Agencies
New Delhi, Apr 29: Amid thumping of desks by Members of Parliament across the party lines including the opposition benches, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS in PMO, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh today informed the Lok Sabha about successful satellite engine test conducted yesterday, which has placed India in the exclusive club of a handful of countries capable of launching heavy satellites up to over 4 tons capacity.
While informing the house in this regard, he said, "Prior to this, India always sought the facility of launching sites in other countries for putting into space, satellites beyond 1.5 to 2 tons capacity."
Describing it as one more milestone in India's Space success story, the union minister disclosed that the team ISRO , late in the afternoon yesterday, successfully tested complex cryogenic engine using liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen fuel. He said, the test, lasting 635 seconds, established India's GSLV-III capability and hoped that first such launch will be accomplished around December next year.
"This is a proud moment for India, said Dr Jitendra Singh, particularly because the entire technical know-how and infrastructure was developed indigenously through Indian scientists and is thus a befitting compliment to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Make in India' mission.
In reply to a question about the applicability of space technology to predict earthquakes like the one which recently affected Nepal and neighbouring States of India, Dr Singh admitted that there are limitations in accurately predicting an earthquake through space imaging in the manner as floods or cyclones are predicted but hastened to add that this lack of accuracy in earthquake prediction was not confined to India but was uniform with all the space laboratories across the world. There are, however, certain indirect markers for foreseeing earthquakes which include precursors such as temperature anomaly, trace gas concentration, water level variation in wells and behavioural changes among animals and birds, he added.
Meanwhile the Department of Space today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Ministry of Rural Development. Speaking on the occasion, Dr Jitendra Singh said, this would pave the way for applying space technology to the benefit of rural population including farmers. He also informed that the department of Space had set up 83 tele-education networks across 26 States and 5 Union Territories. |
