Indian Space Capabilities

[nitesh]

The Hindu : Front Page : Moon probe ejection on November 14 or 15

Moon probe ejection on November 14 or 15

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: ISRO will study Chandrayaan-1’s orbit for a day or two before commanding to eject on November 14 or 15 the 29-kg Moon Impact Probe (MIP), a box-like instrument on top of the spacecraft. The probe will crash-land on the Moon’s surface. Since the MIP is painted with the Indian flag on its sides, it will symbolically register the Indian presence on the Moon.

On Saturday (November 8), ISRO accomplished with aplomb the most crucial and critical manoeuvre of safely inserting Chandrayaan-1 into the lunar orbit with an aposelene of 7,502 km and a periselene of 504 km.

This was achieved by retro-firing the engine for 817 seconds, which pushed the spacecraft in the opposite direction of its journey, reduced its velocity and inserted it into the lunar orbit.

S. Satish, Director, Publications and Public Relations, ISRO, said: “The ISRO team was very cautious in executing this critical manoeuvre because we did not want to jeopardise the mission. This is a precious mission for us. Contingency plans were in place in case the liquid apogee motor (LAM) engine on board Chandrayaan-1 did not fire. Then, we would have used other thrusters on board the spacecraft to fire… There have been dynamic changes in our manoeuvres to reach the Moon.”

S. Ramakrishnan, Director (Projects), Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, said the orbit reduction under way now was the reverse of what ISRO did in approaching the Moon.

After the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C11) put Chandrayaan-1 in an elliptical orbit with an apogee of 22,866 km and a perigee of 256 km around the earth on October 22, ISRO performed four manoeuvres by firing the LAM to keep increasing this ellipticity.

On November 4, the spacecraft reached the vicinity of the Moon with an apogee of 3,80,000 km. The Moon is 3,84,000 km away from the earth. Then the crucial manoeuvre of inserting the spacecraft into the lunar orbit of 7,502 km by 504 km took place on November 8 and it was captured by the Moon’s gravity.

“We are now reducing the Chandrayaan’s orbit to come closer to the Moon,” Mr. Ramakrishnan said. On November 9, the LAM was fired and the spacecraft’s orbit around the Moon was further reduced to 7,502 km by 200 km. “The Moon’s gravity is not well characterised. It is not symmetrical like that of the earth. The Moon’s gravity is not well understood. So there will be uncertainties. When we fire the engine to reduce the spacecraft’s orbit, depending on the response, we have to do further corrections,” he said.

Mr. Ramakrishnan was confident that the remaining two manoeuvres would succeed because Chandrayaan-1 was already “in a stable orbit and it cannot vanish anywhere.”

 

[nitesh]

After moon odyssey, it's 'Mission Sun' for ISRO-India-The Times of India

After moon odyssey, it's 'Mission Sun' for ISRO
11 Nov 2008, 1307 hrs IST, PTI

BANGALORE: After Chandrayaan-I moon odyssey, it's in a way "Mission Sun" for team ISRO.


Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation are in an advance stage of designing a spacecraft, named 'Aditya', to study the outermost region of the Sun called corona.

"That's a mini satellite. In fact, the design is just getting completed," ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair said.

"During solar maxim...which is happening...we would like to see the type of emissions which are taking place in the Sun and how it interacts with the ionosphere and atmosphere and so on," he said.

According to Dr Jayati Datta, deputy programme director, space science office, ISRO, Aditya is the first space based Solar coronagraph intended to study corona.

'Aditya' would be the first attempt by the Indian scientific community to unravel the mysteries associated with coronal heating, coronal mass ejections and the associated space weather processes and study of these would provide important information on the solar activity conditions, she said.

"A basic understanding of the physical processes and continuous monitoring would help in taking necessary steps towards protecting ISRO's satellites either by switching them off or putting them on a stand-by mode as warranted by the background conditions," Datta Said.

The temperature of the solar corona goes beyond million degrees. From the Earth, corona can be seen only during total solar eclipses mainly due to the bright Solar disc and the scattering of the sunlight by the Earth's atmosphere. One has to go beyond the atmosphere to be able to mask the bright solar disc and study the corona.

