India Launches Hefty Communications Satellite Into Orbit to Cap Busy 2018 (space.com) 48
India successfully squeezed a seventh launch into the year Wednesday, using an upgraded version of the country's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle to place a massive communications satellite into orbit for the Indian Air Force. From a report: That communications satellite, called the GSAT-7A, weighs nearly 5,000 lbs. (2250 kilograms) and will allow the Indian Air Force to manage all of its space communications itself, rather than paying for satellite services. "This mission, both in the launch vehicle as well as the satellite, there are so many firsts," K. Sivan, chair of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), said. [...] Today's was India's last scheduled launch for 2018, although the country is eyeing two launches in January 2019, including of its second moon mission, Chandrayaan 2.
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The GSLV MK-III costs approximately $60 million, which ISRO intends to further lower to garner the lucrative heavy satellite launch contracts. While a satellite launch on Arianespace's rocket costs about $100 million after subsidies, SpaceX charges approximately $62 million.
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I'll see your polo shirt and raise you a Nehru jacket.
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Never will India have to consider what it wants to do in space from another nations perspective.
The education system, production lines and tech is now full in place in India. The science and production lines can grow with any future advancements.
No outside nations support, help, comments, regulations, laws are needed.
Launching satellites into orbit is a big deal for India as the USA and other nations attempted to hold
Re:More orbital junk (Score:5, Insightful)
If everything launched into orbit is, ipso facto "junk", then why worry about junk running into other junk?
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Big satellites aren't much of a problem, they're easy to track or calculate their orbit. Probably more so in geostationary orbit (sitting above a fixed point on the equator).
Mini-satellites launched into a low orbit aren't much of an issue either: they will de-orbit and burn up in the upper atmosphere after a relatively short amount of time.
It's the stuff in between that's the problem: a wrench or a bolt lost by an astronaut during a spacewalk, a part or module that somehow comes loose from a satellite
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The space debris problem is primarily limited to low earth orbit (about 150-1000 km altitude). It takes a lot more energy to get up to geostationary orbit, so we don't put satellites there unless we absolutely need it t
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This is excellent news! (Score:1)
Now, after waiting on hold for three hours, I won't have to deal with chopped and dropped sentences when "Brad" from Bell Canada's Customer Service Department explains to me why they have been overcharging me for services I never ordered and don't use.
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Thank you....come again!!
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If you were a jackass, you might think that.
Still under-developed (Score:4, Interesting)
India is a Failed Nation (Score:1)
India is a typical failed nation.
New Delhi wastes money on military satellites and nuclear weapons when most Indians live in poverty. By contrast, when Poland was an impoverished nation, Warsaw deliberately refused to spend money on military satellites and nuclear weapons; the Polish government spent most of its resources on economic development.
Today, India remains economically poor, but Poland is relatively wealthy.
Among the Russian elites, supporters of Vladimir Putin use India to justify rejecting demo
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If India focuses solely on fighting poverty, they will be fighting poverty forever. Instead, they choose to also stimulate high tech enterprises. As to allocation of funds: it looks like India saves money by building and launch
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Good point. They have 1.3 billion people in their country, over 60% of whom do not have access to a toilet and yet they are launching satellites that weight as much as a full size pickup truck into orbit. Are they a developing nation? What's the metric?
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Define toilet? Why do people claim people in India have no toilets?
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Because the World Health Organization told us I guess:
"India with 626 million people who practice open defecation, has more than twice the number of the next 18 countries combined [who.int]"
They seem to define Toilet as not practicing open defecation.
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And who tells us that this is true, or that they in fact have no toilet?
I mean: did you never piss at a tree?
I never have been in India, but I find it hard to believe that houses have no toilets or no "outhouse".
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I think you may have confused the word "developing" with "so poor that they're not developing at all."
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They could not buy in, import and ask for other nations for "free" help.
So India had to slowly do the math, science and production lines at its own pace.
A generation and decades later everything is in place and India is winning.
Contsider that with the way France, the UK efforts with Skynet (satellite) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org], China, the USA started and worked on their rockets.
Very different approaches, education, workers, laws and budgets.
Because it requires no toilets (Score:1)
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Re: India is a Failed Nation (Score:2)
I heard the same thing growing up in the UK in the 80s but now Sikhs and Hindus are held up by righties as a model of how immigrants should behave unlike those evil Muslamics that want to destroy our culture. No doubt in 20 or 30 years' time someone else will be blamed for our public services being short of money.
Hefty? (Score:2)