Pradeep's Space Newsletter #11
Happy New Year! Welcome to the first edition of the newsletter for 2021.
K Sivan’s New Year message
K Sivan posted a New Year message on the ISRO website in his capacity as Secretary, Department of Space and Chairman, ISRO. I wrote on my blog pointing out what I thought were some of the hits and misses from that message. I missed writing about the satellite and human spaceflight bits.
I hope they publish this decadal plan that the ISRO HQ and centers have spent 2020 developing.
Tapan Misra Poisoning
Tapan Misra posted on his Facebook wall about an attempt at poisoning him. I hope the evidence is used to investigate by the appropriate agencies.
He was the former Director, Space Applications Center (SAC), Ahmedabad. His Facebook posts are informative and worth following. SAC builds the payload for Indian satellites. He is supposed to have worked on Indian Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) technology. SAR technology helps satellite get data in day or night and in all weather conditions.
India was able to develop the technology indigenously by 2012 when we flew it on RISAT-1. The November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai meant that there was pressure from government to have at least one satellite with the technology. This made us procure the technology from Israel and launch it on RISAT-2 in April, 2009. It was reported that terrorists crossed borders and seas in adverse weather conditions to keep away from satellites. India presently has 5 satellites in orbit that use this technology.