India on the moon: Chandrayaan-1 Launch successful

Chandrayaan-1, India’s maiden moon spacecraft, was put into Transfer Orbit around the earth by the Polar Launch Vehicle PSLV-C11 after it blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.

The 1,380 kg Chandrayaan-1, carrying 11 payloads, was released into a Transfer Orbit 18.2 minutes after the PSLV-C11 blasted off.

After a series of procedures over the next two weeks, the spacecraft would reach its desired Lunar orbit and placed at a height of 100 km from the Lunar surface, marking the operational phase of the mission which would put India in the elite lunar club.

Earlier, at the end of the 49-hour countdown, the 44.4 meter tall four-stage PSLV-11 lifted off from the second launch pad into a cloudy sky......

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Chandrayan-II:India Planning to Land a Rover on the Moon

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Iran launch of Omid successful

 

Iran announced Sunday that it launched a satellite into space earlier in the day, the country's first domestically made.

The satellite, Omid (hope), was launched Sunday by using Safir (ambassador) satellite-carrier rocket, the armed forces said in a statement, quoted by the official IRNA news agency.

The Omid Satellite which was successfully fired on the birth anniversary of the last Imam (prophet) of Shiites, Hazrat Mahdi (who is believed to reappear at the end of the world) illustrated the auspicious name of the Imam in the space, IRNA said. 

According to Iran's English-language Press TV satellite channel, the domestically manufactured Omid Satellite will pass over the country six times a day.

The launch of Safir rocket aimed to test remote sensing, satellite telemetry, and geographic information system (GIS) technology as well as remote and ground station data processing, Press TV said.

Another news agency Fars quoted government spokesman Gholam- Hossein Elham as saying that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was at the launch of the communications satellite from Iran's space station.

In February, Iran said it has prepared for the satellite launch by sending a probe into space of a rocket on the mission.

Ahmadinejad announced in his press interview in Istanbul Friday that Iran would in near future launch its first domestic satellite to the space.

Iran, embroiled in a standoff with the West over its disputed nuclear ambitions, has pursued a space program for several years, according to media reports. 

Source : http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/

Nigeria to Use Spacetech to Fight Flood Disaster

Nigeria - The Federal Ministry of Science and Technology is to avail relevant agencies with space-based technology to address environmental problems.The Minister of Science and Technology, Chief Mrs. Grace Ekpiwhre stated this in her speech at a Workshop on Flood Early Warning systems organised in Abuja on Tuesday.

Mrs. Ekpiwhre said agencies of her ministry like the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) and the Centre For Remote Sensing, would be willing to work with the Federal Ministry of Environment and Urban Development, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), and other agencies to develop early warning and monitoring systems for sustainable environmental development in Nigeria.

According to her, space-based technology such as Remote Sensing, Geographic Information System and Global Positioning System are very reliable as they provide faster, cheaper, accurate and reliable data for addressing flood and other environmental disasters. Mrs Ekpiwhere said NASRDA and the National Centre for Remote Sensing had just produced settlement Map of Nigeria, and a Digital Elevation Model and they are currently working to produce a National land use/land cover mapping at the scale of I: 100000 using NigeriaSat – I.

While canvassing closer collaboration with her – Ministry with that of Environment, Mrs Ekpiwhre added that satellite images provides synoptic data of an area either in real-time or near real-time at different spatial and/or temporal resolutions.

She further said that the Geographic Information System provides the enabling environment for combining remote sensing date, Digital Elevation Models, hydrological data and other spatial and attribute datasets to delineates flood affected areas under different magnitudes of floods or flood scenarios.

She concluded that the development of flood Early Warning systems for Nigeria was not only timely but necessary in achieving the 7 – Point Agenda, adding that the Ministry's Space Agency would provide all satellite images while the centre for Remote Sensing based in Jos was well-positioned to facilitate the implementation of Flood Early Warning System. 

Source : http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=118965

ISRO postpones Chandrayaan I until mid-October

India - The launch of India's first unmanned mission to the Moon has been postponed until the middle of October, the head of the Indian space program has said. 

The launch of the Chandrayaan I lunar orbiter by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) was originally planned for September 19 but scientists have yet to conduct the thermo-vacuum testing of a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) with the orbiter on board.

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