ASTROSAT India's own observatory launched into space
NEW
DELHI: A satellite launch vehicle
carrying ASTROSAT, India's first astronomy observatory to study distant celestial
objects, was launched from Sriharikota in Andhra
Pradesh this morning.
Polar
Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) C-30 lifted off from the launch pad at the
rocket port in
Sriharikota, around 80 km from Chennai, at 10 am. Minutes later, the Indian
Space Research Organisation (ISRO) declared that the
PSLV has successfully launched ASTROSAT
into the orbit.
With its
successful launch, India becomes the first country in the developing world to
have its own telescope in space and joins a select
club of US, European Union and Japan to have such a
capability. China is still working on its first space telescope called the
'Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope'.
The
turbo-charged 'mini Hubble Telescope' will be used to study black holes and
analyse how stars and galaxies are actually born and
how they ultimately die.
This flight
of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) is historic as, for the first
time, American satellites are being launched by
India. Till recently, the US had kept ISRO under sanctions and was denied the
critical cryogenic engine technology which pushed back India's foray into deep space by two decades.
The four
small LEMUR satellites are being launched for a San Francisco-based company.
The PSLV
will also carry a Canadian and an Indonesian small earth observing satellite.
This will be
the 31st flight of the PSLV rocket, which has had 30 consecutive successful flights till date.
ASTROSAT
will be placed almost 650 kilometres above the surface of the Earth and is expected to have a mission life of 5-years.
"The
global astronomy community is looking forward to this launch as no other global space-based telescope has comparable
capabilities," Dr Kiran Kumar, ISRO Chairman had said on
Sunday.
The
1,515-kilogram satellite has been assembled at the ISRO's Satellite Centre in
Bengaluru. It took the agency Rs. 178 crore and 10 years
to make it. The idea was conceived more than 20 years
ago.
Top Indian
institutions like Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai, Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) in
Bengaluru, Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and
Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune and the Raman Research Institute (RRI) of
Bengaluru were involved in its development.
With its
successful launch, ISRO asserts, India will be the only country to have
multi-wavelength
space-based observatory capable of monitoring intensity variations in a broad range of cosmic sources.
According to
ISRO, the satellite will have concurrent wide spectral coverage over visible,
ultra-violet, soft X-ray and hard X-ray regions of the spectrum.
"Black
holes, neutron stars, pulsars, white dwarfs, quasars, and active galactic
nuclei are just some of
the cosmic objects that the ASTROSAT will observe," said Dr John Hutchings of the
Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Canada, who was a part of the mission.
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