Space Zone-all about space

ISRO developing reusable launch vehicle

2012-01-20T10:15:00.000-08:00

A model of Re entry launch vehicle (RLV)

ISRO‘s design of the Reusable Launch Vehicle-TechnologyDemonstrator (RLV-TD) has beenapproved by the National Review Committee. An ISRO official said design-related issues have been addressed andpresented to the National Review Committee and clearance obtained to go aheadto build the RLV-TD.

The space agency, as a first steptowards realizing a Two-Stage To Orbit(TSTO) re-usable launch vehicle, has developed a winged RLV-TD. ISRO, inits recently released annual report, stated that design options have been finalized.Besides, the mission design has been completed with a revised vehicle mass. TheRLV-TD will act as a flying test-bed to evaluate various technologies —hypersonic flight, autonomous landing, powered cruise flight and hypersonicflight using air breathing propulsion.

The first in the series of trialsis the Hypersonic Flight Experiment (HEX) followed by the landing experiment(LEX), Return Flight Experiment (REX) and Scramjet Propulsion Experiment (SPEX).

During HEX, the vehicle will takelift off in the form of a rocket with a booster. Later, it can be recoveredfrom sea. Though the trials for the first experiment are slated to take placethis year, an Isro official said the launch date for carrying out HEX from theSatish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota has not been fixed. The developmentand flight testing of the Reusable Launch Vehicles-Technology demonstratormissions leading to Two-Stage To Orbit (TSTO) is part of India’s Space Vision2025 and is expected to bring down cost significantly.

ISRO, in January 2007, conducted theSpace capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE-1). Launched by the Polar SatelliteLaunch Vehicle (PSLV-C7) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre on January 10, 2007,the capsule was successfully recovered on January 22, 2007, from the Bay ofBengal.

PSLV-C18 Successfully Launches Megha-Tropiques

2011-10-12T02:12:00.000-07:00

ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C18) proved itsmettle once again. PSLV-C18 has put four satellites successfully into the orbit:

The 4 satellites were:

Indo-French satelliteMegha-Tropiques for studying the water cycle and energy exchanges in thetropics.

SRMSat, a nanosatellite built by students of SRM University.

VesselSat-1, a microsatellite fromLuxembourg.

Jugnu, a nanosatellite integrated by students of IIT-Kanpur.

The satellites used for:

Megha-Tropiques,with four scientific instruments, will help in predicting the Indian monsoons,floods, cyclones and droughts, besides estimating the weather in the short-termand climate in the long-term in the tropical countries of the world.

The 11-kg SRMSatwill address the problem of global-warming and the pollution levels in theatmosphere by monitoring the carbon-dioxide present there.

The 3-kg Jugnu isa remote-sensing satellite that will minor vegetation and water-bodies.

VesselSat willhelp in locating ships cruising in the sea-lanes of the world.

NASA satellite is falling down

2011-09-09T10:18:00.000-07:00

A5.4-tonne dead satellite of NASA will soon fall to Earth but NASA saying thereis very little chance that it will hit anyone.

Thespace agency does not know when or where its 20-year-old satellite will drop.It will probably hit the earth in late September but could fall in October. Andit could land anywhere south of Juneau, Alaska, and north of the tip of SouthAmerica. Nasa says there is only a one in 3,200 chance of satellite partshitting someone.

Expertssay not to worry. In the more than 50 years of the space age, no one has everbeen hurt by falling space debris. The 5.4-tonne satellite was used to monitorthe atmosphere. Most of it will burn up during re-entry. Only about 550kg ofmetal should survive.

Indian Space Shuttle

2011-08-01T11:18:00.000-07:00

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is going to launch its own reusable space shuttle very soon.

Apparently, the shuttlecraft is currently being held in a secret location in Kerala. An Indian version of the space shuttle will be test-flown from the spaceport at Sriharikota in a year’s time. The Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD), as it is called, will be a combination rocket-aircraft: the aircraft with a winged body, which is the RLV, will sit vertically on the rocket.

Three women to supervise GSAT-12

2011-07-23T09:10:00.000-07:00

Three ISRO women are diligently helping their 'baby' take its first steps in a sprawling antenna 'farm' amid village fields 200 km west of Bangalore, At its Master Control Facility (MCF) here, blinking screens show the status of GSAT-12, the latest communication satellite of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Supervising each move are three women, products of home campus, trained by Isro.

Project director T. K. Anuradha, mission director Pramodha Hegde and operations director Anuradha Prakasham, are the three women at the helm of affairs. After weeks of tests, the deployed antenna will link remote villages and hamlets to their resource centers, tele-medicine outlets and students who take lessons from far-away city campuses.

