What Italian design do you refer to? The little San Giorgio class? Or an as yet unbuilt project?

If you’re right, it sounds as if the Indian navy hasn’t yet decided if they want classic LPDs with a relatively small helicopter deck or full-deck LHDs.

I dont think We will go for LPD till we have figured out and chalked out a doctrine to effectively land MARCOS in ahem.

We are building LST and they r quite good for low level conflicts.

using KKV to directly hit such small target in rising phase, the involved techs are very complicated, not even russia has proven to master them. india? eh~

Buddy, I’m not undermining Chinas accomplishment nor I’m boasting of anything but what i see is your not knowledgable what India did few months back.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/A_Giant_Leap_Forward_For_Indian_Missile_Defense_999.html
A Giant Leap Forward For Indian Missile Defense

File photo of Indian Prithvi missile.
by Martin Sieff
UPI Senior News Analyst
Washington (UPI) Dec 01, 2006
India’s successful test of its own anti-ballistic Prithvi missile Monday still leaves the country a long way from fielding its own, home-produced short- and intermediate- range BMD systems. But it wasn’t chickenfeed either.
In the test, as the Times of India reported, an upgraded version of the Prithvi shot down a conventional Prithvi at high altitude over the Bay of Bengal. The interceptor was launched from India’s Integrated Test Range at Chandipur-on-sea and the test rocket from Wheeler Island in Orissa.

The success came as an enormous relief to India’s long-embattled and much criticized Defense and Research Development Organization, or DRDO. As we have noted in these columns before, over the past three decades, DRDO has invested billions of dollars into high prestige, ambitious long-range ballistic missile, high-tech light combat aircraft, a new main battle tank and even a touted nuclear submarine with almost nothing to show for it.

We also monitored earlier this year the embarrassing failure of a test of India’s ambitious Agni III intercontinental ballistic missile which, if successfully developed and deployed, would give New Delhi the deterrent capability to fire nuclear warheads at any city in China including Beijing. Rajiv Singh in an authoritative analysis published by the b-domain.com Web site Wednesday gave important details about what wa sine ffect a new Indian-developed ABM interceptor.

“According to DRDO officials, the new missile had inertial guidance in mid-course and active-seeker guidance (i.e. a radar-seeking warhead) in the terminal phase,” Singh wrote. “While the first stage of the interceptor was similar to the Prithvi missile, its second stage was a totally new segment. The yet to be named “high supersonic” interceptor missile has been developed by the DRDO as part of an ‘exo-atmospheric intercept system’ designed to ‘hit-to-kill’ incoming ballistic missiles.”

Singh noted that DRDO officials told reporters the new ABM could detect a target in less than 30 seconds and launching an interceptor at it within 50 seconds. “According to the officials, many technologies, like high-maneuverability of the interceptor missile, were validated in the test. The flight time for nuclear capable missiles launched from Pakistan is a bare 5 to 8 minutes,” he wrote.

Monday’s successful test was also an excellent omen for A. K. Anthony, India recently appointed defense minister.

However, as Singh observed, “Defense analysts at home (in India) adopted a prudent posture with regard to the development. They had sufficient reasons to be prudent given DRDO’s patchy track record in developing high-tech defense systems for the country’s defense services.”

He noted that the DRDO had previously “failed to operationalize the much touted 9-kilometer (5.4 mile) range Trishul and the 25-km (15 mile) range Akash air-defense missiles. These missiles have been undergoing ‘successful’ tests for as long as anyone can remember.”

Nevertheless, as Singh acknowledged, “The successful missile interception test now allows India to stand alongside a few countries, such as the U.S., Russia and Israel, that possess a missile defense capability.”

The upgraded Prithvi ABM interceptor appears to rank with the U.S. Patriot PAC-3 system, Russia’s S-300 and Israel’s Arrow in its intended ability to intercept short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. However, the Patriot, the S-300 and the Arrow are all deployed, much tested systems. Even after the extremely positive results of Monday’s test, the upgraded Prithvi ABM still clearly as a long way to go to achieve that status.

Indeed, the United States has been trying to sell the Patriot to India as part of the increasingly close strategic weapons cooperation between the two nations. However, so far the Indians have balked at that. Also Singh noted what he called “informed speculation over the years … that India may already have deployed a few batteries of the Russian S-300 system as an interim arrangement.”

