India’s Navigational Satellite On The Card

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Rashid Faridi

 First Indian navigation satellite will be launched this year, announced President Pratibha Patil, during the joint sitting of Parliament. The Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) will be a constellation of seven satellites having all-weather, round-the-clock coverage over the Indian landmass with an extended coverage of about 1,500 km around it.
“Several major satellite launches are planned for 2012, including India’s first microwave remote sensing satellite (RISAT-1) with all-weather imaging capability,” President added. She said that the next flight of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle using the indigenous cryogenic upper stage was also proposed to be conducted this year.
Besides use in the agriculture sector, the all weather capability of RISAT-1 could also be used to keep an eye on the country’s borders round-the-clock and help in anti-terrorist and anti-infiltration operations.
The IRNSS, which will have a range of applications including personal navigation, will be India’s answer to the US-operated GPS, Russia’s Glonass, European Space Agency’s under-development Galileo, and China’s emerging constellation, Compass.

Source

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Inaccuracy of GPS : A tool to predict quake

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Rashid Faridi
Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Techn...

Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

GPS users often complain about some inaccuracy in the device. A researcher at the Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology (SVNIT), Surat, India, turned that inaccuracy into a tool to predict earthquakes.

The researcher, Sheetal Karia, supported her findings by studying the data from three earthquakes in different parts of the world in the last three years. As part of her study, Karia developed a model to predict an earthquake. Papers written by her on the quake prediction model have been published by internationally acclaimed journals. The model has not predicted any quake but post quake studies in three earthquakes supported the findings.

The study established that underground tectonic plate activities that lead to a quake create an electromagnetic field. The field also affects the atmosphere overground which is scaled through variation in GPS data. It studies TEC variations obtained using GPS measurements and electron density observations by the detection of electro-magnetic emissions transmitted from earthquake regions.

In an interview to an Indian daily, Karia explained, “Many a time, GPS data waves from satellite have variation due to which it gives inaccurate positioning. The variation is because of electro magnetic activity in ionosphere that creates disturbance in path of the GPS data. And in specific cases the electro magnetic activity is because of tectonic plate movement”.

Describing further, Karia said, “Ionosphere is a layer in atmosphere between 80 km from ground to 350 km. Study of this layer gives important information related to GPS signals. Studying data prior to Bhuj quake of October 29, 2009 we could find out variation around three days prior to the quake. Similarly, the Sumatra quake of September 30 in same year could have been predicted five days prior.”

It is a very complex but important study in which the inaccuracy has been turned into knowledge. While studying Bhuj quake data Karia could access the GPS data through a receiver at SVNIT while she examined Sumatra quake in association with Shivalika Sarkar, a researcher from Barkatullah University, Bhopal. For the Sumatra quake study, GPS data from DEMETER satellite of Russia was used.

Links and Sources:

Geospatial

Times of India

Source: Times of India

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Posted on March 20, 2012 by Rashid Faridi

lenrosen4's avatar21st Century Tech Blog

For the last two weeks here in Toronto the temperature has been abnormally warm. Today, March 19, 2012, we will see late May, early June daytime high temperatures. This is the second winter in the last three to produce a winter that by Toronto standards can only be called balmy. Which brings me to the topic at hand – the warming of our northerly extremes and the potential release of methane bound up in permafrost.

In a proposal to British parliamentarians in the last week, Stephen Salter, an engineer at Edinburgh University, proposed constructing 100 towers for pumping seawater into the atmosphere to create clouds to reflect solar energy into space and cool the Arctic.

With Arctic Sea ice melts increasing each year saltwater temperatures in the north are rising rapidly. Dr. Slater noted that in 2007 the water off the northern Siberian coast warmed to 5 degrees Celsius (41…

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North Korea To Launch Satellite Into Orbit

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Rashid Faridi

 North Korea will launch Kwangmyongsong-3, an earth observation satellite, in April 2012 (between April 12-16), the country’s official news agency KCNA announced. The satellite will be blasted off southward from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station in the western province of North Pyongyang.

The United States and some other countries  condemned the step, saying that the launching would violate United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding  to North Korea to not launch rockets that use long-range intercontinental ballistic missile technology, like the one that would carry the satellite to space. The United States and the Security Council see such satellite launchings in the past as a cover for developing the missiles, which could eventually be used to deliver nuclear weapons.

This  came only 17 days after North Korea agreed with the United States that it would suspend uranium enrichment, allow United Nations inspectors  into the country and place a moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests in return for 240,000 tons of food aid over the next year. In Washington, the State Department said that agreement explicitly forbade missile tests or satellite launchings, among other military actions.

Source:NYT

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