"The feeling is like delivering a baby," a beaming T. K. Anuradha, an electronics engineer from University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering, Bangalore, said. Last Friday from Sriharikota the PSLV-C17 launched the satellite onto a highly elliptical orbit stretching 284 km to 21,000 km from the earth.

The job of taking it to the intended orbit is supervised by Pramodha Hegde, an electronics engineer who studied at B. V. Bhoomaraddi College of Engineering and Technology in Hubli, Karnataka. "The toughest of the five orbit raising manoeuvres was the first. At the nearest point to earth, the satellite moves the fastest as per Kepler's Law, leaving a narrow window of time to fire the motors, optimising fuel use," she said.

Anuradha Prakasham ensures that the trio plays in tune keeping to the beat. "Different injection operations went precisely as planned," said Prakasha, a postgraduate in physics from Cochin University of Science and Technology.

PSLV-C17 Successfully Launches GSAT-12 Satellite

2011-07-15T07:08:00.000-07:00

ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle proves its mettle again. PSLV-C17, in its 19th flight, successfully launches India's communication satellite GSAT-12 from the Second Launch Pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre- SHAR, Sriharikota, India. PSLV-C17 measuring 44.5 m height, with a lift off weight of 320 tonnes has four stages of solid and liquid propulsion systems alternately. In its XL Version, PSLV-XL uses six extended solid strap-on motors wherein each strap-on carries 12 tonnes of solid propellant. This is a second time such a configuration is being flown, earlier one being the PSLV-C11/Chandrayaan-I mission.

Salient feature of PSLV-C17/GSAT-12 Mission:

· For the first time, use of indigenously designed and developed On-Board computer (OBC) with Vikram 1601 processor in both primary and redundant chains of the vehicle. The OBC performs the functions of Navigation, Guidance and Control processing for the vehicle.

· Use of extended solid strap-on configuration

· Satellite injection in elliptical transfer orbit sub-Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO)

· Five burn strategy (2 perigee burn and 3 apogee burn) for placing the GSAT-12 satellite from its sub-GTO to Geostationary Orbit

ISRO using most powerful PSLV to launch GSAT-12

2011-07-08T11:04:00.000-07:00

ISRO-Indian Space Research Organization is using the most powerful configuration of its rocket PSLV to launch a communication satellite GSAT-12 from Sriharikota on July 15^th 2011 costs nearly Rs 200 crore.

It's only for the second time ever that a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle is being used to loft a communication satellite, the first one being Kalpana-1 in 2002. Bangalore-headquartered ISRO opted for this step as there is a large unfulfilled and pressing demand for communication transponders.

Communication satellites are launched on board GSLV or ISRO goes in procured launches overseas.

ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan said: "We wanted to create (transponder) capacity at the earliest. That's why we used the PSLV for the purpose (of launching a communication satellite), and achieve whatever is possible...best possible by a PSLV with XL configuration. That's the most powerful configuration,"

The GSAT-12 is a "fast-track" satellite with a mass of 1410 kg, has 12 Extended C-band transponders. It is slated to be injected into space by PSLV-C17 after the launch from Sriharikota spaceport slated between 16.48 hours and 17.08 hours on July 15. Similar PSLV, with extended strap-ons, was used for India's Chandrayaan-1 mission.

Aryabhata

2011-05-10T09:18:00.000-07:00

Aryabhata was an ancient Indian astronomer and mathematician. Aryabhata was the father of scientific astronomy and mathematics of the Hindus. Born in 476 CE in Kusumpur (Bihar), Aryabhatt's intellectual brilliance remapped the boundaries of mathematics and astronomy. His most famous works are the Āryabhaṭīya (499 CE, when he was 23 years old) and the Arya-siddhanta. Aryabhatta was India's first satellite, named after the great Indian astronomer of the same name. It was launched by the Soviet Union on 19 April 1975 from Kapustin Yar using a Cosmos-3M launch vehicle

Aryabatta Works:

-->Aryabhata is the author of several treatises on mathematics and astronomy. In 499 CE, at the age of 23, he wrote a text on astronomy and an unparallel treatise on mathematics called "Aryabhatiyam."

-->Aryabhatta formulated the process of calculating the motion of planets and the time of eclipses. Aryabhatta was the first to proclaim that the earth is round, it rotates on its axis, orbits the sun and is suspended in space - 1000 years before Copernicus published his heliocentric theory.

-->Aryabhatta is also acknowledged for calculating

π

(Pi) to four decimal places: 3.1416 and the sine table in trigonometry.

-->Trigonometry-In Ganitapada 6, Aryabhata gives the area of a triangle as

tribhujasya phalashariram samadalakoti bhujardhasamvargah

that translates to: "for a triangle, the result of a perpendicular with the half-side is the area

-->Aryabhatta’s most spectacular contribution was the concept of zero without which modern computer technology would have been non-existent. Aryabhatt was a colossus in the field of mathematics.