Given the continuing warm ties between India and Russia, the huge high-tech weapons orders that the current Congress-UPA dominated government and the previous Baharataya Janata Party-led one have both given to Russia and the exceptional enthusiasm for Russian aerospace technology shown for so many years by long-time Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes, that “informed speculation” seems extremely likely.

Singh noted that the Prithvi-I, “first tested in 1988, has a range of 150 km (90 miles) and deploys a conventional or low-yield nuclear warhead for use against troops or armored formations. Its two variants, Prithvi-II and Prithvi-III, with lesser payloads, have an increased range of 250 km (150 miles) and 350 km (210 miles) respectively. While the Prithvi-II was first tested in January 1996, Prithvi-III underwent its first test firing in October 2004. The Indian Army has already inducted Prithvi- I and II into service.”

At the end of the day, when all the cautions, caveats and qualifiers have been made, a crucial underlying fact remains: India has now shown its capability to home produce an effective anti-ballistic missile prototype. France, Britain, Germany, China and Japan have not yet developed the capability to make one of these by themselves, though Japan will certainly is on a crash program to do so with extensive U.S. cooperation and China is already lavishly supplied with S-300 systems, and possibly others, bought from Russia.

The strategic balance of the world therefore shifted on Monday. India took a very large step indeed and served notice that it has much to give, as well as to receive, in its strategic weapons and BMD cooperation with the United States
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/A_Giant_Leap_Forward_For_Indian_Missile_Defense_999.html

Now should i put IEEE papers on Air defence that india was working on?
Not to mention this used a SEEKER.

What was my point is countries with HTK capability ie KKV (us/Israel/Russia/France/China/India) can demostrate ASAT capability provided the will to.

Can someone tell me What is different between a technicalities of one having intercepted a BM[you cannot pre-predict the orbit of a BM as rocket burn time/wind velocity changes them] with HTK/RF seeker, and a country having intercepted a LOS whose orbit is known with a HTK.

Save it when you can actually demonstrate it.

Corbato, I agree with you, I’m not trying to prove anything My intention was to prove countries with KKV/HTK BM interception capability can easily more or less intercept a LOS whose orbit is known.
Correct me if I’m wrong.

These thigns has a lot dual use speciallt HTK vehicle with appropriate thrusters to control it, Hell even you can design a SM3 type system but question comes on its form factor(how small it will be) capability to track total sensor fusion where sm3 wins.

Russia, India plan titanium production JV – Minister Ivanov
19:53 | 22/ 01/ 2007

BANGALORE (India), January 22 (RIA Novosti) – Russia and India plan to form a titanium production joint venture, the Russian defense minister said Monday.

“An agreement on the formation of a Russian-Indian joint venture for the production of titanium dioxide and other titanium products using funds received from India’s repayment of its debt to Russia is planned to be signed during the Russian president’s visit to Delhi,” Sergei Ivanov, who is also Russia’s deputy prime minister, said.

India’s debt to Russia is about 40 billion rupees ($900 million) and the countries have been in talks on investing the debt in joint projects in India rather than traditional purchases of Indian products.

Ivanov said the world’s leading titanium producer Vsmpo-Avisma, which is based in the Perm Territory in the Urals and controls a third of the world’s titanium market, had confirmed its readiness to consider forming a joint venture with India to produce titanium, which is widely used in military-oriented products. The titanium giant is controlled by Russian arms export monopoly Rosoboronexport.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20070122/59518436.html

some isro news…mods is it allowed to post space news?

Mission accomplished: ISRO’s capsule returns

BANGALORE: After 11 days in space, Indian Space Research Organisation’s recoverable satellite re-entered the earth and splashed down in the Bay of Bengal this morning as planned.

As part of the mission, ISRO’s workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C7) had put Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE) satellite into space along with three others on January 10, space agency sources said.

The capsule splashed down around 9.30 am, ISRO sources said, adding that efforts were being made to recover it. “The capsule has splashed down. The Coast Guard has located the area”.

The 550-kg SRE, that would help ISRO hone its skills in re-entry, recoverable and re-usable technologies, had two payloads to conduct experiments in micro-gravity.

The PSLV-C7 had injected India’s Cartosat-2, apart from SRE satellite, and two others from overseas — LAPAN-TUBSAT, a joint venture of Indonesia and the Technical University of Berlin, and the Pehuensat-1 of Argentina.

