Mighty India Power

With a view to increasing its surveillance capabilities, Indian Air Force is going to have its own satellite in space by the end of 2010. "We will launch our satellite by the end of 2010," IAF chief Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi Major said here yesterday. The satellite to be launched by ISRO next year will be a dual-use satellite and will be used for civilian purposes also. It will help the IAF to position its aerial and ground assets and targets. It would be used to gather navigational information. In the recent past, IAF has been working closely to develop its space-based capabilities. It even has plans of setting up an Aerospace command under it but it has faced opposition from the other two services over the issue. Its southern command based in Thiruvananthapuram works closely with ISRO in space related areas. At the air headquarters also, one Air Vice Marshal rank officer looks after space operations.

In a boost to India's long-standing aim to have "a nuclear weapon triad", defence minister A K Antony on Wednesday said the secretive programme to construct indigenous nuclear submarines was on the verge of completion now. "Things are in the final stage now in the ATV (advanced technology vessel) project. There were bottlenecks earlier...they are over now," said Antony, during the ongoing Aero India-2009 here. The hush-hush ATV project, a euphemism for the three nuclear-powered submarines being constructed at the Visakhapatnam naval dockyard, has been dogged by a series of technical hiccups since it was formally launched as far back as 1983. The main problem has revolved around the design of miniature PWRs (pressurised water reactors) and their containment plans for the submarine's propulsion system but sources said such technical problems are a thing of the past now, with a little help from countries like Russia and France. Sources said there had been some ...