Indian Space Delegation At University Of Leicester For New Satellite Mission

SPACE SCOPES

Astrosat illustration.

See larger image.

Leicester, UK (SPX) Feb 17, 2005
The University of Leicester has played host to a delegation of space scientists from India to discuss plans for collaboration over a future mission.

The University houses the largest academic space research centre in Europe and has links with a dozen countries.

The four-strong delegation of space experts from Mumbai and Bangalore spent three days at the University thrashing out plans for building a component for a telescope on India's Astrosat Mission, due for launch in 2007.

Guy Peters, Innovation Fellow at the University of Leicester's Space Research Centre, said Astrosat was the first fully-fledged astronomy satellite ever to be built by India.

"We have members of the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research and the Indian Space Research Organisation at the University of Leicester.

"Leicester is planning to be involved in the Soft X-Ray Telescope, and we are in the early stages of a collaborative agreement to build the camera element of the telescope.

"In essence, we are doing a rebuild of the Swift camera- Swift, a mission to explore Gamma Ray bursts, launched successfully last November. It is because Leicester has such strong heritage in spacecraft design that we have been selected for this mission.

"We will be expanding on our experience of building cameras for use in space for missions such as Swift and XMM and combining that with experience gained from our X-Ray Fluorescence laboratory programme, resulting in a CCD camera that is very high resolution and sensitivity and low weight.

"Tata will build the main telescope body- Leicester will provide the camera design and consultancy. With our help, manufacturing will take place in India and we will be leading the integration and the calibration back in the UK."

Explaining the purpose of the Indian space mission, Mr Peters added: "The wonderful thing about Astrosat is that it is a multi-wavelength mission. This means it has a wide range of telescopes that view a large area of the electromagnetic spectrum. This means that the science you get back from the observations of all the different telescopes has taken place in the same time frame.

"This contrasts with other space observations from different satellites which result in a time gap whenever you collate the different results. This makes Astrosat a very ambitious mission and it has the potential to make a very high impact in the worldwide astronomy community."

This is not the University of Leicester's first space link with India. A space scientist from Tata, Dr Kallol Mukerjee, had worked in the Space Research Centre on the Leicester element of the Swift mission. It was through his work at Leicester that links with India were strengthened.

Scientists now hope this is the start of an ongoing relationship with India. The Leicester team consists of Chief Scientist - Gordon Stewart, Project Management- Guy Peters, camera design-Tony Abbey, mechanical engineer-Tim Stevenson. Head of Department Professor George Fraser is in overall charge.

The Indian delegation consists of: Professor KP Singh - project manager for the Soft X-Ray Telescope from Mumbai; Mr Koteswara Rao - project manager for Astrosat, from Bangalore; Professor PC Agrawal, senior researcher and principal investigator for Astrosat, from Mumbai and Atul Kothare, engineer, from Mumbai.

TELESCOPES

First Critical Parts Of Giant Neutrino Telescope In Place

Madison WI (SPX) Feb 16, 2005
Working under harsh Antarctic conditions, an international team of scientists, engineers and technicians has set in place the first critical elements of a massive neutrino telescope at the South Pole.

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2016 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.