The 550-kg Space-Capsule Recovery Experiment was intended for demonstrating the capability to recover an orbiting space capsule, as also the associated technologies.

“SRE is intended to test reusable thermal protection system, navigation, guidance and control, hypersonic aero-dynamics, management of communication blackout, deceleration and floatation system and recovery experiments”, ISRO officials here said.

SRE, according to ISRO, is made of mild-steel, and comprises aero-thermo structure, spacecraft platform, deceleration and floatation system and micro-gravity payloads. The parachute, pyro devices, avionics packages of triggering unit and sequencer, telemetry and tracking system and sensors for measurement of system performance parameters are placed inside the SRE capsule.

An ISRO official said SRE was used to perform experiments in micro-gravity environment.

National

SRE returns today

N. Gopal Raj

Experiments to create new materials using the effects of microgravity were carried out

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: India’s maiden effort at a capsule for microgravity work, the Space capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE) that was launched by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, is scheduled to return to Earth on Monday (January 22). As the SRE-I circled overhead for 12 days, two science experiments were carried out onboard the unmanned capsule.

Even at a height of a few hundred kilometres above the Earth, the planet’s gravitational field is still about 90 per cent of its strength on the ground. A capsule in orbit is somewhat like a lift in a building that hurtles down out of control. The lift is then in free fall and its unfortunate occupants feel weightless for a brief period. In a space capsule, the conditions of free fall and weightlessness last as long as it remains in orbit. The capsule’s inhabitants and contents experience a force that is only a tiny fraction of the normal tug of gravity on the surface of the earth.

Microgravity changes the way things happen in space. A candle’s flame, normally teardrop shaped on the ground, becomes spherical. Liquids do not automatically take the shape of their container and, instead, turn into a blob. Particles suspended in a liquid do not settle down at the bottom.

Microgravity experiments can help improve our understanding of basic processes, according to Brij Kumar Dhindaw, professor in metallurgical and materials engineering at IIT Kharagpur. Professor Dhindaw was a co-investigator for two microgravity experiments carried out during Space Shuttle flights in 1996 and subsequently in 1997. (Kalpana Chawla, the Indian-born astronaut who died when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated, had performed the second set of experiments.)

On earth, as molten metal or glass cool down and solidify, the hotter and lighter parts of the liquid rise to the top while the cooler and heavier parts sink. Such convection currents play a big role in determining the quality of the solidified material, pointed out Professor Dhindaw. The convection currents could not be eliminated when experiments were carried out on the ground and were difficult to model mathematically.

Under microgravity, on the other hand, solidification could take place without convection, he remarked. That gave a much clearer picture of the part played by convection currents during solidification. “A better understanding of how solidification occurs can help improve processing methods,” Professor Dhindaw told this correspondent.

One experiment being performed onboard the SRE-I is for growing what is known as a quasicrystal in space. In an ordinary crystal, atoms repeat after a certain length, and the crystal therefore has a perfectly ordered arrangement of atoms, explains K. Chattopadhyay, chairman of the Department of Materials Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, who is the principal investigator for the experiment. But it was possible to make crystals with an ordered arrangement of atoms that did not repeat. Such crystals were known as quasicrystals.

Quasicrystals are often very strong and wear-resistant, according to Dr. Chattopadhyay. These days, top-of-the-line electric shavers had a quasicrystal coating on their blades for increased life. For reasons that were not yet understood, quasicrystals were also non-wettable. So these materials were also being used as a long-lasting non-stick coating for frying pans.

“On Earth, it is very difficult to grow a perfect quasicrystal and we want to see if we can grow one in space,” he told this correspondent.

Many quasicrystals are produced through a reaction between a liquid and chemical compounds in the form of fine particles. But as the reaction proceeds, the particles start to settle and their distribution in the liquid changes. That change affects the quality of the quasicrystal produced.

In microgravity, sedimentation does not occur. So, in space, “we should be able to grow a perfect, defect-free quasicrystal,” explained Dr. Chattopadhyay. Besides, the reaction that produced quasicrystals was still only imperfectly understood. The experiment could also lead to insights on factors that influenced the reaction and how the reaction could be better controlled on earth.

