back to article India's GPS alternative launches second satellite

India has launched its second navigation satellite, the daintily-named IRNSS-1B. IRNSS is an acronym for “Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System” and the name is noteworthy because the planned seven-satellite constellation is intended to provide location services within India and in an “extended service area” around the …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fantastic, while half the country lives in poverty, while 60% of children receive no schooling! while caste racism is rife....

    Still you can only applaud them for their technological prowess.

    1. stuartnz

      Good point. At least, it might be, if every other country spending hundreds of millions on space exploration had totally eradicated poverty and social injustice already.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Poverty

        The definition of poverty changes over time. What was poverty in the year 1500, in the year 1900, in the year 2014, and what will it be in the year 2100 or the year 2500? Few of us would trade lives with even a wealthy man in the year 1500, we'd consider he lives in poverty. If we don't hit major bumps in the road (nuclear war, zombie attack, whatever) even the 1% might happily trade lives with those living in what is considered "poverty" in the year 2500.

        1. Ray Miles

          Re: Poverty

          No, poverty in India is absolute poverty, less than a dollar a day stuff.

        2. ecofeco Silver badge

          Re: Poverty

          No, the definition doesn't change.

          Hunger is still hunger. Homeless is still homeless. Living in a shack with no running water is still living in shack with no running water. No access to medicine is still no access to medicine. No opportunity to improve your life is still no opportunity to improve your life.

          Poverty is poverty, period. There is nothing relative about it. If you think not, I suggest you give it a try first hand. If you think you can handle it for more than a few days, that is. Poverty is not a week's vacation in a tent.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What's your point?

      So all the technology and economic growth in India was a mistake? All those resources should have gone towards buying food for the hungry? Perhaps if they did so would have had fewer hungry people in the short run, but if they had the same economy they had 50 years ago those hungry people would still be dependent on someone to feed them!

      All the newly minted middle class Indians who didn't exist 50 years ago are not dependent on anyone to feed them, they can take care of themselves, and their children's education through university. If this continues at the same rate, 50 years from now they'll all be able to feed themselves, and anyone willing/able to go to university will be able to do so.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      So you expect every country to be like South Korea then? See we have everything we need we sell to world but actually we proxy everything the big brothers say in world matters. Its all round development that matters and just putting food on plates for everyone doesn't make a country.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Fantastic, while half the country lives in poverty, while 60% of children receive no schooling..."

      I think you're forgetting that it's the UK gov's job, via the millions in charity handouts to India each year, to solve those pesky little problems.

      Nice little setup the Indians have got going, I must say!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Or maybe the UK is paying for the satellites... and no one is feeding the poor.

      2. Ray Miles

        I think you will find that UK state aid to India is very much on the decline, mainly at the insistence of the Indian government.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Wrong!

      Growing up as a kid in India, reading up on ISRO's satellite launch and rocket propulsion milestones is what what kept the technological spark alive, instilling a desire to attain an advanced degree in engineering.

      Investment in science and technology, and education is the main contributor to poverty alleviation. Someone once said something along the lines "teach a man to fish and......."

      What's shameful is the decline in college enrollments and graduation rates in the USofA. There is no excuse for this! Neil deGrasse Tyson even went to the extent of comparing this decline to reduced funding of NASA during the same period.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Ray Miles

        Re: Wrong!

        Having the worst child malnutrition rates in the world and half the population with zero access to clean water and sanitation is i would suggest also shameful.

      3. ecofeco Silver badge

        Re: Wrong!

        "What's shameful is the decline in college enrollments and graduation rates in the USofA. There is no excuse for this!"

        Cost. The avg* cost for a 4 year degree is now in the 100k plus range. That's $100,000 or nearly £200,000 pounds.

        Only the wealthy can now afford this.

        *note I said average. But the +/- is not far off.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Gah...what the bloody hell are those Edison and Tesla fellows doing messing around, spending millions on those stupid electrical things when there are poor people in the world, many who are dropping dead from cold and hunger.

      Cock.

    7. John Hughes

      More sour grapes

      from a crappy little country that only ever managed to launch one satellite.

    8. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Fantastic, while half the country lives in poverty, while 60% of children receive no schooling! while caste racism is rife..."

      Since you're posting on here I assume you own a computer -- how can you possibly justify buying a computer when there are people starving?

    9. Ray Miles
      Meh

      Its worse than that, half the population defecates in the street, in parts of Delhi there is one water tap for up to 100,000 people, largest slums in the world, child malnutrition worse than sub Sharian Africa etc, etc, etc, but heah nuclear weapons, a space program and the largest importer of weapons in the world, no problem.

      Technology wise, great, but somewhat warped priorities.

  2. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. All names Taken
    Paris Hilton

    What happened to

    Galileo (EU GPS satnav thingy)

    Are they still talking about it?

    Last I heard (about 2003) was that the meetings were going ahead, the funding was being drawn but no satellite actions taken.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      Re: What happened to

      There's this thing call a "Search Engine", examples being Google and Bing.

      If you type in say, European GPS, you may find what you are looking for.

      Good job you are not posting this on a technical site, you may get laughed at.

      Unless of course you are attempting to be ironic.

    2. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: What happened to

      There are pieces of it sitting about 50 metres from me and 6 birds in orbit already.

      It won't be particularly useful until there are at least 20 up there.

