional (orbital plane) math is correct.. I think. (-: I'm a web developer. My math skills have been largely unused since school. (-:

  • Re:Expansion (Score:3)

    by TheTomcat ( 53158 ) on Tuesday March 27, 2001 @01:16PM (#336662) Homepage
    [these numbers could be wrong... fair warning]

    Geosynchronous Sattelite orbit is approx. 35,000km above earth's surface.

    The earth's radius is at the surface ~6400 km.

    So, the surface area (s) of of a GS sattelite's orbital plane would be:
    s = 4(pi)(radius)^2
    s = 4(3.14159)(35000 + 6400)^2
    s = 4(3.14159)(41400)^2
    s = 4(3.14159)(1713960000)
    s = 21538238385.6

    ~21 _billion_ square kilometers is a whole lotta sky to plug up. AND, that's assuming that all GS sattelites travel on the same orbital plane.

    BUT, assuming it's a plane, we have to worry about sattelites orbital paths intersecting at a time when both sattelites are at the intersection points of their orbits.

    I'm sure that sattelite collisions are MUCH more more of a problem than "crowding the skies with junk".
  • Funny that, I thought the Europeans used to own the US. Must be wrong.
  • Germany and France? That's not the big news. The big news is that nobody has partitioned Poland for more than 50 years! (European History joke ;)
  • Population equaled power a hundred years ago. Now its more of a nuisance than anything else. The problem is that the tax base doesn't grow proprotional to the population, since much of it is tax-exempt. Bangladesgh, for example (a small country next to India) tax-expempts 90% of its population of 120 million. If that population was around 20 million (appropriate for a country of that size) then the tax base wouldn't be smaller, and might even be larger because the average wealth of people would increase. That's why organizations like USAID (US deparment for foreign development) are working to spread birth control to third world countries.

    PS> A funny tidbit. The US maintains several Pentium II computers each connected to its own private T-1 line to track US condom shipments to foreign countries.
  • And sadly enough, I get it too... *sigh*
    --

  • France and Germany are both using the term "super-state".

    And what strange bedfellows they make, considering their histories towards each other. I'm glad they're finally able to put their differences behind them; it gives me hope for the rest of humanity.
    --

  • The launch was aborted when flames were seen leaping up the side of the rocket shortly after the engines were ingnited.

    Full story from BBC here. [bbc.co.uk]

  • India will become the sixth nation (US, Russia, China, Japan and the European Space Agency being the others) Israel had AMOS-1 [most.gov.il] (a GSLV) launched at 1996. India is at least seventh nation.

  • Sarcasm aside, Canada isn't geographically positioned very well to do launches.

    The closer your launch site is to the equator, the more of a boost you get from the rotation of the earth, meaning you can launch a bigger payload on the same device. This is why the ESA generally launches out of Africa - not Europe.

    Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just a netadmin, not a rocket scientist.

  • Oops... This feature is already there. My bad. Bye-bye, timothy. =)
  • What is a GSLV satellite? There is no such thing. India has created a launch vehicle, not a satellite. There are way more countries with domestically produced satellites than are on that list, because the list is of countries with launch capability.

    Apparently, the employees of slashdot wouldn't know journalism if it bit them in the ass. (And, aren't some of them journalism majors? =) Why did fact checking not catch this? Because you don't do any? --

    So, this leads me to suggest the following: A preferences feature that lets me add certain editors to an "ignore" list, so I don't keep having to read the false crap that timothy regularly decides is worthy of slashdot.

  • It was the Manchus who dropped the ball

    So defeat by the British during the Opium Wars was the fault of the Manchu ? I don't really see that somehow - and look at a calendar if you need a bigger clue.

    they certainly don't see themselves as Chinese,

    Granted

    even moreso during WWII when they sided with their Japanese masters, forming Manchuko as a puppet state).

    "Sided with" is an interesting choice of phrase here. It's a little unfair (although common) to describe Siam as "siding with" Japan, but describing Manchuria in this way is ridiculous. They were invaded and militarily defeated by the Japanese, in a particularly comprehensive and brutal fashion. It's hardly "siding with", unless you'd also refer to Poland and the Ukraine in the same way.

  • ... what President Bush's science advisor is telling him about this?

    Oh, that's right, he doesn't have one yet. That's why there's nobody telling the President that the budget cuts in science and technology are wrong-headed.

    As more people get involved in reaching into space, the costs of getting something out there will decrease. However, unless something changes for the better, we won't be able to guarantee that our lead in space exploration will be maintained.

    I hope India's project is successful. And I hope that it reminds some people that we used to spend money on improving our ability to go into space, and that our Space Shuttles aren't getting any younger!

  • China never been a nation state? No shared sense of history

    BAH HAH HAH HAH ROTFLOL!!!!!!

