SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY AFFAIRS MAY 2009

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY AFFAIRS MAY 2009

• Iran has test fired a new ballistic missile, Sajjil-2, with a range of 1200 miles, far enough to hit Israel and southeastern Europe
• INS Airavat, a Landing Ship Tank (LST) of the Shardul class, was commissioned into the Indian Navy by Naval Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta at Visakhapatnam on May 19.
• Indigenously built nuclear-capable Agni-II missile, with a load of 1 ton and strike range of up to 3,000 km, was successfully test fired from Wheelers Island, a launch pad off Orissa’s coast.
• Russian Soyuz-FG carrier rocket was launched from Site 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, with the Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft, on a manned (3 astronauts from Canada, Russia and Belgium) spaceflight to the International Space Station (ISS).