ISRO to involve rural students in data collection

The rescheduled launch of navigation satellite IRNSS-1D will now be on March 28, said ISRO chairman A S Kirankumar in Dharwad.

Speaking to reporters after inaugurating an exhibition on ‘Moon Mission’ in Gadag district, he said, the fourth in the seven-satellite Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) was put off due to a technical problem on March 4.

He said, three IRNSS satellites were already in orbit. “The launch will help to further strengthen the country’s own GPS (Global Positioning System),” he added.

Kirankumar said, the students from rural areas will be involved in collecting data. “We receive abundant data pertaining to various themes such as soil, water bodies and watershed development. We would like to collect samples of water bodies through students, especially those from rural areas, test the samples in our laboratories and validate the data that we already have,” he explained.

This will help give exposure to students from rural areas to data received by ISRO from its remote-sensing satellites.

“We already have a crowd sourcing application available on our website (ISRO’s geoportal bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in) which was put to use during a few recent natural calamities,” he said.

Kirankumar, who is also Secretary, Department of Space, earlier inaugurated and watched the working model of the ‘Moon Mission’ developed by rural students under the guidance of an ISRO scientist.

He said, ISRO planned to launch six to seven satellites using its launch vehicles in a year’s time. This included the Astrosat, the nation’s first dedicated astronomy satellite, and three UK satellites on a commercial basis.