Projects launched on National Technology Day

On the National Technology Day, PM Modi has laid the foundation stone of Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory – India (LIGO-India). The LIGO-India facility is being constructed in Hingoli district in Maharashtra.

LIGO – India –

• LIGO-India will be an advanced gravitational-wave observatory to be located in India as part of a worldwide network.
  • • Two existing LIGO observatories in the United States detected gravitational waves for the first time in 2015.
    • Since then, two more similar detectors have come onboard, one in Italy and the other in Japan.
    • LIGO India would be the fifth node of this network, and possibly the last.
• The LIGO facility involves the construction of two 4-km long vacuum chambers in L-shape along with other structures. The facility is set to become operational by 2030.
  • • It is set to become the largest scientific facility in India.
• This facility will be capable of sensing gravitational waves generated during the merger of massive astrophysical objects such as black holes, and neutron stars.

Rare Earth Permanent magnet plant in Visakhapatnam –

• The new magnet plant would produce rare earth magnets like Samarium-Cobalt and Neodymium-Iron-Boron.
  • • This plant has been built inside an existing facility of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Visakhapatnam.
• These magnets are critical components for a variety of high technology products in telecommunications, electric vehicles, microelectronics, wind turbines, airplanes and also in weapons.
• As of now, the supply chains of these magnets are highly dependent on China. India plans to use locally sourced rare earth elements to produce these magnets.
• With this plant, India will join a select group of nations with capacity to produce such magnets.

The Molybdenum-99 production facility –

• This Facility located in Trombay Campus of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.
• This facility is expected to enable about 9 to 10 lakh patient scans per year.
  • Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) decays to create technetium-99m (Tc-99m), a radioisotope used by hospitals and medical centres.
    • Tc-99m is used worldwide in nuclear medicine procedures to diagnose heart disease and other diseases.
    • Roughly 85% of medical imaging in nuclear medicine uses this isotope (Tc-99m).

The National Hadron Beam Therapy Facility –

• The National Hadron Beam Therapy Facility of Tata Memorial Centre, Navi Mumbai works to undertake highly precise delivery of radiation to the tumour with minimal dose to the surrounding normal structures.
• The precise delivery of dose to target tissue reduces the early and delayed side effects of radiation therapy.