DRDO looks back on Year 2014

DRDO Tests Glide Bomb Successfully

December, 2014

A 1,000-kg glide bomb designed and developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was successfully tested in the Bay of Bengal off the Odisha coast. The bomb was dropped by an Indian Air Force aircraft.

Defence sources said the bomb, guided by its onboard navigation system, glided for nearly 100 km before hitting the target with precision. Its flight was monitored by radars and electro-optic systems stationed at the Chandipur-Based Integrated Test Range.

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Why GSLV MK-III success matters?

India's Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment (CARE) flew to an altitude of 78 miles (126 km). CARE then separated from the upper stage of the GSLV Mk-III rocket, and landed over Bay of Bengal on Dec. 18, 2014

Significance of GSLV MK-III

• It is the most capable rocket ever developed by India. It can carry up to 10 metric tons, or about 22,000 pounds, of cargo into low Earth orbit and up to 4 metric tons or about 8,800 pounds into geostationary transfer orbit once it is operational.
• Validated complex atmospheric ascent regime, especially aerodynamic and control features that cannot be conclusively tested on ground.
• Validated new design features which includes both Hardware and Software implementation
• Performance validation of S200 solid boosters which generate 1.1 million pounds of thrust, making them the second-most powerful solid-fueled rocket motors currently in service after the strap-on rockets used by Europe’s Ariane 5 launcher.
• Successfully tested 2 liquid-fueled L110 clustered Vikas engines using hydrazine as fuel which ignited when the rocket is already in the air, firing for more than three minutes and ramping up to peak power of 360,000 pounds of thrust. This is the first time ISRO has tested a clustered engine configuration.
• The launch marked the successful testing of the atmospheric re-entry of a crew module, which separated from the rocket 325 seconds after lift-off at an altitude of 126 km, and descended in ballistic mode, re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere (about 80 km above sea level) and splashing down into the Bay of Bengal.
• 1,600 degrees Celsius is the temperature that the CARE module withstood at re-entry into atmosphere, advanced heat shield technology was employed, further analysis of the data will reveal the actual temperature signature prevalent during re-entry phase.
• Re-entry capability is key to sending a human into space. This is a complicated and dangerous manoeuvre; it is while re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere that the space shuttle Columbia was destroyed in 2003, killing seven astronauts, including Indian American Kalpana Chawla.
• Finally, the global space industry is worth more than $ 300 billion, apart from the regular PSLV business and India has the potential to tap a substantial portion of this large pie once the GSLV matures as a reliable & credible launch platform.

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Major Achievements of ISRO Year Ended 2014

Introduction

The Indian Space Programme had a modest beginning with the launch of the first sounding rockets in November 1963 from the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS), an obscure fishing village near Thiruvananthapuram for the investigation of ionosphere using sounding rockets. The primary objective of the Indian Space Program is to achieve self-reliance in Space Technology and to evolve application program to meet the developmental needs of the country, thus ISRO was brought under the newly formed DOS in September 1972. 

Since then, over the last five decades, the ever challenging task of space technology development and utilisation, has not only graduated from experimental and demonstration phases to an operation era, but also provided its potential to address the national needs. Notable progress has been made in the design, development and operation of space systems, as well as, using them for vital services like telecommunications, television broadcasting, meteorology, disaster management support and natural resources survey and management including climate variability and change.

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The 5 Deadly Deadly Guns of Modern War

While everyone oohs and aahs over nuclear weapons, submarines and stealth fighters, modern wars usually involve infantries on the ground—and they need guns

by Kyle Mizokami

Modern warfare has seen breathtaking advances in the last hundred years, as mortal competition between nations spawns successively deadlier weapons.Aircraft, missiles, tanks, submarines and other inventions, many of which did not exist in practical terms in 1914 — have quickly earned key positions in the militaries of the world. Yet there is still one invention that, although conceived more than five hundred years ago, still has a vital place on today’s battlefield: the infantry weapon and supporting arms. No matter how high tech the armed forces of the world have become, warfare since the end of the Second World War has consistently involved some form of infantry combat.

With that in mind, here are five of the most deadly guns of modern war.

AK-47:

The undisputed king of the modern battlefield is the Avtomat Kalashnikova model 47, or AK-47. Extremely reliable, the AK-47 is plentiful on Third World battlefields. From American rap music to Zimbabwe, the AK-47 has achieved icon status, and is one of the most recognizable symbols—of any kind—in the world. The AK series of rifles is currently carried by fighters of the Islamic State, Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, various factions in Libya and both sides in the Ukraine conflict.

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What is the National Interest?

The “national interest” is a term commonly thrown around in political debates and policy discussions but very rarely defined. This is partly for political reasons, because no politician or activist would ever claim to be against the national interest (it’s easy to be for it when you don’t define it) and partly for practical reasons, because the national interest is a very hard thing to define.

What do YOU mean by national interest?

Many of the most seemingly intractable debates in ethics, public policy, and other areas of great importance stem from lack of clarity about terms – if my opponent and I both use the term “equality” but he means equality of result whereas I mean equality of opportunity we’re going to talk past each other. Worse, the lack of clarity hinders clear thinking about necessary compromises, turning conflicts about means into conflicts about values when they do not need to be.

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Birds of a feather flock together

by Admin

The Adage goes thus "Birds of a feather flock together", this veritable scenario is emerging in the South-Asian political arena today. Confronting China's newfound belligerence and undeterred run in the South-Asian landscape of late, has prompted these three divergent nation states spread across several thousands of kilometers come together under a Trilateral agreement to counter mighty Red Dragon's aggressive and assertive military ambitions.

China has been a tenuous thorn and a anathema for India for several decades now, however unlike Pakistan, China's stance against India is understated and less confrontational. It waves its flashy double edged sword against India only when there are strong imperatives to underline its foreign policy postulations.

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