Mighty India Power

India will soon acquire a comprehensive global navigation satellite system to meet the requirements of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Airports Authority of India (AAI). "India has tied up recently with US aerospace major Raytheon Company for the final phase of its ambitious Global Positioning Satellite-Aided Geosynchronous Augmented Navigation System (GAGAN)," said Andy Zogg, the company's vice president of Airspace Management and Homeland Security. GAGAN will provide satellite-based navigation for civil aviation across South and East Asia, which will provide India with "the most accurate, flexible and efficient" air navigation system deployed.

India is to launch its first unmanned mission to the Moon this month as it struggles to catch up with China in a 21st-century Asian version of the space race between the United States and Soviet Union. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced yesterday that it would fire a locally made rocket bearing the lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 from a launchpad in southeastern India on October 22, weather permitting. The launch could be delayed until October 26 if conditions are not right over the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, 63 miles (125km) from the city of Madras. It was planned originally for April, but was postponed repeatedly because of technical problems with the £47 million project, which involves several foreign countries, including the United States. The 1.38tonne spacecraft will take approximately eight days to travel about 240,000 miles before reaching its final orbit 60 miles above the surface of the Moon, ISRO officials say. It will then orbit for almost two years...

The Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE), Bangalore of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) which has been indigenously developing Kaveri engine for propelling the Indian Light Combat Aircraft (Tejas), has now come up with a modified marine version, as a spin off during research, to develop shaft power for propelling Indian Naval ship. Using the core of the Kaveri engine, the scientists of GTRE have added low pressure compressor and turbine as a gas generator and designed a free power turbine to generate shaft power for the maritime application. The Kaveri Marine Gas Turbine (KMGT) as it has been named has been transported to naval dock yard, Vishakapatnam and installed on to the marine gas turbine test bed which is an Indian Navy facility capable of testing the gas turbines up to 25 MW of shaft power through a reduction gearbox and a water brake dynamometer. The Indian Navy has been involved in the development of the engine and participated and supporting the t...