SCIENCE AND SPACE 07

JANUARY 2007
PATTERN=(DAY-matter)

10 : In a successful multi-mission,
India’s Polar Satellite Launch
Vehicle (PSLV)-C7 takes off from
its beachside launch pad at
Sriharikota and injects four

satellites into precise orbit; two of
which, namely Cartosat-2 and SRE
(Space capsule Recovery
Experiment) are from India while
LAPAN-TUBSAT is a joint venture
of Indonesia and the Technical
University of Berlin, and the
PEHUENSAT-I is of Argentina.
22 : India successfully recovers satellite
SRE-1 which was launched from
Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.

FEBRUARY 2007
13 : China successfully puts its fourth
Beidou navigation satellite into orbit
from the Xichang Satellite Launch
Centre in south west China’s
Sichuan province.

MARCH 2007
2 : Swiss astrophysicists Mr. Michel
Mayor and Mr. Stephane Udry
discover a planet outside our solar
system that is potentially as
habitable as the Earth.
12 : India’s latest communications
satellite, INSAT-4B, is successfully
launched by Ariane-5 vehicle from
Kouru Island in French Guyana.

APRIL 2007
8 : Indian-American astronaut Sunita
L. Williams tests for the first time
on board the ISS (International
Space Station), a miniature
biological laboratory called LOCADPTS
(short for Lab-On-a-Chip
Application Development-Portable
Test System), which had been
launched in December 2006, aboard
NASA’s space shuttle Discovery.
23 : The Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO) makes the
first commercial successful launch
of Italian satellite, Agile through
the PSLV-C8.

MAY 2007
2 : Swiss astrophysicists Mr. Michel
Mayor and Mr. Stephane Udry
discover a planet outside our solar
system that is potentially as
habitable as the Earth.

JUNE 2007
22 : The space shuttle Atlantis carrying
Ms. Sunita Williams and six other
astronauts lands safely at Edwards
Air Force Base in California.

JULY 2007
12 : British astronomers detect water
in the atmosphere of an enormous,
fiery planet that circles a distant
star far beyond the solar system.

AUGUST 2007
4 : Phoenix Mars Lander, a US space
probe is successfully launched from
Cape Canaveral, Florida, beginning
its nine-month journey to Mars,
where it will dig for clues to past
and present life.

SEPTEMBER 2007
2 : The Geosynchronous Satellite
Launch Vehicle, GSLV-F04 is
successfully launched from
Sriharikota and it places the
communication satellite INSAT-
4CR in its predetermined orbit.
27 : NASA’s ‘Dawn’ spacecraft is
launched from the Cape Canaveral
Air Force station in Florida (USA);
the first of its kind space mission
has been designed to explore two
asteroids – Ceres and Vesta – in
order to throw light on the
mysteries of our solar system’s
genesis.

OCTOBER 2007
10 : Russia’s Soyuz-FG rocket, headed
to International Space Station
(ISS), blasts off from a launch
facility in Kazakhstan.
23 : US space shuttle Discovery blasts
off to the International Space
Station. This is the second time in
NASA's history that a woman,
retired Air Force Col. Pamela
Melroy is commanding a space
shuttle.
24 : China launches its first lunar probe
when Chang’e-I, the country’s first
lunar orbiter blasts off from
Xichang Satellite Launch Center
in China’s Sichuan Province