Israeli telescope will ride on Indian satellite
Friday, 19 September 2003, 19:30 IST
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BANGALORE: An Israeli telescope is expected to ride into space on an Indian geo-synchronous satellite launch rocket in 2005, official sources here said. Israel's space agency is reported to have spent $15 million on the telescope meant to map new galaxies and is awaiting fresh budgetary grants to re-configure it in time for the launch on the geo-synchronous satellite launch vehicle (GSLV-D4) along with India's G-Sat 4 communications satellite. It was to have been originally launched by a Russian satellite but that was put off. "The sophisticated Israeli telescope will provide data on the ultra violet region. It helps understanding of astronomy, and the data will help not just India and Israel alone," a senior official of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told IANS. The frontier science research work being planned by the two countries is expected to be a forerunner for greater cooperation in harnessing space for development. "But there is no formal agreement on this yet," said the official, who declined to be identified. "The telescope will help in looking for stars in the ultra violet region. The more we observe this region, the more will we get to know what is generating radiation," he explained. "At this point of time it will be difficult to say what we can discover and how it can be applicable or immediately beneficial to the masses." The second developmental version of India's G-Sat communication satellite was placed in orbit by GSLV-D2 in May. Along with its communication payload, the rocket also carried four payloads for experiments. One of these experiments included measuring radiation doses inside a satellite, while others studied the state of changing environment in the vicinity of an aircraft and solar flare emissions.
Source: IANS
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