Editorial 1 : A battle to save Ladakh, and all of humanity
Context
Sonam Wangchuk's climate fast has highlighted the larger issue of the fragility of the Himalayan ecosystem.
The Himalayan region
- Tucked away between India’s neighbours, Pakistan and China, at a height of 11,500 feet, Ladakh comprises 97% indigenous tribes, many of whom lead simple pastoral lives and depend on farming and animal rearing for a livelihood.
- Apart from border disputes, the Himalayan region also faces the damaging effects of climate change through floods, drought, landslides, greenhouse gases, and other pollutants.
- There are about 15,000 glaciers in the Himalayan region, often referred to as the Third Pole.
- In spring and summer, these glaciers form an important part of the hydrological process by releasing meltwater to the Indus, the Ganga, and the Brahmaputra.
- The Himalayan glaciers, like those in the rest of the world, are at risk of melting due to global warming and climate change. This will affect both residents of the mountain region and those living downstream.
Infrastructure boom
- In 2008, the Centre launched eight Missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC).
- One of these was under the Ministry of Science and Technology, i.e., the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE).
- The main objective of NMSHE is to develop a capacity to scientifically assess the vulnerability of the Himalayan region to climate change and continuously assess the health status of the Himalayan ecosystem.
Issues
- Almost as soon as Ladakh became a Union Territory, several mega infrastructure projects were launched at rapid pace.
- These included the construction of bridges, widening of roads, tunnels, railway lines, mega solar projects, a state-of-the-art airport terminal and wayside amenities to boost tourism.
- Among these were the 14.15 kilometre Zojila tunnel, the 230 km Kargil-Zanskar National Highway project, and a 10 gigawatt solar energy project covering 20,000 acres in the Changthang region. The
- Ladakh (UT) Industrial Land Allotment Policy of 2023 aims to make UT Ladakh one of the preferred destinations for investment.
- The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has been spearheading many of these projects along with the National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd. (NHIDCL).
- Various government bodies, sanctioning and executing the projects at such a feverish pace, are not paying heed to the warnings from past disasters in the mountains and learning from them.
- Since 2010, there have been several disasters in the Himalayan region, with a loss of lives and livelihoods.
- A Supreme Court of India constituted expert committee even suggested that authorities limit the number of pilgrims visiting the Char Dam Himalayan shrines, at Kedarnath, Badrinath, Yamunotri, and Gangotri to carrying capacity.
- Carrying capacity is the maximum number of people that an ecosystem can support, without eroding it.
- But, instead, pilgrim numbers have only swelled every year. Some expert committees have even suggested that no hydroelectric projects are set up in the para-glacial zone.
- When tragedy strikes, the human cost of environmental destruction is sadly borne by poor migrant workers in ongoing projects and by residents, tourists and pilgrims.
- Government bodies sanctioning the projects or the developers executing them escape the wrath of the mountains.
Conclusion
- What has been frustrating climate change activists is their recommendations gathering dust despite approaching the courts and the formation of expert committees.
- In the name of development, we cannot afford to upset the fragile balance in the Himalayan ecosystem and its biodiversity. The onus is on all of us to ensure that the Himalayas and the people living under its shadow are protected.
Editorial 2 : ISRO’s ‘zero orbital debris’ milestone
Context
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has said its PSLV-C58/XPoSat mission has practically left zero debris in earth orbit.
About POEM
- Developed by the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) as an inexpensive space platform, POEM uses the spent fourth stage of a PSLV rocket as an orbital platform.
- Used for the first time in the PSLV-C53 mission in June 2022, ISRO had POEM orbit the earth to perform in-orbit scientific experiments with various payloads onboard.
- The last stage of the Polar Satellite Launch vehicle (PSLV) used in the mission was transformed into a kind of orbital station — (POEM-3) — before it was left to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere instead of floating in orbit once its mission was completed.
- POEM is powered by solar panels mounted on the fuel tank of the rocket’s fourth stage and a lithium-ion battery.
- It has a navigation, guidance, and control (NGC) system to stabilise its altitude along with helium control thrusters.
- The NGC system has four Sun sensors, a magnetometer, and gyroscopes, and talks to ISRO’s NavIC satellite constellation for navigation.
- POEM also has a telecommand system to communicate with the ground station.
- ISRO first demonstrated the reuse of the spent fourth stage of its rocket in its PSLV C-44 mission in 2019.
- After satellites were injected into the target orbits, the fourth stage, carrying a student payload called Kalamsat-V2, was moved to a higher circular orbit of 443 km and stayed there, facilitating the payload’s requirements.
Significance
- After deploying the XPoSat satellite in its desired orbit of 650 km, the fourth stage, now called POEM-3, was lowered to a 350-km-high circular orbit. The lower a satellite is in orbit around the earth, the more drag it experiences and the more energy it needs to expend to stay in orbit.
- With the rise in the number of satellites in orbit around the earth, space debris has become a pressing issue.
- Space debris in the low earth orbit (LEO) mainly comprises pieces of spacecraft, rockets, and defunct satellites, and the fragments of objects that have deteriorated explosively as a result of anti-satellite missile tests.
- This debris often flies around at high speeds of up to 27,000 km/hr. Due to their sheer volume and momentum, they pose a risk to several space assets.
- The LEO extends from 100 km above the earth’s surface up to 2000 km above. It includes satellites tracking intelligence data, encrypted communication, and navigation.
- According to ISRO’s Space Situational Assessment Report 2022, the world placed 2,533 objects in space in 179 launches in 2022.
- Debris also exists, but in smaller volumes, in the geosynchronous orbit (GEO) 36,000 km above the earth’s surface.
Agencies dealing with debris
- The latest incident of space debris causing havoc was recorded on March 8 when a discarded battery pallet dropped by the International Space Station ripped through the roof of a house in Florida.
- As more communication satellites/constellations are launched and more anti-satellite tests are conducted, more on-orbit breakup and collisions occur, producing smaller fragments in orbit.
- Space debris can also create unusable regions of the orbit where too much debris has accumulated, and which can trigger a cascading avalanche of collisions that produce yet more, but smaller pieces of, debris.
Way forward
- Currently, there are no international space laws pertaining to LEO debris. Most spacefaring nations abide by the Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines 2002 specified by the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC), which the U.N. endorsed in 2007.