Indigenously Built, First Pair of Weather Radars Installed over Himalayas
Union Minister for Earth Sciences Dr Harsh Vardhan commissioned two of the ten indigenously built Doppler weather radars which will closely monitor the weather changes over the Himalayas.
Services of X-band Doppler radars at Mukteshwar in Uttarakhand and Kufri in Himachal Pradesh were virtually inaugurated on the 146th foundation day of the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
Covering the central and western Himalayas, these dual polarised radars will gather atmospheric variations and pick signals of extreme weather events, IMD officials said. During the month ahead, the Met department has planned to install ten radars over the Himalayas.
Jan 16, 2021
CollabCAD Software Launched
The National Informatics centre and the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) jointly launched the CollabCAD software.
The CollabCAD software provides engineering solution for students and Faculty of Engineering Graphics curriculum. It aims to provide a platform to students across the country to create and modify digital designs.
The aim is to provide a good platform to the students of Atal tinkering labs across the country. With the software the students of Atal tinkering labs will be able to create and modify 3D designs with free flow of creativity. It will enable students to create data across the network and access the same design data for storage and visualisation.
The software runs on zone Linux and OS platform. It is available in both standalone and client servant mode.
UK Industry Bids Farewell to EU's Galileo System
The UK's final big industrial contribution to the EU's Galileo sat-nav system has been delivered.
European Space Agency officials confirmed that Surrey Satellite Technology Limited of Guildford has shipped the last of the navigation payloads it was assembling.
These payloads are the "brains" of the spacecraft and generate the signals the Galileo network sends down to Earth.
Britain left the project on its departure from the EU.
"Third country" status means home companies can no longer be involved in the way they once were. Galileo is regarded by the Union as a security programme and only firms in its 27 member states can take on sensitive work - such as payload integration.
Jan 15, 2021
Mars Digger Bites the Dust after 2 Years on Red Planet
NASA has declared the Mars digger dead after failing to burrow deep into the red planet to take its temperature. Scientists in Germany spent two years trying to get their heat probe, dubbed the mole, to drill into the Martian crust. But the 16-inch-long (40-centimetre) device that is part of NASA's InSight lander couldn't gain enough friction in the red dirt.
It was supposed to bury 16 feet (5 metres) into Mars, but only drilled down a couple of feet (about a half metre). Following one last unsuccessful attempt to hammer itself down over the weekend with 500 strokes, the team called it quits on Thursday.
The effort will benefit future excavation efforts at Mars, he added in a statement. Astronauts one day may need to dig into Mars, according to NASA, in search of frozen water for drinking or making fuel, or signs of past microscopic life.
Adani Enterprises Bags Highway Project in Kerala from NHAI
Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL) has won a Rs. 1,838-crore highway project from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) in Kerala. The project, under hybrid annuity mode (HAM), is a part of Bharatmala Pariyojna.
AEL has recently participated in tender issued by NHAI under HAM.
The 40.80-km project pertains to six-laning of Azhiyur to Vengalam section of NH-17 (New NH-66) in Kerala.
OneWeb Satellite Company Launches into New Era
The OneWeb satellite broadband company is back launching again, putting up 36 new satellites on Friday from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Eastern Russia.
OneWeb is now owned principally by the Indian conglomerate Bharti Global and the UK government after they bought the enterprise out of bankruptcy this year.
Fifteen more launches of satellites must follow Friday's deployment to complete the internet delivery service.
These flights should be occurring on a near-monthly basis from February.
"We will be on track for our 50-degree North service by October next year - so, in 10 months' time. Then, slowly getting to 22 degrees and then global by May or June 2022," OneWeb chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal.
This means, for example, that UK citizens could be using beta broadband connections in the autumn of 2021.
Jan 14, 2021
Cabinet Approves MoU on Scientific and Technical Cooperation between India and UAE
The Union Cabinet approved a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on scientific and technical cooperation between the Ministry of Earth Sciences and the National Centre of Meteorology of the UAE.
The MoU provides for sharing of knowledge, data and operational products for meteorological, seismological and oceanic services such as radar, satellite, tide gauges, seismic and meteorological stations.
The pact will pave the way for deployment of meteorological observation networks on mutual agreement over ocean waters, cooperation in the development of special capacities of tsunami models researches for their faster and more reliable forecasts propagating through the Oman Sea and the Arabian Sea which affect the coastal areas of India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The MoU will also enable cooperation to support the Tsunami Early Warning Centre (TEWC) in the form of forecast modelling software, specifically designed to support tsunami forecasting operations.
Jan 13, 2021
Signal Becomes most Downloaded App
Messaging application Signal became the most downloaded app on Apple App Store days after Facebook-owned WhatsApp updated its privacy terms.
WhatsApp seeks the right to share user data like location and phone number with Facebook and Instagram as part of the new privacy terms. The terms have triggered a backlash and migration of users to platforms such as Telegram and Signal amid concerns about Facebook's poor record of handling user data.
Signal was one of the most downloaded apps on Google Play Store globally and was ranked third with at least 10 million installations. It was the highest-ranked on App Store even as the number of downloads was unavailable. WhatsApp was in the third position on Apple App Store and did not feature among the top 10 apps on Google Play Store.
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