SRIHARIKOTA (ANDHRA PRADESH): India on Monday morning successfully put into orbit its own weather satellite SCATSAT-1 in a copybook style.In the second phase of its mission, the rocket will launch seven other satellites - five foreign and two Indian - between 11.25 to 11.28 a.m., in a different orbit.Exactly at 9.12 a.m., the PSLV rocket standing 44.4 metres tall and weighing 320 tonne tore into the morning skies with fierce orange flames at its tail.Gathering speed every second, the rocket raced towards the heavens amidst the cheers of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) officials and the media team assembled at the rocket port here.At the rocket mission control room, Indian space scientists at ISRO were glued to their computer screens watching the rocket escaping the earth's gravitational pull.Seventeen minutes into the flight, the rocket's main cargo, the 371 kg SCATSAT-1 - for ocean and weather related studies - was injected into a 730 km polar sun synchronous orbit.Although SCATSAT-1 is a follow-on mission for Oceansat-2 improvements have been made in the satellite's hardware configuration based on lessons learnt from Oceansat-2 instruments.Also SCATSAT-1's payload has been characterised with the objective of achieving data quality for Climate Data Records, apart from facilitating routine meteorological applications, the ISRO said.It said the SCATSAT-1's scatterometer will provide wind vector data products for weather forecasting, cyclone detection and tracking services to the users.The satellite carries Ku-band scatterometer similar to the one flown onboard Oceansat-2.The mission life of the satellite is five years.The remaining seven satellites will be placed in a 689 km polar orbit later.These seven satellites include five foreign satellites: three from Algeria (Alsat-1B 103kg, Alsat-2B 117kg, Alsat-1N 7kg), and one each from Canada (NLS-19, 8kg) and US (Pathfinder-44kg).The two other Indian satellites are: Pratham (10kg) built by Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) and Pisat (5.25 kg) from PES University, Bengaluru and its consortium.According to the ISRO, the two Algerian satellites Alsat-1B and Alsat-2B are remote sensing satellites while Alsat-1N is a technology demonstration nano satellite for Algerian students.On the other hand, the US satellite Pathfinder-1 is a commercial high resolution imaging micro satellite while the Canadian NLS-19 satellite is la technology demonstration nano satellite for experimentation in helping to reduce space debris and for tracking commercial aircraft.The IIT-B's satellite Pratham's mission objective is to estimate the total electron count with a resolution of 1km x 1km location grid while Pisat from PES University and its consortium is a nano satellite for remote sensing applications.After slinging SCATSAT-1 into its orbit the rocket's fourth stage will be restarted one hour 22 minutes into the flight and cut off around 20 seconds later.Two hours and 11 minutes into the flight the fourth stage will again be restarted to be cut offAone minute later.Following that in three minutes all the seven satellites will be ejected putting an end to PSLV's longest mission till date.The PSLV rocket is a four stage/engine rocket powered by solid and liquid fuel alternatively.Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) director K. Sivan told IANS on Sunday that the long time gap between the cutting off of the engine and its restart was not an issue.Sivan said the first time the multiple burn technology was first tested by ISRO while flying its PSLV rocket on December 16, 2015 and in June 2016, the technology was again demonstrated.About the challenge, Sivan said: "After cutting off the engine, its condition should be brought to such a stage that it could be restarted again. The next challenge is to controlling the engine and bringing it so as to eject the remaining satellites into a different orbit."He said the rocket has GPS aided navigation system so that data generated by the rocket's inertial navigation system and the one provided by the former will be blended so as to erase and errors and to generate a precise data.</s>“Research” – the word might excite you, instill boredom in you or remind you of a science project you did in the distant past. Quality research is a sophisticated endeavor and requires perseverance and patience, the latter quality being robbed off the current generation by exceeding expectations of the people and the self, thanks to the national media focusing on heavy paychecks and not on ground breaking research.

 There was a time when Leonardo Da Vinci used to sit for hours thinking about something as trivial as the mechanism of blood flow in our body. Thanks to those hours of patient and clear thinking by numerous such minds, we have a foundation to stand and explore more.

 Exploring is somewhat resonant with research. The true meaning of research lies in its etymology. It is derived from the French word ‘recherche’ which means ‘to search closely’. Research comprises of critical and exhaustive study of a certain topic.

IIT Kharagpur has proved to be one of the best places in the country for research work. There have been instances like lucrative job offers being rejected to pursue research. Yet another increment in the prestige of IIT Kharagpur Research Community was kindled by a Research Scholar, Ms.Nandini Bhandaru. She won the prestigious Young Scientist Award at the European Materials Research Society’s Spring Meet 2016. Her team included Dr.Rabibrata Mukherjee, Ms.Anuja Das, and Mr.Aditya Banerji. They recently attended the bi-annual conference held in France this month where this award was conferred to her.

This award is given on the basis of judging the CV, the presentation given by the candidate and the overall contribution to the concerned field by the candidate.

In a layman’s term, the research Nandini has done reduces the complexity of reproduction of the nano-scale fabrication techniques to a level where even a high-school laboratory can reciprocate the same results with access to less sophisticated equipment.

 When asked about it, Nandini cheerfully said, “I’m feeling very excited. This is the first time to my knowledge that an Indian Researcher studying in India has got an award like this.” She further added that the environment of the lab, her co-researchers, and her mentor all contributed immensely to her success.

Dr.Rabibrata Mukherjee – Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and head of the Instability and Patterning Laboratory, had a lot to say about this.

