Astrosat, India’s mutli wavelength astronomical observatory will be launched in 2008. Krishnaswamy Kasturiranjan, the former Indian Space Research Organisation chairman and an eminent astrophysicist said that the challenges in its design and control systems have been overcome and Astrosat is getting ready for the launch.

Astrosat will be using high-speed wheels to facilitate tilting of telescopes at desired angles. Astrosat will be orbiting the earth at 600km above the earth surface and the total investment on this project is 200 crore INR. It will facilitate the study of astrophysical objects including the nearby objects in the solar system as well objects at the cosmological distances.

Astrosat will also enable timing studies of various pulsations of the “hot white dwarfs” to active galactic nuclei with time scales ranging from milliseconds to few hours a day. The report was presented by Krishnaswamy Kasturiranjan on the second Raja Ramanna Memorial Lecture at the Variable Energy Cyclotron Center at Kolkata.