Mighty India Power

A wholly Indian-built spy/surveillance satellite, Radar Imaging Satellite (Risat-1) that can see through clouds and fog and has very high-resolution imaging is slated for launch in April, a senior official of the Indian space agency has said. An official of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said thorough tests were being done on the Risat-1. "The Risat-1 is put to thermal vacuum test (a test to check the satellite's functioning in space environment). It is a complex microwave satellite being built for the first time in India. The satellite is expected to be launched in April," the senior official told, not wishing to be named because of the organisational rules. In earlier satellites, one major component, the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) was imported, but in Risat-1 that has also been developed in India. He said Risat-1 is the first such satellite being built by India and is a bit complex compared to other remote sensing/earth observation satellites ...

India is likely to testfire its indigenously developed new sub-sonic cruise missile Nirbhay next month, sources said Wednesday. "The Defense Research and Development Organization has made the missile which can travel at a sub-sonic speed that is less than the speed of sound. It will be testfired in April," the sources said. Nirbhay, India's equivalent of America's long-range Tomahawk, is a two-stage, surface-to-surface missile which can carry multiple payloads and engage several targets. It has a range of nearly 1,000 km. Nirbhay will be a terrain hugging, stealthy missile capable of delivering 24 different types of warheads depending on mission requirements and will use an inertial navigation system for guidance. "It will supplement Indo-Russian made BrahMos supersonic cruise missile in the sense that it would enable delivery of warheads farther than the 300 km range of BrahMos," the sources added.