 

[nitesh]

 

[nitesh]

 

[nitesh]

hmm interesting:

Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan


China fears India-Japan space alliance
By Peter J Brown

India and Japan's agreement in October to expand cooperation between the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), in the field of disaster management, has the raised the ire of a China fearful that the US is masterminding a powerful space alliance between its allies in the region.

All of Asia wants to see improved regional disaster management capabilities, but the growing ties between ISRO and JAXA come just as India and Japan are devising an action plan to advance security cooperation.

"China is concerned about the general effort of the US during the Bush Administration to form a Japanese-Indian alliance to contain China," said Dr Gregory Kulacki, senior analyst and China project manager at the Massachusetts-based Union of Concerned Scientists.

"They are more concerned about what this implies about US intentions rather than what it implies about the intentions of the Japanese or the Indians, particularly as it concerns space."

Brian Weeden, a technical consultant at the Colorado-based Secure World Foundation, hesitates to agree that India and Japan's efforts to pursue closer ties in space are part of a deliberate US master plan for the region, but he does not see the US taking any steps to discourage them.

"The US sees India as primarily a counterbalance to China in the region, but at the same time it does not see India as a full ally in the same sense as Britain or Japan. I do not think the US looks unfavorably on this relationship, but I am certain it will be examining it very closely and if the US does have concerns, they will be quietly expressed to the Japanese," said Weeden.

Whereas Japan benefits greatly from the steady deployment in the Pacific Ocean of US AEGIS ballistic missile defense (BMD) technology - it will soon be aboard all four of Japan's Kongo-class destroyers - this sea-based BMD system will probably not appear soon on any of India's warships, for example.

Weedon also points to the most recent 'Red Flag' exercise at Nellis Air force Base in Nevada. "The Russian-built Indian fighters participating had their radars in test mode so as not to give away their full capabilities to the Americans. Likewise, the US didn't let the F-22 participate for the same reasons."

The agreement is a concern for China, as it would be for any nation when their traditional regional adversaries talk about cooperation, adds Weedon. "Most countries still see the national security angle of space as a unilateral effort and are unlikely to collaborate in that area. They will, however collaborate in scientific or civilian areas."

There is considerable turmoil in Japan concerning the future of JAXA and how much money the Japanese government should be spending on it. The situation is made more complicated by Japan's recently enacted Space Basic Law, which for the first time permits Japan to consider deployment of national security space assets, which the Japanese had denied themselves until now.

"The government of Japan, particularly the Ministry of Defense, is still sorting this out," said Aerospace consultant Lance Gatling, head of Tokyo-based Gatling Associates, which closely monitors JAXA and the Japanese space program.

Japan has been using its weather satellites
to provide free weather data to countries throughout Asia for many years without any hint of controversy, but this is quite different from deploying a new generation of surveillance satellites to monitor disasters.

Virtually all existing satellite-based multinational disaster management initiatives such as the "International Charter, Space and Major Disasters" depend upon the ability of the signatories to engage in the rapid tasking of their respective surveillance satellites. In other words, quickly altering the flight patterns of the surveillance satellites in question so they zoom right over a disaster zone is essential to the success of the mission at hand.

"This could be seen by some as a sensitive undertaking with obvious dual use possibilities which Japan will attempt to handle with great care. And that degree of sensitivity clearly permeates anything that ISRO and JAXA have been given the green light to develop in this instance, even though JAXA has no national security mission," said Gatling.

When, in early November, the Japanese press revealed that Japan has begun to explore the possible future launch of an early warning satellite which can detect the launch of enemy ballistic missiles, according to a draft plan obtained by The Yomiuri Shimbun, the joint declaration was not even mentioned.

Among other things, this draft plan promotes the use of rockets and satellites for defense purposes and endorses the need to examine the feasibility of deploying a new satellite which can perform BMD-oriented security and crisis management or disaster monitoring roles simultaneously.

The draft plan is scheduled for a final review in late November, and while it may not neatly address whatever ISRO and JAXA have elected to pursue, Beijing will be hard pressed to dismiss what could easily become a convenient addendum to the Joint Declaration.

India, on the other hand, simply wants to increase satellite surveillance of all Chinese military activities, particularly along the Chinese border with India.

