India achieved a remarkable success in the field of space research on January 10, 2007 with it''s ninth polar satellite launch vehicle successfully deploying in space four payloads - two Indian satellites and one each from Argentina and Indonesia -all in one attempt.
This feat of the Indian Space Research Organization is also unique in that it designed its ninth polar satellite launch vehicle for reuse in its future missions. India''s progress in space research also gets confirmed by the fact that it has put in orbit an earth imaging satellite Cartosat-2 to transfer images with high spatial relosution. With this India can now source its own images instead of buying from the US.
These images would be finer at 80 cm resolution in comparison to those obtained by the US satellites which are at one-meter resolution. Moreover these images would be far less expensive in comparision. Being built in India at Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre the ISRO''s launch vehicles are already globally competitive. If in it''s newer design the polar satellite launch vehicle capsule is recovered successfully it will be considered another technological breakthrough. Besides bringing about a further significant lowering of the cost of space launch, this will pave the way for an early manned space mission - to which the Indian scientists are looking as a coveted mission. This success apart, doubts are being raised in India''s capability to utilize fully the satellite-generated information and analysis.
One reason for this may be the lack of the availability of supercomputer facility to Indian scientists. It is hoped that this gap would be covered soon and would not hamper the progress of the country in the field of space research. DNBhatnagar