ANBARASUASOKAN

SRIHARIKOTA: In a landmark late night journey into a new era of space application, India today successfully launched its first dedicated  navigation satellite  using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle which blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here. Precisely at 11.41 pm, India's workhorse PSLV C22 lifted off in a perfect text book launch, carrying IRNSS-1A satellite, painting a dense golden flame in the dark canvas of the sky. About 20 minutes after its launch, the rocket placed into the IRNSS-1A into its orbit. An elated  ISRO  chairman K Radhakrishnan said the IRNSS-1A satellite was precisely injected into its intended orbit. "This only proves that PSLV is an extremely reliable vehicle and with this flight, we are also entering into a new era of space application in the country that is the beginning of satellite navigation programme." The data from the satellite would help the country in a range of fields including disaster management, vehicle tracking, f

Almost two-thirds of the world does not have access to high-speed internet, but Google is determined to change that. Unfortunately, setting up an affordable infrastructure in remote areas is beyond even a huge multinational corporation's capabilities, which is why the company had to devise a completely out-of-the-box solution called Project Loon. As part of the project, Google recently launched a series of internet-enabled balloons into the stratosphere over New Zealand to provide broadband connectivity to rural areas. The idea is to create a floating network about 20 km (12.4 miles) above the Earth's surface, high enough to avoid any adverse weather or airplane traffic. At that altitude, the winds are more mild, only 5 to 20 mph (8 to 32.2 km/h), but still strong enough to carry the balloons to other areas. If they need to go in a different direction, they can also be raised or lowered to catch a wind current heading on an alternative course. Each balloon's envelope i

Although various  alternative technologies  are being developed, the large-scale desalination of seawater typically involves forcing it through a membrane that allows the water to pass through, but that traps the salt. These membranes can be costly, they can get fouled, and powerful pumps are required to push the water through. Now, however, scientists from the University of Texas at Austin and Germany’s University of Marburg are taking another approach. They’ve developed a chip that separates salt from water.