On November 1, for example, the Times of India reported that during the most recent Indian Army commanders' conference, "one of the main agenda items" included a discussion of the need to dig tunnels in forward areas including along the Chinese border with "fooling enemy satellites from gauging the exact troop positions and their strength in forward areas" identified as one of the key objectives.

"China has resorted to tunneling on a large-scale along the LAC [Line of Actual Control] especially in the Tibetan Autonomous Region," one senior officer at the conference told the Times.

Proponents of increased Japanese government budgetary support look to exploit every opportunity to stress the commercial and strategic importance of the Japanese space program, and in this case, China's manned spaceflight program - not tunnels - serves an important purpose.

"The rapid advances in space by China - and India - clearly caught the attention of the Japanese who saw themselves as the leader in space in the region a decade ago," said Gatling.

Dr Joan Johnson-Freese, chair of the Department of National Security Studies at the US Naval War College, does not believe the Japan-India space relationship is picking up steam. "The consensus-driven decision making process used in Japan means that pretty much everything moves at a glacial pace," said Johnson-Freese.

She prefers to take the language in the Joint Declaration at face value.

"Disaster management efforts in the Pacific Rim region have been under discussion for a long time, and this is part of the culmination of those talks. It is one of the few areas where everyone in the region agrees that concerted efforts are required," said Johnson-Freese, adding that she has not heard of any serious concerns from China over Japan-India working together on disaster management.

Kulacki also recalls the tone and spirit of the proceedings of the International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG) conference in Beijing in 2006, where the Group issued a declaration on cooperation called the ILEWG Beijing Declaration.

"All sides seemed cordial, well-acquainted and anxious to pursue joint projects. I do not sense any tension among the space professionals of these three countries, who understand and are anxious to reap the benefits of joint efforts," said Kulacki.

Johnson-Freese views things a bit differently, and labels the three parties as "cautiously prudent".

"They will pursue joint projects when it is win-win," said Johnson-Freese.

Here she adds weight, albeit indirectly, to the argument that India and Japan are very much on the same page, and probably agree that a merger of their space activities gradually over time may offers a distinct strategic edge.

Johnson-Freese and Kulacki also clearly disagree over China's leadership role in the Asian space race.

"China is not anxious to be seen as a leader and does not see itself as a leader. China feels it is far behind most advanced spacefaring nations," said Kulacki.

"They are also focused on their own objectives and their own needs. While they would welcome the opportunity to be a competitive commercial space player, especially in the international launch services market where they have a strong advantage, they are focused on longstanding goals first set back in the mid-1980s and revised only marginally since then.”

"China very much wants to be seen as both the leader of space efforts in Asia, and for developing nations. They are using their manned program to reap all the prestige awards it renders - which are considerable, if only in perceptions created - including that it is beating the US," said Johnson-Freese.

“By virtue of their success in manned space - and the worldwide attention that it brings them - there is certainly the perception that China is the regional technology leader. While that is a function more of political will than technical capability, perception very quickly becomes the reality from which people base opinions and actions.”

Interestingly, news of Japan's draft plan involving the possible launch of an early warning satellite coincided with the arrival in Tokyo of Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov. He warned Japan and the rest of Asia about the dangers of the rampant missile technology proliferation now underway in the region and an emerging "confrontational atmosphere" stemming from such things as Japan's AEGIS BMD deployment.

Of course, Lavrov said nothing about Russia's important role in support of South Korea's entry into the Asian space race or about how Russia has been a major backer of the Indian aerospace sector. In fact, the Russian space agency is actively engaged in ISRO's Chandrayaan-2 project, supplying ISRO with its lunar lander and jointly developing a lunar rover.

China's recent announcement that it would provide Pakistan with a new communications satellite early in the next decade - adding yet another space asset to the fast-growing Asian "dual use" roster - no doubt provides India with further justification for pursuing closer ties in space with Japan.

China, at the same time, must not enjoy the news that numerous NASA scientists are apparently eager and poised to joint the ranks of ISRO, a timely shift in highly specialized talent that came to light in the days immediately following the successful launch of India's new moon probe, Chandrayaan-1.

