India has put its first satellite into lunar orbit and sent a probe to the moon’s surface, according to the India Times. Now the flag of India is also on the moon. See the news video of the probe’s moon landing.
India has several satellites in orbit around the earth, and has just agreed to buy a terrorism surveillance satellite from Israel. The remote sensing satellite will be able to track the movements of suspected terrorists even in monsoonal cloud cover. Last January India also launched an Israeli made satellite. With the Pakistani Islamic attacks on Mumbai near Thanksgiving in 2008, India has begun to revamp its anti-terrorism strategies in line with the advances seen in Islamic attack strategies.
Israel’s relationship with India in weapons technology is so strong that recently the Israeli defense company Rafael made a video ad for the Indian public which is humorous and entertaining while getting the publicity point across. It aroused much negative comment from the American far left universe. But that’s to be expected…
India has approximately 100 nuclear warheads, but enough weapons grade plutonium to make many more. It has medium range ballistic missiles, and has been working on ICBM’s, but has not produced any yet.
ISRO gearing up to put Israeli satellite in orbit
The Hindu - CHENNAI: A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is getting ready to put in orbit Israeli satellite RISAT in the first week of April.
The vehicle integration has already begun at the spaceport at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The launch campaign is gathering speed. The vehicle, PSLV-C12, will also deploy a mini-satellite called Anusat, built by Anna University, Chennai.
RISAT is a radar-imaging satellite used for remote-sensing. It can take pictures of the earth 24 hours of the day, through rain and cloud. The satellite has already reached Sriharikota from Israel.
Anusat, an amateur communications satellite weighing 38 kg, was integrated at the Madras Institute of Technology, Chennai, of Anna University.
It is undergoing tests at the ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore. It will reach Sriharikota soon. Its integration helped the students to get a hands-on experience in understanding the complexities in building a satellite.
This is the second time that the ISRO will be putting in orbit a satellite from Israel. On January 21, 2008, a PSLV deployed in orbit Tecsar, also a radar-imaging, remote-sensing satellite. The launch was executed under a commercial contract between the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and the Antrix Corporation, the commercial wing of the Department of Space.
Radar images
India may use the radar images from the Israeli RISAT because the integration of India’s own RISAT had been delayed, an ISRO official said. However, another ISRO official said, “We do not know the end-user.” The Indian version of RISAT will be launched later this year or next year.
The PSLV that will put RISAT and Anusat in orbit in April from Sriharikota’s second launch pad is a “core-alone” version — without the six strap-on booster motors that form part of the standard PSLV. The core-alone vehicle weighs 230 tonnes while a normal PSLV weighs 295 tonnes. The PSLV is 44 metres tall.
