Artificial Satellites

The Indian Space Research Organization doesn't need to look outside the borders of its own country to find technological innovators. The program today is an entirely ground-up operation that designs and launches its own satellites and research vehicles into space. Here is a list of some of the more promising programs sponsored by ISRO.

Shooting the Moon: Some time in early 2008, ISRO plans to launch the Chandryaan-1, an orbital space satellite designed to map the surface of the moon. Since NASA proposed a new initiative to use the moon as a starting point for an eventual manned mission to Mars, India has stepped forward to help out. Chandrayaan-1 will begin a two-year mission where it will aim to send back millions of high-quality images for scientists around the globe to ponder. Just 100 kilometers above endless miles of dusty planes, Chandryaan will drop a miniature probe to test future technology that could one day be the proposed basis for a lunar landing where the ISRO could use its own robotic rovers. Scientists from the European Union, United States and Bulgaria have all contributed instruments to the mission.

SCRAMJET: When you absolutely, positively have to get a jet to move at 25 times the speed of sound, the only practical option is to construct an engine that uses atmospheric air to fuel combustion. To reach those speeds it's just not practical to carry along your own oxygen like most rocket engines do. The trick seems to be finding a balance between drag and thrust -- otherwise the engines won't fire up, or worse, they could break apart. Eleven countries have ongoing hypersonic programs, but no one has yet been able to announce anything much better than a short flight. Seeing the SCRAMJET, or Supersonic Combustion Ramjet, as an integral part of developing a reusable launch vehicle, ISRO is working on developing its own Re-entry Launch Vehicle and recently tested an engine on the ground that fired at Mach 6 for seven seconds. Unlike the space shuttle, the RLV won't thrust itself into orbit, but only briefly exit the Earth's atmosphere, deposit a satellite into orbit and then come back down to the space center. Once perfected, the RLV could eliminate the need for disposable jet stages and significantly cut launch costs.

Rocket science: Sending delicate objects made out of metal and glass into space without breaking them into a million pieces or dropping them into a nearby ocean is not something to be taken lightly. India has successfully put 44 satellites into orbit. Until a recent failure in which the Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle, a disposable three-stage cryogenic rocket designed for launching communications satellites, exploded a minute after takeoff, ISRO had an impressive string of successful launches. A second disposable rocket that positions reconaissance satellites into polar orbits, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle has only had one failure in eight launches and will launch the Chandryaan probe next year. In the coming two years India will complete research on a new launch craft, the GSLV-III, that will be able to handle large satellites weighing up to 6 tons into space.

Miniature satellites: Building disposable multi-stage rockets that only launch one or two satellites at a time before they succumb to the will of gravity and burn up in the atmosphere doesn't exactly give you bang for your rupee. So a team of scientists at the ISRO have begun to develop miniature satellites specially outfitted to be deployed by their two currently operational launch vehicles. According to Raghava Murthy, the project director for the small satellite program, the ISRO is developing miniature modules half the size of the average dining room table that could be launched up to 16 at a time.

Remote sensing: The bulk of India's space program hasn't devoted much time to looking into the remote corners of the universe; instead it has spent most of its time looking back at Earth. Just about every one of the 44 satellites launched by ISRO has had at least one instrument with a camera or other scientific instrument. Together these programs have produced major breakthroughs in search and rescue, detecting climatic shifts, uncovering archaeological ruins, managing fisheries and forests, and detecting water in the most barren areas of the planet. The technology is on par with the best the world has to offer, with one major advantage: The average satellite can be had for half the price.

Telemedicine: India has world-class health infrastructure in the big cities, but most of the country's population only has access to village doctors whose credentials are crash courses in first aid from run-down medical colleges. With telemedicine, specialist doctors in the city are able to diagnose and treat illnesses in the remotest corners of the country from the comfort of their own hospitals. ISRO satellites now connect over 271 rural districts with first-rate doctors in the metro areas. There is even a satellite-dish-sporting clinic on wheels that covers the remote areas of Tamil Nadu providing care to people for whom a trip to the city for treatment could be life-threatening.

Telecommunications: Before 1980 India had virtually no TV. One state-run channel provided most of the programming and it was only available in a few select areas through scattered terrestrial transmitters. In 1982 India launched the INSAT satellite program that has stewarded over 20 communications satellites and brought increasing television and meteorological coverage to the nation. Now most of the nation is covered in the warm blanket of MTV, Discovery Channel, and a host of local language stations that proffer news and some of the most melodramatic soap operas ever conceived. Truly, the space age means that even the most rural villagers have a chance to be part of the MTV generation.

Observation satellites, orbit at altitudes ranging from 300 to 600 miles. (480 to 970 km). They are used for tasks like photography.

Science satellites are sometime found in altitudes ranging from 3,000 to 6,000 miles. (4,800 to 9,700 km). They transmit their research data to Earth via radio telemetry signals.

For your navigation, Global Positioning System, or GPS. The GPS uses satellites at altitudes of 6,000 to 12,000 miles to determine the location of the receiver.

They are usually found in a ship, in another spacecraft, in a airplane, in an automobile, also your smartphone.

There is lot of satellites that range in the altitudes. If you wish, please be more specific.

It came from Russia, which was at the time the USSR, the Soviet Union.

Sputnik 1 was launched from Gagarin's Start which is the 5th Tyuratam range, located inKazakh (now at the Baikonur Cosmodrome).
Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite, was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, then a part of the USSR.