Contents
- DEPARTMENT OF SPACE
- TOTAL FOREST AND TREE COVER RISES TO 24.56% OF TOTAL GEOGRAPHICAL AREA OF THE COUNTRY
- INDIAN RAILWAYS LAUNCHES TEJAS EXPRESS
- NITI AAYOG RELEASES SDG INDEX
DEPARTMENT OF SPACE
Following are the initiatives of Department of Space during the year 2019:
Missions and Project Related Activities
- ISRO has successfully accomplished 13 missions including 06 launch vehicle missions and 07 satellite missions during the year 2019.
- 50 foreign satellites from 07countries were launched on commercial basis during this period.
- PSLV-C44 successfully launched Microsat-R and Kalamsat-V2 on January 24, 2019 from Sriharikota.
- On February 06, 2019 GSAT 31 communication satellite was successfully launched from Kourou, French Guiana onboard Arianespace rocket.
- EMISAT was successfully launched onboard PSLV-C45 on April 01, 2019 from Sriharikota. The launch viewing gallery was inaugurated and opened to the public for viewing launches live from Sriharikota.
- On May 22, 2019 RISAT-2B radar imaging earth observation satellite was successfully launched onboard PSLV-C46 from Sriharikota.
- The successful launch of GSLV-MK III M1, India’s most powerful launch vehicle, was accomplished in July 22,2019. This launch vehicle is capable of launching 04 ton of satellites into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit(GTO). The mission carried Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter spacecraft to its intended orbit. The instruments are continuously providing very useful science data.
- On November 27,2019 Cartosat-3, a third generation agile advanced satellite having high resolution imaging capability was successfully launched by PSLV-C47 from Sriharikota.
- On December 11,2019, PSLV-C48 successfully launched RISAT-2BR1radar imaging earth observation satellite from Sriharikota.
- India’s first inter-planetary mission “Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM)” completed five years in Martian orbit in September 2019.
- Astrosat, the first Indian multi-wavelength space observatory, completed four years in orbit in Sept 2019. The data has been made open to public. Astrosat has more than 900 registered users from 24 countries.
- Global Standards body 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), which develops protocols for mobile telephony, has approved India’s regional navigation system NAVIC.
- Qualcomm Technologies Inc. in collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), has developed & tested chipset platform across their portfolio which can support the Indian Regional Navigation satellite system, NavIC.
- The first-ever NavIC demonstration using the Snapdragon Mobile Platforms was showcased by Qualcomm during the India Mobile Congress at New Delhi on October 14-16, 2019
- A new center namely Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC) is created within ISRO/DOS with the responsibility to act as the lead center for Human Space Flight Program, Gaganyaan. The Gaganyaan project has the objective of demonstrating human space flight capability to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) with 3 crew members for 5-7 days in orbit and to safely recover them after the mission.
- Overall configuration of GSLV-MK III, crew escape system, crew module and service module for Gaganyaan have been finalized. An MoU is executed with Indian Air force for crew selection and training. Institute of Aerospace Medicine is identified for crew selection and screening criteria. This process is in progress.
- NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), Bengaluru, a wholly owned Government of India Company under Department of Space, was incorporated on 6th March 2019. The business activities of NSIL is mainly driven towards enabling Indian industries to productionise space systems and to exploit the commercial opportunities emanating from the Indian space programme.
- Commissioning of the Second Vehicle Assembly Building at Sriharikota to improve the frequency of launch.
- The notable development of the year was technology transfer of Li-ion to Indian industries.10 industries were selected for the transfer of the Li-ion cell technology from ISRO
- Two batches of ISRO’s UNISPACE Nanosatellite Assembly &Training (UNNATI) programme were organized at Bengaluru. Around 62participants from more than 30countriesparticipatedin this programme.
- A special programme for School Children called “YuvaVIgyaniKAryakram (YUVIKA)” was organized, in tune with the Government’s vision “Jai Vigyan, Jai Anusandhan”. The Program is primarily aimed at imparting basic knowledge on Space Technology, Space Science and Space Applications.
TOTAL FOREST AND TREE COVER RISES TO 24.56% OF TOTAL GEOGRAPHICAL AREA OF THE COUNTRY
- In a remarkable feat, forest and tree cover has increased by more than 130 million hectares in the last four years
- Top three states showing increase in forest cover are Karnataka (1,025 sq km) followed by Andhra Pradesh (990 sq km) and Kerala (823 sq km)
INDIAN RAILWAYS LAUNCHES TEJAS EXPRESS
- After the successful run of Lucknow-Delhi Tejas Express, the second premium Tejas train is ready to run between Ahmedabad and Mumbai. This will be yet another step of the Ministry of Railways in its endeavor to improve the overall traveling experience to rail passengers by providing state of the art facilities.
NITI AAYOG RELEASES SDG INDEX
- NITI Aayog today released the second edition of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) India Index, which comprehensively documents the progress made by India’s States and Union Territories towards achieving the 2030 SDG targets.
- The SDG India Index—which has been developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), United Nations in India, and Global Green Growth Institute—was launched by NITI Aayog
- The SDG India Index 2019 tracks progress of all States and UTs on 100 indicators drawn from the MoSPI’s National Indicator Framework (NIF).