    Is that what you're learning in the KKK history books?

  • > My map of Europe must be out of date, because I don't remember that nation...

    What else do you call a bunch of people with a shared currency, a shared military, a shared government and a shared space program?

    France and Germany are both using the term "super-state". Meanwhile Britain is just sitting on the fence; too nervous to join, too scared to be left behind.
    --



  • wont just be a triumph of india, but of every underdog out there who just didnt accept defeat when the odds were against them, but decided that "I am gonna do it myself ". Isnt this what Torvalds did ?

    It's also what Saddam Hussein did when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Should we celebrate destabilization because other nations had applied diplomatic pressure in an attempt to stem hostility? No.

    Sure, I'd like to think that India intends to use this newfound ability to improve its economy. I doubt the real intention behind this launch capability is to jumpstart a satellite launching industry in India. How profitable can that possibly be? It usually costs something like a hundred million dollars (US) to get a satellite up in the sky. Insurance on these launches is almost as high as their intended orbits. Can you possibly imagine how much it's going to cost to insure the launch of a satellite by a rookie program like this? Sorry to say, but this is all about intimidating Pakistan.

    This is a pretty descent article [nando.net] about what this means to India and Pakistan.



    Seth
  • Take a look at the Puppy [isro.org]
  • Seriously, the Euro has fallen to a fraction of its original value. The European Union is a failure, and not terribly surprising at that, as language barriers are one of the most powerful dividing forces in the world.
  • The really sad thing about India is that it can afford to feed itself, but the setup of the country doesn't allow. The gap between rich and poor is too great, and despite democracy the richer city dwelling types are the ones who do the most voting. Besides- a GSV will only allow the country to become richer, and it's nuclear programme should hopefully ensure peace with Pakistan. It'll work out in the end- hopefully.
  • The idea that Russia is more stable than India is stupid. India is a real democracy, Russia is a oligarchy run by an ex-KGB lunatic. Russia is a once proud country on the brink of collapse, and is desperate. India is a country that is picking itself up from the third world and colonoism(sp?) and is clearly making real progress. The cynic in me suggests you are meerly an ignorant racist

  • Re:Each Country's Own (Score:3)

    by fgodfrey ( 116175 ) <fgodfrey@bigw.org> on Tuesday March 27, 2001 @01:45PM (#336682) Homepage
    The intro was rather confusingly worded. India has satelites. What the big deal here is is the *launch vehicle*. What that gets them is the ability to charge people for satelite launches.
  • Well... India has already built and launched a lot of geostationary satellites. What India lacked was the capability to take these satellites to the geo synchronous orbit! All previous satellites were launched by French rockets. Hence this launch is essentially a test of India's "launch capability" and hence the stress on ROCKET!!
  • Oddly enough, you can go to Ball Aerospace and ask for just that... satellite buses [ball.com]
  • "If the launch is successful, India will become the sixth nation (US, Russia, China, Japan and the European Space Agency being the others) to build and launch a GSLV class satellite."

    You mean Canada isn't even on this list?!... but they are the BEST at EVERYTHING [slashdot.org]. Surely there must be a mistake!
  • I just read about Markov chains in DDJ. What do you suppose was the input text before the output was generated? Because the output can't just be created from the aether, right?

    Peace,
    Amit
    ICQ 77863057
  • Various organizations in India are already involved in projects for building supercomputing machines. I know at about least 3-4 publicly known projects. A lot of them are already in use (mucch before Beowoulf ...) Ckeck out the following links. http://www.webspawner.com/users/SUPERCOMPUT/ http://www.cdacindia.com/ http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/india/facility/hyder abad-drc-other.htm
  • Sattelites should not be a matter of nations but of the world. The sky above may be vast, but if it becomes too crowded, everyone will be affected. We need to form a global organization for the regulation of sattelites before our skies become too crowded with junk.

    That said, I must also congratulate India on a wonderful advance. I hope that someday the manned exploration of our solar system will be picked up one day, and the involvement of other nations in space will further that hope.

  • And what a nation! (Score:4)

    by BMazurek ( 137285 ) on Tuesday March 27, 2001 @11:54AM (#336689)
    ...
    sixth nation...

    European Space Agency

    My map of Europe must be out of date, because I don't remember that nation...

    Must be in the Balkans...

  • I would much rather be under the control of the European Parliament than Rupert Murdoch's latest puppet prime minister. But that's just me.
  • Unlikely that common sense reigns here. India and Pakistan hate each other with a passion that makes the cold war look like a slight disagreement. This could be another flashpoint in the region, just like Israel.
  • Except the launch part was a bit optimistic [bbc.co.uk]. Better luck next time guys :-)
  • The best thing I read about the ISRO was this [spacer.com].
    I would really love to see some other nation reach the moon, whether it was India or even China. And if some day the Indians colonised the moon, at least you'd be sure of a good curry up there...


    Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
  • but then GSLV satellite dowsn't make sense. Is it a launch vehicle (rocket) they are making or a satellite (or both)?

    Ok, I'll go read the article now.

    ---

  • Re:What's GSLV? An answer (Score:3)

    by Fishstick ( 150821 ) on Tuesday March 27, 2001 @12:10PM (#336695) Journal
    Ok, so no, this is a launch system, not a satellite. They already make satellites.

    "We have already shown the world that we can build successful commercial satellites," he continues. "Now if we prove that we can launch it correctly, it would be the next step."

    The article says they want to be able to deliver a complete solution, build a satellite and put it in orbit for the customer. Hope they have a better success than the Chinese Long March failures. [space.com]

    ---

  • The launch failed! The BBC are reporting an aborted launch after the Russian engines ignited at the wrong end when fired. They also say that it'll take 3 years for India to develop their own engine. Personally I think it would be better for them to do that. Fresh ideas in the rocket arena wouldn't go amiss. Plus, knowing India, it'll probably end up being a fraction of the price of US, China or European rocket engines!
  • Yepee! Thanks for uniting us! We were already waiting for that! Yepee!
  • Like my sig?

    The only way any non-white country ever did anything technical is by stealing it from someone else, right?!

    NO, but there is a history. For large progects like space and advance weps, things that we have done FIRST, tend to get riped off in other countries. My point was that the second( or sixth, seventh...) country to do something almost always watched the first and learned from them.


    ________


  • Those of you who think India is a novice at this stuff, take note of the following.
    There is only 1 major company out there today which sells high quality satellite imagery, and that is Space Imaging [spaceimaging.com]. News organizations, governments, your favorite dictator [wildscooter.com], etc. buy hi-res imagery from them. Now, did you know that 4 of the 7 satellites used by Space Imaging are Indian satellites? Betcha didn't know that, didja! Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself [spaceimaging.com].
    India may be poor, Third World(tm), etc. etc. but it is making progress. Accept it, and we'll all get along just fine. No point wetting your bed at the sight of Indian rockets blasting off into space.

  • Grumble... damn slashcode mangled my URLs... grumble...... here's the rant again, with proper URLs..
    Those of you who think India is a novice at this stuff, take note of the following.
    There is only 1 major company out there today which sells high quality satellite imagery, and that is Space Imaging [spaceimaging.com]. News organizations, governments, your favorite dictator [wildscooter.com], etc. buy hi-res imagery from them. Now, did you know that 4 of the 7 satellites used by Space Imaging are Indian satellites? Betcha didn't know that, didja! Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself [spaceimaging.com].
    India may be poor, Third World(tm), etc. etc. but it is making progress. Accept it, and we'll all get along just fine. No point wetting your bed at the sight of Indian rockets blasting off into space.

  • Gee, now that India has nuclear bomb capabilities and this launch vehicle, I suppose that they can now put a nuclear bomb anywhere they want.

    Why wasn't that mentioned in the article?

    Cryptnotic

  • From ISRO press release [isro.org] the problem was in the liquid strapon boosters, which where developed in India, not russia. The russian component was the cryogenic upper stage. It was never given a chance to prove itself...

    TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
  • Mod up, those are the best links I have seen...
  • SpaceDaily [spacedaily.com] is reporting [spacedaily.com] a scrub due to a fire on the pad.

    TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
  • The nuclear implications of the launch are the same they were for the US and USSR in the early days of the space race: it demonstrates to the world that you have the capability to place a nuclear bomb anywhere on the planet you like. That was why everyone got scared of Sputnik, and why the space programs were so big for a while.

    As for it being a nuclear targeting satellites, it seems unlikely: hitting a city is much too easy to require a satellite, since cities don't move very quickly.

  • I agree that it is large, but it should be 2*PI*R*(20 meters or whatever you want to call the lateral dimension)...GEO satellites are only found at one inclination ~0 degrees, so there really aren't satellite intersections and it is only a circumference worth of space...still big though.
  • GSLV is not a satellite, its the rocket thats going to launch the satellite. India has a very successfull satellite program with first satellite built in early 70's. Since the 80's it is building INSAT series multipurpose telecommunication satellites which were launched either by Russia, ESA or NASA. India's indigenously built remote sensing IRS series satellites rank among the best in the world. It is also launching these using PSLV rockets into the polar orbit. The only thing missing was the capability to launch geosynchronous satellites. Russia was going to supply them with cryogenic engines which are required to lift the payload to geo orbit, but US threatened sanctions and the deal was called off. The reason given was that India may use these for missiles!!! How about killing the competition, since India can launch satellites at much lower rate commercially for others. This would be a great boost for the third world, and NASA would loose some market. As an Indian, I am proud of it and wish all the success to ISRO. They have worked hard for years to achieve this. Thanks for listening.
  • They do have a lot of other satellites. The INSAT [isro.org]program and the PSLV satellites are comparable to the ones created US and Russia and even better in some aspects. You can get more info about the Indian Space Research Organization at ISRO's website [isro.org].
  • Yay China, I guess, since I'm Chinese.

