ISRO chairman Dr G Madhavan Nair introduced “Bhuvan” at the Indian National Cartographic Association (INCA) International Congress in Ahmedabad earlier this week. Bhuvan was created by ISRO’s Space Applications Center and is a satellite mapping tool similar to Google Earth.

As per Dr. G Madhavan

Bhuvan will use the data recorded by the Indian satellites only. The prototype of Bhuvan will be ready by the end of November and ISRO is hoping to officially launch the service by March next

True to Vikram Sarabhai’s vision, he added

With Bhuvan we will be able to produce very local information which will be specific to only to our own country. This information available from this mapping system will be useful in addressing very local problems like floods, famines, infrastructure development, education and much more

The best part is that Bhuvan will zoom upto 10 metres against a Goole Earth’s 200 metres view. Also, Bhuvan will be upgraded every year (it means you will have new maps every year) as against Google’s  four  year old mapping.

Bhuvan will also have multilayer information – this means you can get specific information based on filters.  The entire imaging will be done using Indian satellites only and there will be options to view the information on different dates.

Though we won’t chart the world for now, I see this as yet another way we are slowly but steadily reaching out to the remote corners of our nation and it is even more wonderful to see this initiative coming from one of India’s finest Government  programs.

PS: For those who would like to know a little trivia,  Bhuvan means Earth. Also try out Wikimapia – it is another tool similar to Google Earth.

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It was a proud moment for all Indians, when Chandrayaan was launched successfully from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sri Hari Kota, Andhra Pradesh.

Breaking its own previous world record, ISRO launched 11 scientific instruments with this launch. Last time ISRO launched 9 satellites with the PSLV – C9. 

India now is the third Asian country and sixth nation in the world to send an unmanned lunar mission to the moon. The others primarily have been US, Russia, Europe, China (Oct ’07) and Japan (Oct ’07)

NASA included a “Moon Mineralogy Mapper” on this mission, which is a state-of-the-art imaging spectrometer. This instrument is expected to provide a first of its kind map of the entire Moon’s surface at high resolution, which will reveal details such as mineral make up of the surface. This information will then be available to scientists who are looking to answer questions such as Moon’s origin and evolution of solar system.

One of the key objectives of this mission is to create high-resolution maps of the lunar surface. Today as it stands world seems to have better maps of Mars than the nearby moon. These maps can also be put to use by astronauts who may travel on future expeditions to locate resources, possibly water too!

Back to Indian pride, ISRO, with this mission has established its footprint as one of the most technologically advanced space research organisations. With six successful launches of up their sleeve we clearly know what path ISRO is headed. Hats off to the entire team at ISRO who has made 1 billion Indians proud.

Click here to view a detailed explanation of how Chandrayan will reach moon provided by Times UK.

Visit Chandrayaan’s official website @: http://isro.gov.in/chandrayaan/htmls/home.htm

Till then Jai hind! 

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