The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

NEWS AND VIEWS

PUNJAB

HARYANA

JAMMU & KASHMIR

HIMACHAL

REGIONAL BRIEFS

NATION

OPINIONS

MAILBAG

BUSINESS

SPORTS

WORLD

SPECIAL COVERAGE

CHANDIGARH

LUDHIANA

DELHI

THE TRIBUNE SPECIALS

50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

M A I N N E W S

INSAT-4CR in good health

Thiruvananthapuram, September 3
A day after the successful launch of the GSLV-F04 from Sriharikota, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) Director B.N. Suresh said ISRO’s immediate plan was the launch of two more PSLV flights this year and a GSLV launch early next year.

Speaking to reporters at the airport here today after arriving from Sriharikota, he said the communication satellite INSAT-4CR put in its pre-determined orbit by GSLV, was in “good health”.

“Further operations of the satellite are being done from ISRO’s centre at Hassan. Our people have already gone there,” he said.

The success of this launch, particularly after the failure of the previous GSLV flight four months back, demonstrated the robustness of the vehicle and resilience of ISRO as a team, “I think we have done a good job within a short span of time,” he said.

Suresh said the Indian Space Research Institute would be inaugurated at the VSSC campus on September 14 by ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair. “We have set up a alternative campus and are going to run the Institute through it”, he said.

PM congratulates scientists

New Delhi: Terming the successful launch of GSLV-F04 as spectacular, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said this has proved the country’s capabilities to build state-of-the-art communication satellites.

“The nation is justly proud of the scientific and technological capabilities of our space scientists,” he said in a message to ISRO.

With this launch, “we have reaffirmed our capabilities to not only build state-of-the-art communication satellites, but also to launch them using an indigenously designed and developed launch vehicle,” the Prime Minister’s media adviser Sanjaya Baru quoted him as saying.

Observing that the “spectacular” launch of GSLV-F04 has been witnessed by the whole nation, Singh said he was happy that ISRO has been able to overcome the problem faced in its last mission within the shortest possible time.

“I congratulate all the scientists and technicians associated with the launch and wish them even greater successes in the future,” the Prime Minister said. — PTI