Antrix launches five more satellites

[Vikrant]

Antrix an Indian company launches five satellites for France, Canada, Germany and Singapore. This solidifies India's entry into commercial space launch business.

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NEW DELHI —
India took another step Monday in its ambitions to tap the commercial potential of its space program by launching satellites for four other nations. Prime Minister Narendra Modi commended the country’s space program as the world's most cost effective.

India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle blasted off Monday morning from the eastern port of Sriharikota carrying a 714-kilogram French Earth observation satellite and four smaller satellites.

Prime Minister Modi, who witnessed the launch, pointed out that all five satellites put into orbit were from advanced countries.

“Even today’s satellites are all from developed nations - France, Canada, Germany and Singapore. Truly this is a global endorsement of India’s space capabilities,” said Modi.

The launch marked another milestone in India’s efforts to grab a larger slice of the lucrative global satellite launch market.

Focusing attention on the frugality of India’s space program, Modi said India has the potential to become the world's satellite launch service provider.

He pointed to reports that the $100 million spent on making the Hollywood movie “Galaxy” exceeded the cost of a spacecraft India sent to Mars last November.

“Even today our program stands out as the most cost-effective in the world… Our scientists have shown the world a new paradigm of frugal engineering and the power of imagination,” said Modi.

India’s Mars program has won attention for its modest $73 million price tag. That is just over one-tenth of the money spent by NASA on a Mars mission it launched days after the Indian one.

Indian scientists say frugality has always been the goal of a space mission whose annual outlay is just $1 billion - a fraction of space programs in major space-faring nations such as Russia and the United States. This is the advantage India hopes to leverage in the commercial launch business.

Modi also sought to leverage India’s space program to give a further push to his diplomatic offensive in the South Asian region.

He called on Indian scientists to use their expertise in satellite technology to help all eight countries in the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation, known as SAARC.

"Today, I ask our space community, to take up the challenge, of developing a SAARC satellite - that we can dedicate to our neighborhood, as a gift from India. A satellite, that provides a full range of applications and services, to all our neighbors,” Modi said.

India has faced some criticism that a poor country should have more pressing priorities than launching satellites such as supplying clean water and toilets to its people. But Modi says that the country’s space program is making a huge contribution to the common man through its applications in areas such as disaster and resource management.

India Launches Satellites, Highlights Low Cost

 

[waltky]

VLF radio waves form a shield that keeps killer electrons from leaving the Van Allen Belts...

Radio Pollution Creates Space Shield for Satellites
October 29, 2017 — People are big polluters, on the land, in the sea and even in outer space, that can include anything from a hammer that floats away from the space station, to radiation from a nuclear weapons test in the atmosphere.

"This can range from little chips of paint all the way up to spent rocket bodies and things like that," said Dan Baker, director of the Laboratory of Atmosphere and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "We’ve been trying to figure out how can we most effectively eliminate this debris without causing more of a problem." Space debris travels so fast, even an orbiting chip of paint can poke a hole in a satellite. But Baker says something tinier, and natural, is a bigger hazard: It’s the highly charged "killer electrons" of the magnetized zone above the earth called The Van Allen Belts. "We've observed them to cause very significant problems for spacecraft," Baker said.

NASA tracks more than 500,000 pieces of space debris as they orbit the Earth, each represented here by a dot.​

Electro-magnetic planetary blanket

The doughnut-shaped Van Allen Belts around our planet protect life on earth from solar winds and cosmic rays. But their highly energetic charged particles can damage the circuitry in space stations, weather satellites and other machines that travel through that region of space. Baker notes that "killer electrons" can also come from some human activities, like the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. "Back in the 1950s and especially in the 1960s, there were nuclear explosions that put huge amounts of radiation into space that caused many satellites to 'die' because of radiation damage," he said. "And if that were to happen today, we know that there are over 1,400 satellites operating in space around the earth and all of those could be subject to very severe consequences."

VLF radio waves propagate into space, forming a shield that keeps killer electrons from leaving the Van Allen Belts.​

Most nations adhere to treaties that prohibit atmospheric weapon testing. But Baker says that’s no guarantee. "What is worrisome to us from a political standpoint today is that there are nations, for example, North Korea and others, that may be thinking once again, and who may not be adherent to such treaties, that this might be an interesting way to mess with modern technology," Baker said.

Mysterious space shield

Radiation particles in the Van Allen Belts already "mess" with modern technology. So when satellites must spend time in that region, they are built with thicker materials. That armor makes them heavier, and more expensive. Fortunately, spacecraft and satellites that orbit just under the Van Allen Belts don’t need this heavy shielding. Baker says that’s because, at the lower edge of the Van Allen Belts, the killer electrons abruptly stop. He compares it to the shields that protected Captain Kirk's ship, the Enterprise, from phasers and asteroids on Star Trek. Scientists have known for years that something here on the earth creates an invisible bubble that clears killer electrons from the lower edge of the Van Allen Belts. Just what makes that shield has been a mystery.

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