      There's a lot to be said for multiple systems (hard for anyone to hold the world to ransom by switching theirs off), but that won't help much when the neighbourhood bully threatens to shoot down any which don't turn off when they say so.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: What happened to

        >There are pieces of it sitting about 50 metres from me

        So a highly accurate if somewhat localised system?

      2. Martin Budden Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: What happened to

        There are pieces of it sitting about 50 metres from me

        With such a sophisticated system I'd hope for much better accuracy than "about" at that sort of range. I mean really, a long tape measure could do better!

    3. Charles Manning

      Wrong search term

      GPS is the name of the US system.

      What you want is the more generic GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) of which GLONASS, GPS and GALILEO are examples.

      Then there are the local service variants such as the Chinese and Indian systems. These are cheaper to deploy since they require fewer satellites and less ground stations.

      Why is the EU thing taking so long to get going? Bureaucracy. The satellite doesn't launch until the paperwork weighs more than the launch vehicle.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Wrong search term

        AFAIK Baidu the chinese system now uses LEO and a cosntelation the same as GPS/Galileo/etc

        Their original system used a single GSO space segment providing timing only along with a ground network of stations.

        Advantage was that they only needed a single satelite but you needed to have a comms channel on the ground.

        Real advantage was that nobody could use it without the ground stations also knowing who and where they where.

        Interested in how the Indian system is going to work. Would the time difference between satellites in a line 40,000km away really give you a good position?

      2. Number6

        Re: Wrong search term

        Why is the EU thing taking so long to get going? Bureaucracy. The satellite doesn't launch until the paperwork weighs more than the launch vehicle.

        It's all part of the launch method. Put the satellite on one end of a big see-saw and drop the paperwork on the other end. Obviously it's important to have enough paperwork to provide sufficient launch energy to the satellite.

      3. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: Wrong search term

        Actually the USA system is called "Navstar"

        GPS is a generic term and I'd argue that localised ones aren't global.

        WRT documentation: thats the same everywhere in aerospace. One of the major holdups is Europe's insistance that contracts get awarded based on which countries contributed, not on technical merits of the players.

  4. Elmer Phud

    To those who bleat about cost - you might have misssed something . . .

    " That all seven INRSS craft are expected to be aloft by the end of 2015, at a combined cost of under $US300m,"

    FFS!

    The U.S. or E.U. would spunk that away just by producing Powerpoint presentations for one operation with not a single spanner being lifted.

    The Indians may have invented Binary - they ought to be allowed to use in now and then.

    Usual Wiki quote:

    "The concept of zero as a number and not merely a symbol or an empty space for separation is attributed to India, where, by the 9th century AD, practical calculations were carried out using zero, which was treated like any other number, even in case of division.[14][15] The Indian scholar Pingala (circa 5th–2nd century BC) used binary numbers in the form of short and long syllables (the latter equal in length to two short syllables), making it similar to Morse code.[16][17]"

    1. regadpellagru

      Re: To those who bleat about cost - you might have misssed something . . .

      "FFS!

      The U.S. or E.U. would spunk that away just by producing Powerpoint presentations for one operation with not a single spanner being lifted."

      Yeah, but India is using geostationary sats, because, you know, it's local coverage only, so no need to use low orbits, like GPS/Glonass/Galileo do. The latter is more expensive techno and of course use more sats, while the former uses sat techno already everywhere around the globe for TV.

      Still, not bad a price to have their service for the whole country and surroundings.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: To those who bleat about cost - you might have misssed something . . .

        It's still only 1/3 the cost of a single space shuttle launch to LEO

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sour Grapes Indeed

    IF it was left only ton the UK, we would still be looking to appoint a Royal Commission (headed by a Royal high court retired Judge, his health and demntia permitting) to look into the feasibility of a planning permission, whose sole goal would be to seek out NIMBYS who would be willing to allow a launch pad in their backyard, provided only, if it didnt upset the breeding cycle of tadpoles and a rare butterfly caterpillar in crossing their garden paths, OR Farmers, who insist their cows and sheep do not get disturbed by the noise , lest they produce poor milk and meat. All this, of course, after the doddering lords and ladies passed the bill for it !

    And thats for starters!

    And also assuming the Buffoon Boris doesnt fart from his mouth for an island airport instead. Oh I forgot the Scots, who might not be wanting to be part of the show and Alex Salmond wanting a referendum about the whole project.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The poverty argument

    I think we sometimes fail to appreciate that India is sandwiched between two nations that she had previously been to war with, China and Pakistan. There's a different and conflicting ideology in China, whilst the other nation, Pakistan, is known for links with terrorism, and for harbouring terrorists too. You recall the suicide bombing incident in Mumbai? Hardly friendly peace loving neighbours, I would suggest.

    Yes poverty is a serious threat to the Indian people, but then, so is the threat of war/terrorism. Therefore its completely understandable that India must keep on top of the game where technology is concerned, particularly in relation to defence technology, as well as ensuring they work to eliminate poverty.

    What would you do if you were in charge of a nation in that situation?

    1. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: The poverty argument

      A better poverty argument is that this kind of thing allows deployment of technology in the field which helps the poor lift themselves out of poverty.

      1. Ray Miles

        Re: The poverty argument

        This has singularly failed in India, poverty indexes have hardly moved in the last few decades.

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