"I doubt China is the only factor, but it is one factor in [any ongoing India-Japan joint space activity]. Other factors could be desires to increase regional relations and influence. We are seeing more and more cooperation in space, sometimes along traditional relationships like US and Europe, and sometimes along nontraditional ones like Japan and India," said Weedon.

The success of the International Space Station program, and the fact that countries are looking for new ways to cope with the huge costs of operating in space during this steep global economic downturn, are making international cooperation a more attractive and more acceptable option, he said.


Peter J Brown is a satellite journalist from Maine USA.

 

[nitesh]

BANGALORE: India carried out the penultimate orbit-lowering manoeuvre of the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft on Tuesday, positioning it on the doorstep

of what will be its path around the moon for two years.

The craft’s liquid motor was fired for about 30 seconds at 6.30 pm to position it in an orbit where it is 255 km from the moon at its farthest and 101 km at its nearest, Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) spokesperson S Satish said.

Isro has carried out three orbit-lowering moves since the spacecraft entered the lunar orbit on Saturday. The spacecraft, which was launched on October 22, was propelled on its 4,00,000-km voyage to the moon in a number of stages, with its orbit being raised progressively towards the moon by activating its liquid motor.

Eventually, it will be placed in a circular orbit 100 km above the lunar surface for the duration of its two-year mission

Once positioned in the intended orbit, a moon impact probe, one of the 11 instruments carried by Chandrayaan-1, will be dropped on to the lunar surface in an experiment to gather knowledge for future soft landing missions. The probe is one of five Indian scientific payloads that Chandrayaan-1 is carrying.
Chandrayaan a step away from lunar orbital home- ET Cetera-News By Industry-News-The Economic Times

 

[nitesh]

ok now done, waiting for the MIP hurling down and doing tiranga plating on moon

Chandrayaan-I reaches its final resting orbit-India-The Times of India
Chandrayaan-I reaches its final resting orbit
12 Nov 2008, 1915 hrs IST, AGENCIES

BANGALORE: Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft reached its final orbital home, about 100 kms above the moon's surface on Wednesday.

Chandrayaan-I will stay in the orbit for the next two years.

On November 9, India became the fifth member of the global moon club with Chandrayaan-1 entering the lunar orbit at 5.04 pm (IST). The other four members are the US, Russia (former Soviet Union), Japan, China and members of European Space Agency (ESA).

According to Isro officials, Chandrayaan's liquid engine was fired for 817 seconds when the spacecraft passed at a distance of about 500 km from the moon to reduce its velocity to enable the lunar gravity to capture it around the moon. Chandrayaan's speed was reduced to 366 metres per second when it flew into the moon's orbit.

Experts said it was a significant feat because India's moonshot was successful in the very first attempt — something that even major space powers like the US and Russia could not achieve. The man who launched the Indian moon mission, Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan, had said, "It's undoubtedly a great moment for India because nearly 50% of the moon missions of other countries have not been successful."

Chandrayaan-1, the two-year Rs 386 crore Indian moon mission launched from Sriharikota on October 22, will draw a three-dimensional map of the moon, carrying out its chemical mapping and hunting for water or ice.

Kasturirangan said the lunar orbit insertion (LOI) was a nail-biting moment because two objects — the moon and Chandrayaan — moving at a high speed had to have a successful rendezvous. At a certain point, the gravity of moon and that of earth cancel each other out, making LOI very challenging.

 

[nitesh]

India all set to mark entry on moon - Express India

India all set to mark entry on moon
Posted: Nov 13, 2008 at 1320 hrs IST

Bangalore, November 13: The Indian flag is all set to mark its presence on the lunar surface for the first time on Friday as a moon probe with the tri-colour painted on it will detach from Chandrayaan-1 and descend onto the earth's natural satellite.


"The Moon Impact Probe is expected to be detached (from Chandrayaan-1) at around 10 pm on Friday," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) spokesperson S Satish said.

Miniature Indian flags are painted on four sides of MIP. "It will signify the entry of India on Moon," Satish said.

"During its 20-minute descend to the moon's surface, MIP will take pictures and transmit these back to the ground," he said.

MIP is one of the 11 scientific instruments (payloads) onboard Chandrayaan-1, India's first unmanned spacecraft mission to moon launched on October 22.

