'INDRA-2012' Indo-Russian joint exercise to combat terrorism

INS Chakra: Top 10 must-know facts

1) INS Chakra is a Russia-made, nuclear-propelled, hunter-killer submarine. Unlike conventional submarines that India operates which need to surface to charge their batteries often - sometimes as frequently as 24 hours - INS Chakra can stay under as long as it wants. Its ability to stay underwater is restrained only by human endurance to stay underwater. Also, another problem that the submarine could face is acidity. This is because of a lack of exercise inside due to prolonged deployments.
2) The Akula Class submarine will carry conventional weapons. The vessel is armed with four 533mm torpedo tubes and four 650mm torpedo tubes. It will be used to hunt and kill enemy ships.
3) The INS Chakra displaces about 10,000 tons. It can do over 30 knots - more than twice the speed of conventional submarines. It can go upto a depth of 600 metres.
4) INS Chakra is one of the quietest nuclear submarines around, with noise levels next to zero.
5) It has about 80 crew members on board. The entire crew of INS Chakra has been trained in Russia for over a year. Facilities for the crew on board INS Chakra include a large recreation area, a gymnasium and a sauna as well.
6) INS Chakra has been taken on lease from Russia for 10 years and would provide the Navy the opportunity to train personnel and operate such nuclear-powered vessels. In 2004, India had signed a deal with Russia worth over $900 million for leasing the submarine. INS Chakra was expected to be inducted into Indian Navy a couple of years ago, but after an on-board accident in 2008, in which several Russian sailors died, the delivery schedule was changed.
7) INS Chakra formally joined the Indian Navy on Wednesday. It was commissioned by Defence Minister AK Antony at the Ship Building Complex in Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. "INS Chakra will ensure security and sovereignty of the country," the minister has said. When asked if INS Chakra's induction will lead to arms race in the region, Defence Minister AK Antony told reporters, "India does not believe in arms race. We are not a confrontationist nation. We are a peaceloving nation....but, at the same time, the armed forces will be strengthened to meet any challenge."
8) The induction of the nuclear-powered submarine clearly indicates India's intentions in the Indian Ocean Region and South East Asia which has recently seen increasing assertive Chinese presence in the last few months. It will also a send a strong reassuring message to south east Asian nations like Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia who want India to play a more active role in the region to counter the assertiveness of China in the area.
9) The induction of the INS Chakra is likely to be followed by the induction of the indigenous INS Arihant, which will be capable of launching nuclear weapons and therefore complete the nuclear triad. INS Arihant, it is understood, is now undergoing sea trails at Vizag.
10) The only other nations possessing nuclear-powered submarines are - US, Russia, UK, France and China. India is back in this elite club after over a decade. In 1988, the Indian Navy had leased a Charlie Class nuclear-powered submarine for three years till 1991. However, the expertise gathered then was lost as most officers who had trained to operate nuclear submarines have retired.

Agni V to be test-fired soon

• It will have a range of 5,000 km and can carry a one-tonne nuclear war head
• Agni V, the surface-to surface nuclear missile that is expected to give more teeth to India's deterrence programme, is likely to be test-fired for the first time in the last week of March or the first week of April from the Wheeler Island, off the coast of Odisha.
• Countries across the world have been keenly watching India's progress in developing this missile, which will have a range of 5,000 km and is capable of carrying a one-tonne nuclear war head. Weighing 50 tonnes, the 17.2-metre-long missile, with a diameter of two metres, will have three stages, all fired by solid fuel.

