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RS : September - October 1999
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Dr. Kasturirangan gets Firodia Award
ISRO to launch two more satellites
UK to launch Beagle II
Spacecraft to Explore Mercury
RS and GIS for district level planing in Haryana
RS Technology to Forecast Agricultural Output
Satellite predicts Disease
‘FUSE’ to find fossil remnants
Dr. Kasturirangan gets Firodia Award
Dr. K. Kasturirangan has been awarded this year’s H. K. Firodia award for exellence in science and technology. Dr. Kasturirangan, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation and Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Space, was selected for his contribution towards the launch of Bhaskara, IRS and INSAT series of satellites, which made India one of the six countries in the world with major space programmes.
ISRO to launch two more satellites
ISRO plans to launch two more advanced communication satellites within next 12 months to augment India’s telecommunication capacity. Preparations are on for launching Insat-3B by Ariane rocket form Kourou, French Guiana in September, and the contract has also been signed for Insat-3A with Arianespace. The launch is scheduled to the middle of next year. Insat-3A will carry a very high resolution radiometer (VHRR) and a charged coupled device (CCD) camera similar to that of Insat-2E. It also has a Satellite Aided Search and Rescue (SAS&R) and a Data Relay Transponder (DRT), besides communications transponders in C-band, extended C-band and Ku band.
It may be recalled that INSAT-2E was launched on 3rd April, 1999, from Kourou, French Guiana. The satellite is a multi-purpose satellite for telecommunication, television broadcasting and meteorological services. Among the INSAT series, for the first time the satellite is carrying a CCD camera operating in three spectral bands - visible, near infrared and short wave infrared, with a spatial resolution of 1 km and a radiometric resolution of 10 bits. The water vapour band has been introduced for the first time. The communication payload comprises of seventeen transponders, 12 operating in the normal C-band frequency and 5 in the lower extended C-band.
UK to launch Beagle II
To investigate life on Mars
Britain to descend Beagle II in 2003 to the surface of red planet Mars, which will examine the traces of life. The probe Beagle II would be launched from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express satellite that will detach itself from the satellite and go down to the surface of Mars.
Spacecraft to Explore Mercury
Scheduled to be launched in 2004
NASA is planning to launch a tiny, but efficient orbiter that will map mercury and a spacecraft that will blast a hole into a comet to enable scientists to see what is inside. The Mercury Space Environment Geochemistry and Ranging Mission (Messenger) will carry seven miniaturised instruments to look for water, a magnetic field and other interesting phenomena on the planet, and will be the first spacecraft to visit Mercury in more than 30 years.
RS and GIS for district level planing in Haryana
Key information about resources and networking
The Haryana State Remote Sensing Application Centre (HARSAC) has launched "key information about resources and networking" to obtain information on land and water resources needed for sustainable management of local areas. The state is using remote sensing and GIS for distict-level planning.
A digital database for computerised resource information system for all the districts of the state would be created in a phased manner. HARSAC is in the process of finalising such database for Bhiwani and Gurgaon districts through financial support of the Department of Space.
RS Technology to Forecast Agricultural Output
Use of IRS WiFS data
The space technology has proven to be effective in forecasting agricultaural output. On the basis of multidate IRS WiFS data national wheat production was forecasted to be 72.875 million tons for 1998-99 season by FASAL / CAPE (Forecasting Agricultural output using Space, Agrometeorology & Landbased observations / Crop Average and Production Estimation). The latest estimates of the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture (DAC / MOA), has been reported to be 73 MT. The estimates made for the first time in FASAL Forecast was also closely matched with final DAC / MOA estimates. The trend was followed in the second time too. No statistical error has yet been found between the FASAL forecasts and DAC / MOA estimates of national wheat production for the year 1998-99.
Satellite predicts Disease
Green Vegetation-the indicator
Using satellite images and other cli-matic data, outbreaks of disease can be predicted months in advance. A team of scientists analysed information collected by a USA Government weather satellite to study the density of green vegetation in Africa to predict outbreaks of rift valley fever, which can kill livestock and human beings. Mr. Kenneth Linthicum of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and his colleagues found the amount of green vegetation was a reliable indicator of rainfall, which in turn, predicted the rise and fall of mosquito population. In Africa, rainfall encourages mosquitoes, which carry rift valley fever, a haemorrhagic disease spread from livestock to humans by mosquitoes or by contact with infected animals. In 1998, the disease killed more than 600 people in Kenya.
Analysis of weather and climate data could be used to warn a range of diseases and could improve efforts to warn of drought, flood and other disasters and several climate indices can be used to predict outbreaks up to five months in advance. Satellite measurements with ground based data and the actual traditional medical sources will greatly help efforts to predict outbreaks not only of rift valley fever, but of other insect-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever and even to predict cholera outbreaks, said Mr. Paul Epstein of Harvard Medical School. Data from instruments that measure temperature and algae concentrations could show where conditions are right for cholera, which is often spread in polluted seawater.
‘FUSE’ to find fossil remnants
The Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE), a satellite specially focused to try to find the fossil remnants of the ‘Big Bang’ that created the universe has been planned to set off. It will whip around the earth every 100 minutes to search light waves normally blocked out by the planet’s atmosphere.
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