” It is a very happy feeling that I mentored Nandini up to a level where she is now competing with the best in the world. The secret to this success is extremely high-quality novel research which as of now is very fundamental but has the potential to be a game-changer in years to come. Nandini can manipulate things at the nanoscale with utmost precision by carefully controlling the forces that are active in this regime. She has now proven that her work is groundbreaking and we are all very proud that she has placed IIT KGP’s name in a major student award.”

The story’s not over yet. With all of this still hanging overhead, Nandini will be en route to another seminar being held in Germany – the Indo-German Frontiers of Engineering Symposium. Interestingly, only 25 people from India are attending this seminar, with all the 24 others being Professors. “It’s a mystery to us how she was selected!”, said Dr. Rabibrata on this.

It is indeed a proud moment for KGPians and should serve as a motivation for potential scientists peppered throughout the KGP population. An eye-opening and a refreshingly new take on research, this is a positive leap towards bringing out that hidden question mark that always sets you on a quest for great discoveries.

 For those still harboring doubts, here are a few last words from Dr.Rabibrata, himself a great researcher and a big name in the scientific circles. “Those who want to pursue research, please do. It’s only in research that you get to realize your true potential. The creative satisfaction you get by discovering something unknown can’t be compensated by any amount of money or any salary package.”

 So all the budding Galileo’s and Einstein’s out there, it is high time you embraced the world of the unknown by diving into research work.

Cheat Code: The first step is talking about your interest to a Professor of the subject you love.</s>In its first multi-orbital launch, India's workhorse PSLV will on Monday inject eight different satellites, including the country's weather satellite SCATSAT-1 and five from other nations, into two different orbits.

India's workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C35, which will be launched from the First Launch Pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota at 9.12 am on Monday, will carry the 371 kg SCATSAT-1 for ocean and weather related studies along with seven other satellites, including from the US and Canada.

The total weight of all the eight satellites onboard PSLV C35 is about 675 kg.

PSLV C-35 will be putting the satellites in two different orbits, Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman AS Kiran Kumar said.

While SCATSAT-1 will be released first into a 730 km Polar Sunsynchronous Orbit after about 17 minutes, the rest will be injected into a lower orbit of 689 km after around two hours.

There will be two re-ignitions of the launch vehicle for this purpose, Kumar said.

Besides SCATSAT-1, the others are PRATHAM and PISAT, two academic satellites from India, ALSAT-1B, ALSAT-2B and ALSAT-1N (all from Algeria) and Pathfinder-1 and NLS-19, from USA and Canada, respectively.

The 48-and-a-half-hour countdown for PSLV-C35/SCATSAT-1 Mission started at 8:42am on Saturday.

According to ISRO, this is the first mission of PSLV in which it will be launching its payloads into two different orbits.

This will be the 15th flight of PSLV in 'XL' configuration with the use of solid strap-on motors, it added.

The mission objectives of SCATSAT-1 are to help provide weather forecasting services to the user communities through the generation of wind vector products for weather forecasting, cyclone detection and tracking, ISRO said.

SCATSAT-1 is a continuity mission for scatterometer payload carried by the earlier Oceansat-2 satellite, ISRO added.</s>A protein research project collaboration involving Northeastern University (NU) researchers recently received a second grant from the National Institutes of Health. The project’s goal is to better understand the inner workings of a complex group of proteins in the hopes of getting closer to curing a variety of diseases.

Northeastern professors of chemistry John Engen and Roxana Iacob were introduced to the project in early 2014 by Professor Timothy Springer, an immunologist and structural biologist at Harvard Medical School and the Boston Children’s Hospital. Information on the amount of funding the project received was not available to the News at the time of publication.

The researchers are working on a class of proteins known as Transforming Growth Factor beta (TGF-β). Scientists have established that this protein class transmits information instructing cells to either grow, divide or kill themselves, but little else about TGF-β is known.

“It’s not so well-studied, and there’s not much structural information,” Iacob said. “But from a medical view, it’s a very important topic.”

The trio began working on the project in January 2014, with Engen and Iacob using one method of research in Engen’s lab at Northeastern and Springer using another at his.

Engen and Iacob are using a method of research known as Hydrogen/Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometry (HDX MS).

“This technique [HDX MS] has been pioneered by Dr. Engen and is now used worldwide, especially in industry,” Iacob said.

The proteins in question are known to be involved with many diseases, and the researchers believe that a better understanding of them could possibly lead to the development of new drugs for diseases such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

Specifically, the behavior of these proteins can be a factor in growth of cancers when they misinform cells to grow when they shouldn’t, according to Iacob. Deciphering these proteins could potentially lead to improved cancer treatments.

“[The] long term impact would be to try to understand from a structural point of view how these proteins actually function,” Iacob said.

Out of 33 different proteins in the TGF-β family, scientists have only begun to understand 10.

Kristian Teichert, a senior biochemistry major at NU, has done research work for Engen for over three years. Teichert said he believes that the work Engen is doing is having a large impact in the field.

“He works on a lot of really relevant projects,” Teichert said. “It’s definitely really important for understanding how a lot of proteins work and how they operate.”

Teichert said he believed Engen, Iacob and Springer’s research could one day alter and improve the treatment of diseases caused by TGF-β proteins.

“Understanding the class of proteins that this paper is on definitely has a fantastic opportunity to greatly impact all of those [diseases],” Teichert said. “I have no doubt that it definitely does have that level of impact and is actually really, really awesome.”

Iacob said there is no set end date for the research.

“It will end whenever we solve the problems,” she said, laughing.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launches cyclone detection satellite SCATSAT-1, and seven other satellites into orbit from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. The launch successfully demonstrates the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle's capability of placing satellites in multiple orbits in a single launch.