Interceptor scores a direct hit on target missile

• Validating Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) capability, India successfully launched an interceptor missile to destroy an incoming target missile in a direct hit at an altitude of 15 km over the Bay of Bengal
• The target missile mimicked an incoming enemy missile with a range of more than 2,000 km.
• A few minutes after the ‘hostile’ missile, a modified surface-to-surface Prithvi, took off at 10.10 a.m. from Launch Complex-3 at Chandipur, the interceptor missile, Advanced Air Defence (AAD), was fired from the Wheeler Island. As the target missile climbed to a height about 100 km and began descending at rapid speed, the interceptor travelling at supersonic speed homed on to the target and smashed it to smithereens around 10.15 a.m. at a 15-km altitude in the endo-atmosphere.
• The crucial test was conducted as part of India’s plans to deploy a two-tiered BMD system to engage and kill incoming enemy missiles in the endo-atmosphere and exo-atmopshere.
• This was the seventh interceptor mission and the fifth endo-atmospheric interception. Six of the tests to date have been successful, including the first three in a row.

Rafale edges out Eurofighter

• India selected the French Fighter Rafale over the Eurofighter Typhoon in a multi-billion dollar contract for the supply of 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) — the country's largest defense deal to date.
• Interestingly, for a company that faltered at the start, with the Defence Ministry indicating that the Rafale was out of the race, Dassault made a comeback and went on to win the bid.
• Sources in the Ministry of Defence said the product was picked up on the basis of it being the Lowest Bidder (L1), a decision arrived at after complex calculations including the life-cycle costs. The two aircraft were chosen from a list of six, including U.S. Boeing (F/A18) and Lockheed Martin (F-16), Russian MiG-35 and Swedish Saab (Gripen), in April last year.
• The deal is estimated to be worth $10.2 billion (Rs.54,000 crore). The plan includes acquiring 126 aircraft, 18 of them in fly-away condition and the rest to be manufactured in India at the Hindustan Aeronautics facility under transfer of technology.
• For France, the MMRCA deal is the third big defence contract that has come its way. In the current financial year, the Government of India cleared the $2.4 billion upgrade of 51 Mirage-2000 aircraft and the $970 million supply of MICA fire-and-forget missile for the same aircraft.

India receives its first nuclear powered submarine INS Chakra

• India's first nuclear powered submarine 'INS Chakra' has been formally received by Indian Ambassador to Russia
  
• The Russian built submarine was handed over at a ceremony in the far Eastern Russian Port of Primorye . This makes India the 6th operator of such submarines in the world after the US , Russia , China , the UK and France to operate nuclear under water vessel.
• The submarine originally known as Nerpa, has been rechristened INS Chakra and has been given to India on a lease ten years worth 900 million US dollar.
• AIR correspondent reports that with a displacement of 12,770 tonnes and maximum speed of 30 knots, the submarine is armed with four 533 mm torpedo tubes and four 650 mm torpedo tubes.

Agni V in final phase of testing

• Agni-V, the 5,000-km version of the nuclear capable missile, is in the final phase of testing and is soon set for launch, a senior DRDO official said here today.
• The three-stage Agni-V and the two-stage Agni-IV are poised to add credible deterrence against countries which have missiles like the 11,200-km Dong Feng-31A 
• Agni-V will feature Multiple Independently-Targeted Re-entry Vehicles (MIRVs) with each missile being capable of carrying 3-10 separate warheads

Dong Feng-31 A
The Dong Feng 31 is a long-range, road-mobile, three stage, solid propellant intercontinental ballistic missile in the Dongfeng missile series developed by the People's Republic of China. It is designed to carry a single 1,000kt thermal nuclear warhead. It is a land-based variant of the submarine launched JL-2. It is operated by the Second Artillery Corps (SAC) which is estimated to have under 15 DF-31 missiles and under 15 DF-31A missiles in inventory.
The DF-31A is believed to have incorporated many advanced technologies similar to current generation Russian ICBMs, including the use of penetration aids such as decoys or chaff and maneuverable reentry vehicles to complicate enemy's missile warning and defense system.

MIRV

A multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) warhead is a collection of nuclear weapons carried on a single intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) or a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). Using a MIRV warhead, a single launched missile can strike several targets individually, or fewer targets redundantly. By contrast a unitary warhead is a single warhead on a single missile.