Bone substitute

The other experiment on the SRE-I by the National Metallurgical Laboratory at Jamshedpur to develop a better bone substitute. It is hoped that in microgravity perfect nanocrystals of hydroxyapatite, a major constituent of bone, would form and self-assemble on a semi-solid framework. Uniformity in shape and size of the crystals, each about one-thousandth the thickness of a human hair, was difficult to achieve under normal gravity, said a scientist with the project.

After the SRE-I splashes down in the Bay of Bengal off Sriharikota, the materials produced by the in-flight experiments must be retrieved and analysed. Only then will the scientists know how well they have succeeded.

Although a second SRE has been sanctioned, it is not expected to fly before the end of the decade.
http://www.hindu.com/2007/01/22/stories/2007012206411400.htm

Accuracy of return unbelievable: B.N. Suresh

T.S. Subramanian

Many new technologies used for first time in this SRE mission

——————————————————————————–

It’s an exciting and wonderful experience
All organisations worked in unison and hit bullseye
——————————————————————————–

CHENNAI: For B.N. Suresh, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram, Monday’s splashdown of India’s recoverable satellite was “a very exciting and thrilling experience because so many new technologies such as thermal protection system, autonomous navigation system, guidance and control system during the re-entry phase, deceleration and flotation systems were used for the first time in this mission.”

Dr. Suresh said, “the accuracy with which the Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE) returned to the earth was unbelievable because it came down within 15 km downgrade and less than six km laterally.”

The SRE was “a very difficult experiment because there is a hostile atmosphere during the satellite’s re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere and it was a real challenge to decelerate it” and make it splash down in the Bay of Bengal.

The VSSC and the ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore, were the lead centres, which built the recoverable satellite. The ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC), Bangalore, tracked the satellite. The Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota, did the complete recovery operation.

Three parachutes

The Aerial Delivery Research and Development Establishment, Agra, provided the three parachutes in the SRE. Dr. Suresh said it was a satisfying experience that all these organisations worked in unison and hit the bullseye.

The SRE had four major hardware elements: an aero thermo structure, a space platform, a deceleration and flotation system and two payloads for conducting experiments in microgravity. The satellite had flight electronics. Its triggering system opened the three parachutes one after another.

The flight electronics sensed the altitude and deployed the parachutes. The parachutes, pyro-devices, avionics packages, telemetry and tracking systems were all placed inside the satellite.

K. Narayana, former Director SDSC, Sriharikota, called the recovery of the satellite a wonderful experience because everything was achieved with 100 per cent success.

A. Subramonian of VSSC was the Project Director, SRE-I. K.N. Shankara is the Director of the ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore. S.K. Shivakumar is the ISTRAC Director. M. Annamalai is the Director of the SDSC, Sriharikota. The recovery was done under the overall supervision of Inspector-General Rajendra Singh, Commander, Coast Guard (east).

Conclusion,
So to sum up,

1> Feasibility of developement of Quasicrystals in outer space.
2> Test of microgravity on microcrystals and their behavior.
3> Proving the Reusable thermal protection system to develope RLV…contd.
4> Developement of thermal protection system with HOME GROWN TILES – a breakthrough of material science indeed.
5> Unbelievable Accuracy

Notable thing > Unlike all other re-entry this ones nose is down while base is up :diablo:

A pic..

Dhruv is definately a success, is there any more news on the reports that other countrys are interested in it?

So is IJT/LCA just some delay, you’ll see em soon :diablo:

AFAIK Chile?Czech? or Czech has signed a deal or was interested for 20 pieces.

This is how a LCA prototype shud look like,

F35 Fifth gen becuz,

Apg 81 whose TR modules are 3rd gen as per LM.
High situational awareness.
Carbon/Ti Body with LOV.
Better datalink than link 16 with buddy-buddy.
Internal weapons load.

F22

Many capabilities unknown including cruise missile defence etc etc.
supercruise etc etc

Supercruise isnt really needed for F35…

also i think bi-static can detect F35’s while F22 has build in bi-static fooling measures ? :diablo:

I dont know why many here are saying LCA to be kinda like jf17, i can see it very much being gripen alike provides it gets a good radar.
with extremely small rcs which was a design goal and good radar in todays world of bvr i wouldnt be surprised if i takes on mig29/j10/su 27 in DACT.ofcourse it doesnt makes it better than su27/j10 likewise they are multirole fighters.

I personally think it ALL comes down to what radar it gets.
also the N-LCA is a thing to look at, yearly HAL report said its one of their priorities.