The spacecraft on Thursday reached its final orbital home, about 100 kms over the moon surface after ISRO scientists successfully carried out the last critical orbit lowering operation.

Developed by ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre of Thiruvananthapuram, the primary objective of MIP is to demonstrate the technologies required for landing a probe at the desired location on the moon.

The probe will help qualify some of the technologies related to future soft landing missions. This apart, scientific exploration of the moon at close distance is also intended using MIP.


The 29-kg MIP consists of a C-band Radar Altimeter for continuous measurement of altitude of the probe, a video imaging system for acquiring images of the surface of moon from the descending probe and a mass spectrometer for measuring the constituents of extremely thin lunar atmosphere during its 20-minute descent to the lunar surface.

ISRO officials are confident that the MIP would withstand the impact once it hits the lunar surface. "Most probably it will not disintegrate," an ISRO official said.

From the operational circular orbit of about 100 km height passing over the polar regions of the moon, it is intended to conduct chemical, mineralogical and photo geological mapping of the moon with Chandrayaan-1's 11 scientific instruments (payloads).

Two of those 11 payloads - Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) and Radiation Dose Monitor (RADOM) - have already been successfully switched on. TMC has successfully taken the pictures of Earth and the moon.

After the release of MIP tomorrow, the other scientific instruments would be turned on sequentially leading to the normal phase of the two-year mission.

 

[nitesh]

so guys it's tommorow . Hope everything goes fine and then.............

 

[Flintlock]

This is so awesome! You will not believe how excited me and my friends are!

One of my friends is actually considering working for ISRO at considerably lower pay than what he would be offered in private!

 

[nitesh]

NDTV.com: NASA applauds Chandrayaan's success

NASA applauds Chandrayaan's success
Pallava Bagla
Thursday, November 13, 2008 1:49 PM (Bylalu, Karnataka)

It has been a dream run for India's maiden moon mission as it is now in its designated home base, 100 km above the moon. By doing this, India has in way outpaced even the American Space Agency NASA, which repeatedly failed in its first few attempts.

No wonder, NASA is now all praise for India. Its representative in India Dr Alok Chatterjee has been keeping a continuous vigil on the health of the Chandrayaan satellite since NASA is flying two instruments on the Indian mission.

NDTV's Science Editor Pallava Bagla caught up with him in an exclusive interview.

NDTV: Alok how do you think Chandrayaan is doing?

Dr Alok Chatterjee: Chandrayaan is doing excellent. It is beyond our hopes.

NDTV: How do you think ISRO got it right on the first occasion itself?

Dr Alok Chatterjee: Well I think, it is a dedicated team, and they had a very good plan in terms of desiging the satellite and desiging the right orbit, having the right people in the team, very experinced people, and also talking to NASA, in navigation as well as tracking and so forth, that combination helped very much, ISRO achive what they have achieved for this mission.

NDTV: NASA failed in the first attempt.

Dr Alok Chatterjee: I don't know about the fitrst attempt, but quite a few attempts, it has been difficult

NDTV: Are you excited?

Dr Alok Chatterjee: I am very very excited, I am here.

Chandrayaan has been a remarkable success and Dr Chatterjee looks forward to getting the first data from the moon mineralogy mapper.

 

[nitesh]

This is so awesome! You will not believe how excited me and my friends are!

One of my friends is actually considering working for ISRO at considerably lower pay than what he would be offered in private!

Hey that's gr8 news. We are planning a big party if we are going to here the news for successful impact. Otherwise any way we are going to

It has taught a gr8 amount of lessons for future missions already.

 

[nitesh]

Hmm time needs to be checked here

Chandrayaan-II to be launched by 2012: ISRO-India-The Times of India

Chandrayaan-II to be launched by 2012: ISRO
13 Nov 2008, 1649 hrs IST, PTI

CHENNAI: ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair on Thursday said India's second lunar mission, Chandrayaan-II, will be launched by 2012.


"Chandrayaan-II will be launched by 2012. We will have a lander that will drop a small robot on the moon, which will pick samples, analyse data and send the data back. Already the project has been formulated for Chandrayaan-II," he told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar here.