Mode of operation

Second nuclear submarine headed for year-end launch

• The construction of a second Arihant-class nuclear submarine, to be named INS Aridaman, is moving fast at the Shipbuilding Centre (SBC) in Visakhapatnam. It is slated for launch by this year-end or in the first quarter of next year.
• The first submarine of the class, INS Arihant, launched in July 2009, has just completed its harbour acceptance trials and is set to undergo the crucial sea acceptance trials in February.
• This will be followed by weapon trials before the submarine is formally inducted into the Navy, hopefully in 2013, when the country will attain the much-desired nuclear triad
• Concurrently, nuclear-powered submarine INS Chakra, borrowed on a 10-year lease from Russia mainly for training purposes, will be inducted in the latter half of 2012.
• Displacing about 6,000 tonnes, the 112 metre-long Arihant-class of boomer submarines are powered by indigenously-built 80-MW nuclear power plants. Each submarine is said to store 12 K-15 missiles besides torpedoes and torpedo-launched cruise missiles.
  

NASA marks 2012 with twin probes in moon orbit (Grail-A ,Grail-B)

Image provided by NASA on Wednesday shows two sides of the moon.

 

 

• NASA kicked off the new year with a pair of probes circling the moon in the latest mission to understand how Earth’s closest neighbour formed.
• The action began on New Year’s Eve when Grail-A swung over the south pole, fired its engine and braked into orbit around the moon. Not to be outdone, its twin Grail-B executed the same manoeuvres on New Year’s Day.
• The arrivals capped a roundabout journey spanning 3 1/2 months and covering 2 1/2 million miles (4.02 million kilometres).
• NASA flew six Apollo missions that landed twelve men on the lunar surface and brought back more than 800 pounds (362.3 kilograms) of rock and soil samples. 
• Despite all the attention, the moon remains mysterious. Mission chief scientist Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said researchers know more about Mars, which is farther away from the Earth, than the moon. 
• One of the enduring puzzles is its lopsided shape with the far side more hilly than the side that Earth sees. Research published earlier this year suggested that our planet once had two moons that crashed early in the solar system’s history and created the moon that graces the sky today. 
• Scientists expect to learn more about how the celestial body formed using Grail’s gravity measurements that will indicate what’s below the surface.

NASA launches super-size rover (CURIOSITY) to Mars

• A super-size rover zoomed toward Mars on an 8-month, 354 million-mile (570 million-kilometre) journey Saturday, the biggest, best equipped robot ever sent to explore another planet.
• NASA's six-wheeled, one-armed wonder, Curiosity, will reach Mars next summer and use its jackhammer drill, rock-zapping laser machine and other devices to search for evidence that Earth's next-door neighbour might once have been home to the teeniest forms of life.
• The 1-ton Curiosity 10 feet (3 meters) long, 9 feet (2.7 meters) wide and 7 feet (2.1 meters) tall at its mast is a mobile, nuclear-powered laboratory holding 10 science instruments that will sample Martian soil and rocks, and with unprecedented skill, analyze them right on the spot.
  

New Earth-like planet (Gliese 581g) may have water, life

Scientists claim to have discovered a potentially habitable planet which has an environment much similar to that of the Earth and may contain water and even life.

The exoplanet, called Gliese 581g, is located around 123 trillion miles away from the Earth and orbits a star at a distance that places it squarely in the habitable or the Goldilocks zone, the scientists said.

The research, published in the Astrophysical Journal, suggests that the planet could contain liquid water on its surface, meaning it tops the league of planets and moons rated as being most like Earth, they said.

Russia-India scientific, technology centre opened

• A Russia-India scientific and technological centre was opened in Moscow on to promote industrial uses for breakthrough technologies developed in both the countries.
• The centre was inaugurated to coincide with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Russia for an annual bilateral summit on Thursday. It is designed to provide a missing link to the wide-ranging scientific collaboration between the two nations – a mechanism for commercialisation of technologies developed under the 20-year-long Indo-Russian Integrated Long-Term Programme (ILTP).
• A similar centre would be opened in New Delhi early next year. It already has a website http://ristc.com/. Both units would work in close coordination.
  

