ISRO

After creating history by launching India's first moon mission Chandrayaan I, Indian space agency ISRO is all set to challenge Google Earth with it's own satellite mapping service dubbed "Bhuvan", the IRS (Indian Remote Sensing) image portal will provide satellite images similar to Google Earth and WikiMapia but with more precision and frequent updates, currently Google Earth provides single-layered images with zoom levels up to 200 meters and images updated every 4 years in-contrast Bhuvan will provide multi-layered images with zoom levels up to 10 meters and images being updated every year.

While announcing the service ISRO Chairman, G Madhavan Nair, said:

"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 information on Bhuvan will be layer wise and the options of viewing filtered information will be available. Inputs from a lot of local players, like farmers, fishermen and likes who know the local area in and out, will also being integrated in Bhuvan. This is for the primary reason to make it of more use to the general public,"

ISRO expects the service to be launched in next six months by March 2009, all the infrastructure and softwares required for the service is already in place and a prototype of Bhuvan should be ready by end of November.

UPDATE : Bhuvan finally available for download, click here.

India's first unmanned lunar mission Chandrayaan I (Meaning LunarCraft) is scheduled to be launched on 22 October 2008 at 00:50 UTC by India's own Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-XL from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.

With the successful launch of this remote sensing satellite weighing 1304 kg India will become the sixth country to send any type of lunar mission in space, Chandrayaan-1 will take approximately eight days to complete its nearly 3,86,000 km long journey for reaching into its final orbit 100 km from the moon, Chandrayaan-1 will carry a high resolution remote sensing equipment for visible, near infrared, soft and hard X-ray frequencies. Over a two-year period, it is intended to survey the lunar surface to produce a complete map of its chemical characteristics and 3-dimensional topography. The polar regions are of special interest, as they might contain water ice.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will be broadcasting the CHANDRAYAAN-1 launch event live webcast from 0550 - 0650 Hrs (IST) on 22nd Oct 2008.