He dismissed as speculation reports that the government had not sanctioned ISRO's proposal for a manned mission.

Justifying the relevance of manned moon mission, Nair said, "We cannot be lagging behind in terms of our capability to access space. China, the US and Japan are going ahead with huge plans for space."

Talking about Chandrayaan-I, the country's first unmanned moon mission, he said the Moon Impact Probe would land on the lunar surface tomorrow evening. However, "we cannot specify the time as of now," he said.

On the success of the moon mission, Nair said already 95 per cent of the mission had been completed and just five per cent of the work had to be over. The total success of the mission would be known only after the remaining work was completed, he said.

He said Chandrayaan-I would get extensive study map of the moon by which an idea of the minerals of the moon would be available. Mineral mapping and surface feature mapping would be of prime importance, he said.

He also said the ISRO was going ahead with the study of sending a spacecraft to Mars.

On the 'Solar mission' Aditya, he said a satellite was intended to study solar emissions. The design work had been completed and it would be launched within two years, he said.

 

[daredevil]

Great news!!!. Many more successes for ISRO and India.

 

[nitesh]

Sunday Herald: International: International

Space saving

INDIA: Moon mission set to take outsourcing industry to the final frontier
From Raymond Thibodeaux in Bangalore

INDIANS CROWDED around televisions in tea shops and streetside electronics stores to glimpse the launch of the country's first-ever Moon mission last month, a huge ego-boost for a country trying to shrug off its former standing as one of the world's poorest and least-developed nations.


In a moment of national pride, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described the launch as the "first step" in India's exploration of space, cementing the country's status as a serious contender in a new space race with China and Japan.

Still, the two-year mission is not without its detractors. Among the patriotic machismo of most headlines and talk shows, a few critics griped about spending more than $80 million to map the Moon when there are urgent problems closer to home: crumbling roads, grinding poverty and child malnutrition rates higher than in many African countries.


But the spin-off benefits of India's space programme are too good to pass up, say analysts. It boosts India's military and diplomatic clout, coming on the heels of a nuclear deal with the US that ended its status as a nuclear pariah.

Its satellite capability is focused on helping speed up telecommunications development, weather forecasting, educational broadcasting, and resource mapping to help farmers improve their crop yields.

Arguably, one of the biggest benefits of the mission, Chandrayaan-1, is that it helps India's bid to win a larger share of the world's estimated $15 billion-a-year commercial satellite launch market. It is outsourcing with serious potential.


"People are recognising that our space technology is reliable. And we can do more with less money. That's why we're starting to attract other countries to our satellite launch programme," said S Satish, a spokesman for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).


India's space agency crossed a milestone in April when it launched a rocket that dropped 10 satellites in space, all in one go. For $8000 a kilo, India can put your satellite in orbit, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a better deal. That's the sales pitch from the final frontier of India's outsourcing industry: space.

It seems to be working. In the past few years, India has launched satellites for space agencies and research institutions in the US, Germany, Canada and Israel. Last year, India's satellite launches brought in more than $500m in revenue, about 75% of that from foreign clients.


Of the 52 commercial satellites put into orbit in the past year, nearly two-thirds were launched by the Big Three: the US's Sea Launch and Boeing, Russia's Krunichev and France's Arianespace. Experts predict that, within two years, China, India and Japan should capture at least 15% of the global launch market.

Still, the big money is in telecommunications satellites but these can weigh up to six tonnes and, for now, India's launch capability is limited to "nano" satellites, some only 3kg. ISRO adviser Jayant Narlikar said: "As India's space programme goes deeper into commercialisation, we need to develop our own technology for putting telecommunication satellites into space."

However, not everyone is ecstatic about India's new skills in the exosphere. Some industry experts are concerned that India might use its capabilities for military purposes, an unsettling prospect for its uneasy neighbours, particularly Pakistan and China.

But for the most part, India's aims in space have been to improve conditions for Indians on the ground, according to A S Padmavathy, a scientist at the space agency's Bangalore headquarters.

"Some Indians in the past asked, When India is so poor, why waste money on programmes in space?' But the new generation sees the value in making sure all citizens enjoy this technology. Fisherman get satellite advice from us and students in remote villages can attend a virtual lecture from Mumbai," she said.