Agni IV (Agni II Prime) test fired

• India has a formidable new addition to its armoury — Agni-IV. The missile's first test flight under its earlier name, Agni-II Prime, in December 2010 ended in failure
• The missile successfully carried a 800-kg warhead to a distance of over 3,000 km. Agni-III missile, which was first successfully tested in 2007, already has a range of over 3,500 km when carrying a 1.5 tonne warhead. With less payload, this missile's range would be considerably greater.
  
• The success of Agni-III and Agni-IV reflects the maturing of capabilities in the long-range missile programme.

China accomplishes docking exercise in space

• China's space programme on hailed its first ever docking exercise in outer space, conducted by an unmanned spacecraft, launched this week, with a space laboratory module — a step seen as a crucial landmark along China's road to launch its own space station in the next decade.
• The unmanned spacecraft Shenzhou-8 docked with the Tiangong-1 laboratory module which was launched on September 29, a development described by the China space programme as a "major technological breakthrough".
• China is now only the third country to accomplish a docking exercise in space, after the United States and Russia. Both those countries carried out similar exercises more than three decades ago.
• While China still continues to lag the two countries in its space technology, Beijing hopes to close the gap by becoming the third country to put into orbit its own space station, by 2020 — the year the International Space Station is brought down.
  

Successful launch of PSLV-C18 / MEGHA-TROPIQUES Mission

India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C18) successfully launched the Indo-French MEGHA-TROPIQUES Satellite on October 12, 2011. This has been the nineteenth successive successful flight of PSLV.

Three co-passenger Satellites (a) JUGNU from IIT, Kanpur (b) SRMSat from SRM University, Chennai and (c) VesselSat-1 from Luxembourg were also launched by PSLV-C18. The user institutions also have confirmed establishing contact with the satellites.

MEGHA-TROPIQUES Satellite, a joint endeavour of ISRO and the French National Space Agency (CNES), is intended to study the water cycle and energy exchanges in the tropical region covering 20 deg on either side of the Equator.

The first originality of MEGHA-TROPIQUES is to associate three radiometric instruments allowing to observe simultaneously three interrelated components of the atmospheric engine : water vapour, condensed water (clouds and precipitations), and radiative fluxes. The second is to privilege the sampling of the intertropical zone, accounting for the large time-space variability of the tropical phenomena. Moreover, the MEGHA-TROPIQUES microwave radiometer MADRAS could be one element complementing the constellation of mini-satellites of the Global Precipitation Mission .

Shaurya (missile)

The Shaurya missile is a canister launched Hypersonic surface-to-surface tactical missile developed by the Indian Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) for use by the Indian Armed Forces. It has a range of between 750 to 1900 km  and is capable of carrying a payload of one ton conventional or nuclear warhead.It gives the potential to strike in the short-intermediate range against any adversary.The Shaurya missile provides India with a significant second strike capability

The Shaurya missile is speculated to be the land version of the under-water Sagarika K-15 missile, although DRDO officials have reportedly denied its connection with the K-15 program Shaurya is stored in a composite canister, which makes it much easier to store for long periods without maintenance as well as to handle and transport. It also houses the gas generator to eject the missile from the canister before its solid propellant motors take over to hurl it at the intended target.

