Space travel has been a human fantasy for a long time. But satellites and their usage have been explored only in modern times. Yuri Gagarin of Russia was the first person to visit space in 1962. Meanwhile, the concept of artificial satellite can be traced to Sir Isaac Newton's "thought experiment" where he proposed the idea of a cannonball. It was carried forward by many others including fiction writers like Jules Verne and Arthur C Clarke. Clarke described in detail the possible use of satellites for mass communication. The first artificial satellite was Sputnik 1, launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957.Since then many other countries and independent organizations have sent thousands of satellites to the space. The first amateur satellite named OSCAR 1 was launched on December 12, 1961, barely four years after Sputnik 1.
Satellites these days come in various sizes and they perform various tasks and serve various purposes. Most common ones are satellites on the geosynchronous orbit and low earth orbit. Since the satellites take about one rotation of the earth to rotate once in their geosynchronous orbits, they can be made stationary to detect locations on earth. Such satellites are useful to take data related to earth's time and weather conditions.
Low orbit satellites are at a distance of 160 km to 2,000 km above the earth. Satellites in these orbits tend to revolve very fast. A typical path of 160 km would see one revolution every 90 minutes. Except for Apollo program for lunar flights all human spaceflights have taken place in low earth orbit. Most earth observation and remote sensing satellites are also in this orbit.
American system called GPS is based on collection of satellites on Medium Earth orbit between 2,000 km to 37,800 km above earth's surface. Other systems include Russian equivalent (GLONASS), European equivalent (GALILEO) and Chinese equivalent (BeiDou-2).
Earlier satellites were large and bulky. But the size and weight has continued to decrease while not compromising on the usage and quality. Smaller satellites are becoming common. These are easier and cheaper to build but can provide diverse functions for diverse purposes.
The most common usage of satellites includes space exploration, astronomical observations for weather prediction, communications and remote sensing and monitoring. They can also be used for land inventory, distance education, tele-medicine, disaster assessment and yield calculations. Countries and organizations that own and operate their own satellites have benefitted most in these areas.
Satellite use has greatly contributed in global positioning, communications and weather predictions. Crop yield calculations, land usage, pollution calculations, infra-structure inventory and crop growth calculations have been made easy with them. But what, you may ask, have satellites to do with a poor country like Nepal?
Nepal can use satellite in a number of ways. Services that are not possible on ground due to difficult land structure and economic infeasibility may be made possible through satellite use. Again, there are methods to make satellites gather data of various kinds and provide services such as distance learning, tele-medicine, disaster prediction and emergency communications, among other things.
Though Nepal does not have a satellite of its own, many governmental and non-governmental organizations as well as individuals have used satellite data for weather prediction, resource planning and communications.
Thus Nepal first needs to have its own satellite. A multi-functional satellite dedicated to helping raise the lives of under-privileged people in Nepal would go a long way in the prosperity of the country. We have accorded national pride and national priority status to a number of projects in Nepal. Satellite deserves nothing less. Sending a satellite to the outer orbit should be another national pride project and we must start working in this direction right now.
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