India's Space Program

Today India is well known for information technology and services. But there is another space where india haas done spectacular job. and that is SPACE and ROCKET SCIENCE. In space science india is knocking the doors of elite club of USA, Russia,France,Japan and China. It is simple incredible when around 300 million people have average income of 1$ per day. 

                         India's space program started around 1960 when it launched it's first sounding rocket on nov 21 from terls. After that india never stopped in this area. India has whopping 11 national communication satallites in an orbit at present which is highest for any country in asia-pacific region.It's remote sensing capabilities are also sensational. It has 7 indian made remote sensing satellite again highest for any country in civilian domain. It's remote sensing and communication satellites are used for disaster warning, wheather pictures and feeds for 552 television channels and 164 radio transmission.

                          Going back in the initial days of india's space programme, India launched it's first space satellite,Aryabhatta, in April,1975. Few years after that in 1984, Rakesh sharma became the first india to go in space. He went with two other russian cosmonaut and stayed in USSR's space station salyut-7 for seven days. He basically took pictures of northern india finding the possibilities of hydroelctric power plant in Himalaya regions.

                        Another remarkable achievement in space is foundation of INSAT(india national satallite technology). It was established by ISRO,Department of telecommunication,All india radio and doordarshan in 1983. 

                      India currently is developing indegenous GSLV (geo-syncronous stallite launch vehicle). So that it does not depend upon foreign launch vehicles for geo-synchronous satellite. 

Currenly used GSLV uses russian cryigeic engine. But for launch in 2009 it will use india made engine.