- Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has launched ‘Project NETRA’ (Network for space object Tracking and Analysis)’ – an early warning system in space to detect debris and other hazards to Indian satellites.
- The project will give India its own capability in space situational awareness (SSA) like the other space powers — which is used to ‘predict’ threats from debris to Indian satellites.
- ISRO will first use it for low-earth orbits or LEO which have remote-sensing spacecraft.
- Under this project, ISRO plans to put up many observational facilities: connected radars, telescopes; data processing units and a control centre.
- They can, among others, spot, track and catalogue objects as small as 10 cm, up to a range of 3,400 km and equal to a space orbit of around 2,000 km.
- With this the ISRO will also start training its eyes onspace from earth.
- NETRA’s eventual goal is to capture the GEO, or geostationary orbit, scene at 36,000 km where communication satellites operate.
- Currently, ISRO does collision avoidance manoeuvres on its satellites, but for that it depends on data from NORAD and others available in the public domain. NORAD, or the North American Aerospace Defense Command, is an initiative of the U.S. and Canada that shares selective debris data with many countries.
- The new SSA centre of ISRO would consolidate debris tracking activities that are now spread across ISRO centres.
- Currently there are 15 functional Indian communication satellites in the geostationary orbit of 36,000 km; 13 remote sensing satellites in LEO of up to 2,000 km; and eight navigation satellites in medium earth orbits.