Indian Navy adds stealth frigate INS Satpura to its fleet

• The Indian Navy has commissioned  a new stealth frigate. The INS Satpura, built by the Mazgaon Docks Ltd
• The INS Satpura is the second of the indigenously designed and constructed stealth frigates of the Shivalik Class.
• Speaking at the commissioning ceremony, Admiral Verma said that the INS Satpura was a step closer towards becoming self sufficient in warship production."India's destiny to take her rightful place amongst the top economies of the world is inextricably linked with ensuring unhindered global trade in a secure maritime environment.I believe that with the commissioning of INS Satpura we are taking another decisive stride in this direction today."
• The INS Satpura is armed with surface, surface to air and sub-surface defence weapons. It can detect enemy at long ranges and engage in long range combat with an array of surface, sub-surface and air-defence weapons. Two helicopters are embarked upon the ship which enhances it surveillance and attack capabilities.
• It has a state-of-the-art 'Total Atmospheric Control System' (TACS) that ensures complete removal of radioactive, chemical or biological impurities, thereby protecting the crew and ship borne systems.
• Talking about the three recent incidents wherein two ships got grounded at the Mumbai coast while one sank in the Mumbai high sea, Admiral Verma said "The coordination between other agencies involved in maritime security and navy has increased and the warships deployed are keeping watch on all vessels using the shipping route".

T-50 stealth fighter makes public debut

• The Sukhoi fifth-generation stealth fighter, which Russia is jointly developing with India, made its public debut at a Moscow airshow on Wednesday.
• The T-50 has been making test flights since January 2010, but it is the fighter's first appearance at an airshow. After the demonstration flight the fighter jets were whisked away as they are still classified and are not displayed on the ground. The T-50 resembles Russia's best-selling Su-30 fighter jet but will have all its weapons hidden inside its body and wings to avoid radar detection and will fly at supersonic cruising speeds. The aircraft will also boast ultra manoeuvrability and high-technology avionics.
• The Russian Air Force will begin testing the Perspective Frontline Aviation Complex, as the plane is called in Russia, in 2013 and will start inducting its mass-produced version from 2014, said the Russian Air Chief at the show.
• It is India's biggest-ever defence project and its largest defence deal with Russia. India and Russia are jointly designing two versions of the plane — a single-seater for the Russian Air Force and a two-seat version for the IAF.
  
• India will contribute about 30 per cent of the total design in the project, including composite components with the stealth function and some avionics, electronic warfare systems and cockpit displays. The total cost of the project is estimated at $10 billion.
• The Indo-Russian fighter jet is expected to rival the U.S. F-22 Raptor and will cost just over half its price — less than $100 million apiece.
  

BrahMos agreement

Working on the hypersonic version of its supersonic cruise missile, BrahMos Aerospace on Tuesday signed a MoU with Russian aviation institutions to establish a centre of excellence for developing technology for high-speed aircraft and missiles.

Indian Space Programme – Recent Successful Missions

http://pib.nic.in/archieve/others/2011/aug/d2011080301.pdf

'Prahaar' missile successfully test-fired

• A new surface-to-surface missile called "Prahaar" was successfully test-fired on Thursday for the first time from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur, Orissa.
• The launch took place at 8.20 a.m. from a road mobile launcher, which is essentially a big truck. The missile traversed its entire range of 150 km in 250 seconds before impacting on the targeted area in the Bay of Bengal with an accuracy of few metres.
• The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) developed Prahaar (meaning "to strike") in two years, to specifically bridge the gap in the range between the unguided Pinaka rocket, which has a range of 45 km, and the guided Prithvi missile variants, that can take out targets 250 km to 350 km away.
• Prahaar carries a 200-kg conventional warhead.
• A few Prahaar missiles could do the job of many Pinaka rockets, in devastating wide areas, Dr. Saraswat said. It is an all-weather missile that can be launched from canisters. Since it can be fired from a road mobile launcher, it can be quickly transported to different places. It can be deployed in various kinds of terrain such as snow-bound areas or jungles. With its range of 150 km, it is comparable to the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) of the United States, he added.
• Prahaar can carry different types of conventional warheads. Six Prahaar missiles can be launched in salvo mode in different directions. The missile has a quick reaction time, that is, it can be launched within a few minutes. It has sophisticated inertial navigation, guidance and electro-mechanical actuation systems. Its onboard computer helps it to home in on the targets with an accuracy of 10 metres.
• Prahaar is a single stage missile, propelled by solid fuel. It is 7.3 metres tall, has a diameter of 42 cm and weighs 1.3 tonnes. The missile reaches a height of 35 km before reaching the targets 150 km away.