    It's about time, too. It's sort of insulting, that one of the oldest civilizations on Earth is not quite a superpower, despite having developed and refined governement and buearacracy for the past 4000 years. Go team!

    I wonder what you mean by the demise of the nation-state. A nation-state does not preclude the rise of geopolitical economic power structures, it just means that a nation-state has to be particularly large to achieve this. US is a good example of what could be potential 30 or so nation-states that collude and pool together to form a vaster, greater nation-state. So China already has that advantage, and the EU is finally catching up, in bits and pieces.

    I actually think the EU is one of the smaller economic areas, in comparison to the US or to the Asias; do you remeber Japan, Taiwan, China, and Korea? They form a formidable engineering and technology quartet, with India rising quickly too. But this is an uninformed 'opinion' post, on my part.

    I don't think America will be challenged by these entities at all. I think what will happen is that America will *assimilate* these entities. We've already swallowed a large amount of India's talent pool; when they go back to further grown India, they will have been corrupted by the influences of American culture(as we have been by their music, curries, and tandori chicken =). This is happening to China, to Japan, to Taiwan, and many other places.

    As much as I want to see a global government, I don't think that will happen any time soon. Too many vast cultural divides exist for that to be possible in the near future. Heck, the Taliban still wages war on womanhood, how the heck would they coexist with great nations where women are prime ministers and leaders of technology, finance, and economy?

    I hope the US becomes a great force in this global govt, by assimilating and adapting all the relevent cultural forces and movements into itself, and spreading it's own sense of culture and values (hopefully not at the expense of diversity!) into a global economy and existence.

    Louis

    Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
  • It was mainly a joke response to LA,T's post, more than anything else.

    Anyway, to address your points, if you're being serious;

    What is civilised or refined about a nation that shoots it's own students (Kent State)? or Murders it's people(Waco, Ruby Ridge)? Or kills babies (abortion)?

    No, USA is not civilised or refined by any benchmark, indeed, it makes me wonder if you are just a fool?

    Do you see what I'm saying? China breaking into superpower status is not tied to becoming a democracy. Being a democracy does not prevent a nation from being brutish or evil.

    History has shown that it is ambition, greed, and desire that makes a state 'super'. Freedom and Democracy just make it a nicer place to live, for the people; in the case of the US, it *is* arguably the reason the people are here, and it is the people who make the nation 'super', nothing else.

    Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
  • This represents the dawning of the next age in space exploration. The huge third world nations, China and India, are beginning to flex their muscles and create a valid and sustainable challenge to the space hegemony of the United States and Europe. We have already seen that command of the exosphere is important in any military strategy, and it will become more so in the future.

    We are seeing the demise of the nation state and the rise of geopolitical economic power structures.

    The European Union we already know about - it has a lengthy history in space with the ESA, and this will only increase. Already the largest economic area on Earth, as it gains political cohesiveness it will come to challenge the mastery of America, under the leadership of the French.

    China and India have never really been nation states anyway, being large multicultural post colonial entities without a shared sense of history. Nevertheless, they can be considered rising stars, already with resurgant middle classes and greatly increasing wealth.

    America will be challenged by these new entities, and its time at the helm of the worlds power structure will surely pass. However, before that happens there will be a struggle for control of the exosphere through technology - I expect to see a flurry of satelite launches and space competition in the coming fifty years of history.

    Perhaps the next round will involve the totla merging of these entities and the begining of a truly global government. Only then will space exploration be undertaken for its own sake alone.

    The problem is that the USA in particular hangs on to an outmoded idea - the idea of the nation state. Hopefully it will see the light and not stand in the way of the new era.

  • Okay, I can't be the first to think that relations between India and Pakistan aren't exactly the best possible. Once one of those nations started to do nuclear tests, the other followed suit within a week or so. I would go so far as to say they have started their own cold war between them--using the US and Russia whenever possible.

    The problem I see here is that Pakistan is going to want to match/beat the Indians. The Pakistanis will certainly be fearful (and rightfully so) if India can place a satellite into orbit but they can't. Medium range missles only get their warheads into most of India, and the surviving portion of India would retaliate and live on. Pakistan wouldn't last past the first assault.

    Of course, I could have everything completely wrong...

  • Mod down, this is the most useless comment I have ever seen.
    ----

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