Author Archives: Bharath Panchajanya

ISRO Launches PSLV-C36 Remote Sensing Satellite

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In its 38th flight (PSLV-C36), ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle successfully launched the 1,235 kg RESOURCESAT-2A Satellite on Wednesday morning (December 07, 2016) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota.

After PSLV-C36 lift-off at 10:25 am IST from the First Launch Pad with the ignition of the first stage, the subsequent important flight events, namely, strap-on ignitions and separations, first stage separation, second stage ignition, payload fairing separation, second stage separation, third stage ignition and separation, fourth stage ignition and cut-off, took place as planned.

After a flight of 17 minutes 05 seconds, the vehicle achieved a polar Sun Synchronous Orbit of 824 km height inclined at an angle of 98.725 degree to the equator (very close to the intended orbit) and 47 seconds later, RESOURCESAT-2A was separated from the PSLV fourth stage.

After separation, the two solar arrays of RESOURCESAT-2A deployed automatically and ISRO’s Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Bangalore took over the control of the satellite. In the coming days, the satellite will be brought to its final operational configuration following which it will begin to provide imagery from its three cameras. The data sent by RESOURCESAT-2A will be useful for agricultural applications like crop area and crop production estimation, drought monitoring, soil mapping, cropping system analysis and farm advisories generation.

Like its predecessors RESOURCESAT-1 and 2, RESOURCESAT-2A has a unique 3-Tier imaging system with Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS), Linear Imaging Self Scanner-3 (LISS-3) and Linear Imaging Self Scanner-4 (LISS-4) cameras. The AWiFS provides images with a sampling of 56 metres, a swath of 740 km and a revisit of 5 days whereas the LISS-3 provides 23.5 metre sampled images with 141 km swath and a repitivity of 24 days. LISS-4 provides 5.8 metre sampled images with 70 km swath and a revisit of 5 days.

"With today’s launch, the PSLV has yet again demonstrated its reliability," said ISRO in a statement. The total number of satellites launched by India’s workhorse launch vehicle PSLV including today’s RESOURCESAT-2A has now reached 122, of which 43 are Indian and the remaining 79 are from abroad.

Prime Minister of Qatar Calls on President

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Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, Prime Minister of Qatar called on President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Saturday after an eventful visit that witnessed strengthening of ties between the two nations.

Welcoming the Qatar Prime Minister to India, the President said that the third high-level visit in two years highlights the importance that both countries attach to strengthening their bilateral relations. India accords very high importance to relations with countries in the Gulf, which is its extended neighbourhood. India sees Qatar as a key interlocutor in the Gulf and Arab world.

The President said, “India’s relations with Qatar are deep-rooted in history and have been nurtured by active contacts amongst our two peoples through trade and commerce ties over centuries. The two countries have a common goal of intensifying co-operation. We should identify opportunities to make trade more broad-based and balanced. Indian companies are willing to be partners in infrastructure development being undertaken by Qatar in preparation for the FIFA 2022 World Cup and Qatar’s development plans under ‘Vision 2030’ for Qatar.”

The Qatar Prime Minister too reciprocated the President’s sentiments and said that he had good discussions with the Indian Prime Minister. Qatar sees India as a strategic partner and is keen to expand relations.

Nobel Prize Physics Goes to 3 US Scientists

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The Nobel Prize in physics for 2016 has been awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Tuesday with one half to David J. Thouless of University of Washington, Seattle, US and the other half to F. Duncan M. Haldane of Princeton University, US and J. Michael Kosterlitz of Brown University, Providence, US for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.

F. Duncan M. Haldane. Photo: Princeton University, Comms. Office, D. Applewhite

It said, “This year’s Laureates opened the door on an unknown world where matter can assume strange states. They have used advanced mathematical methods to study unusual phases, or states, of matter, such as superconductors, superfluids or thin magnetic films.”

After their pioneering work, the hunt is now on for new and exotic phases of matter and many people are hopeful of future applications in both materials science and electronics, it said in a statement.

The three Laureates’ use of topological concepts in physics was decisive for their discoveries. Topology is a branch of mathematics that describes properties that only change step-wise. Using topology as a tool, they were able to astound the experts. In the early 1970s, Michael Kosterlitz and David Thouless overturned the then current theory that superconductivity or suprafluidity could not occur in thin layers. They demonstrated that superconductivity could occur at low temperatures and also explained the mechanism, phase transition, that makes superconductivity disappear at higher temperatures.

In the 1980s, Thouless was able to explain a previous experiment with very thin electrically conducting layers in which conductance was precisely measured as integer steps. He showed that these integers were topological in their nature. At around the same time, Duncan Haldane discovered how topological concepts can be used to understand the properties of chains of small magnets found in some materials.

We now know of many topological phases, not only in thin layers and threads, but also in ordinary three-dimensional materials. Over the last decade, this area has boosted frontline research in condensed matter physics, not least because of the hope that topological materials could be used in new generations of electronics and superconductors, or in future quantum computers.