SPACE CHENNAI - GAM 2020 - HONOURING INDIA’S FIRST SATELLITE ARYABHATA REPORT

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May 07

2020

by SPACE Chennai

GLOBAL ASTRONOMY MONTH – HONOURING INDIA’S FIRST SATELLITE ARYABHATA REPORT

City: Chennai

Date: 19/04/2020

Global Astronomy Month (GAM), organized in April every year by Astronomers Without Borders, is the world's largest global celebration of astronomy. For this year, SPACE has suggested several GAM events for conduction by SPACE associated schools.

HIGHLIGHTS:

• Featuring the India’s first artificial satellite - Aryabhata
• Importance of satellites and their applications.
• This program motivated the participants to make use of this international opportunity provided by SPACE for honouring and feel proud of India in the field of Astronomy.

DESCRIPTION:

Aryabhata was India's first satellite and It was launched on 19 April 1975 from Kapustin Yar, a Russian rocket launch and development site in Astrakhan Oblast using a Kosmos-3M launch vehicle. It was built by the ISRO. The satellite's 96.46-minute orbit had an apogee of 619 kilometres (385 mi) and a perigee of 563 kilometres (350 mi), at an inclination of 50.7 degrees. The spacecraft was a 26-sided polyhedron 1.4 metres (4.6 ft) in diameter. All faces (except the top and bottom) were covered with solar cells.

A power failure halted experiments after four days and 60 orbits with all signals from the spacecraft lost after five days of the operation.[citation needed] Spacecraft mainframe remained active till March 1981.Due to orbital decay the satellite entered Earth's atmosphere on 11 February 1992. It was built to conduct experiments in X-ray astronomy, aeronomics, and solar physics.

PHOTOGRAPHS:

                                               India enters the age of space science and exploration

 CONCLUSION:

                       This event served as honouring our India’s first artificial satellite which started the new era of space science in India.