This implies that the ratio of the circumference to the diameter is ((4 + 100) × 8 + 62000)/20000 = 62832/20000 = 3.1416, which is accurate to five significant figures.

-->Algebra-In Aryabhatiya Aryabhata provided elegant results for the summation of series of squares and cubes

-->Indeterminate equations

A problem of great interest to Indian mathematicians since ancient times has been to find integer solutions to equations that have the form ax + by = c, a topic that has come to be known as diophantine equations.

Varahamihira

2011-05-10T08:49:00.000-07:00

Famous Indian Astrologer, mathematician and Astronomer

Varahamihira (499-587 CE)

Varahamihira was one of the renowned Indian astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer. He was honored with a special decoration and status as one of the nine gems in the court of King Vikramaditya in Avanti (Ujjain). Varaha Mihira wrote several important works on Jyotish including but not limited to: Brhat Jataka, Bruhat Samhita, Yoga Yatra, Pancha Siddhantika (on astronomy) and Prasna Vallabha (apocryphal).

Varahamihir's book "panchsiddhant" holds a prominent place in the realm of astronomy. He proposed that the moon and planets are lustrous not because of their own light but due to sunlight. The work is a treatise on mathematical astronomy and it summarizes five earlier astronomical treatises, namely the Surya, Romaka, Paulisa, Vasistha and Paitamaha siddhantas. Shukla states in The Pancasiddhantika of Varahamihira is one of the most important sources for the history of Hindu astronomy before the time of Aryabhata I I

In the "Bruhad Samhita" and "Bruhad Jatak," he has revealed his discoveries in the domains of geography, constellation, science, botany and animal science. In his treatise on botanical science, Varamihir presents cures for various diseases afflicting plants and trees. The rishi-scientist survives through his unique contributions to the science of astrology and astronomy.

Varahamihira was one of the most famous astrologers in Indian history. His work Brihatsamhita (The Great Compilation) discusses topics such as :- Descriptions of heavenly bodies, their movements and conjunctions, meteorological phenomena, indications of the omens these movements, conjunctions and phenomena represent, what action to take and operations to accomplish, sign to look for in humans, animals, precious stones, etc.

Varahamihira summarizes was the Romaka-Siddhanta which was based on the epicycle theory of the motions of the Sun and the Moon given by the Greeks in the 1st century AD. The Romaka-Siddhanta was based on the tropical year of Hipparchus and on the Metonic cycle of 19 years. Other works which Varahamihira summarises are also based on the Greek epicycle theory of the motions of the heavenly bodies. He revised the calendar by updating these earlier works to take into account precession since they were written. The Pancasiddhantika also contains many examples of the use of a place-value number system.

Varahamihira made some important mathematical discoveries. Among these are certain trigonometric formulas which translated into our present day notation correspond to

sin² x + cos² x = 1

sin x = cos(π/2 - x),

{1 - cos 2x}/{2} = sin²x

Another important contribution to trigonometry was his sine tables where he improved those of Aryabhata I giving more accurate values. It should be emphasised that accuracy was very important for these Indian mathematicians since they were computing sine tables for applications to astronomy and astrology. This motivated much of the improved accuracy they achieved by developing new interpolation methods. The Jaina school of mathematics investigated rules for computing the number of ways in which r objects can be selected from n objects over the course of many hundreds of years. They gave rules to compute the binomial coefficients nCr which amount to

nCr= n(n-1)(n-2)…(n-r+1)/r!

PSLV-C16 successfully launches 3 satellites

2011-04-20T01:24:00.000-07:00

Congratulations …… ISRO

ISRO proved its mettle again by successfully launching PSLV-C16 rocket on 20^th April 20, 2011 at 10.18 AM. PSLV-C16 successfully puts 3 satellites Remote sensing satellite Resourcesat-2 and two smaller satellites YOUTHSAT and X-SAT in their respective orbits. The entire launch was completed within the duration 18 minutes.

This is 18^th successful rocket launch with PSLV. Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle is most reliable and cost effective launch vehicle in the world. PSLV is a synonym for success.

PSLV is 44 metres tall with a lift off weight of 295 tonne and designed to launch 1600 kg satellites in 620 km sun-synchronous polar orbit and 1050 kg satellite into geo-synchronous transfer orbit. PSLV is one the most versatile vehicle for launching multiple satellites in polar SSOs, Low Earth Orbits and geosynchronous transfer orbit. PSLV launch vehicle has 4 stages using solid and liquid propulsion systems alternately.

I’m wishing all the iSRO scientists for the successful launch of PSLV-C16.

Jai Ho Bharat

Jai ISRO……….Sky is the limit …….

Aurora Borealis as seen from Space

2011-04-16T08:39:00.000-07:00

A handy video from our friends at the BBC on a northern light spectacular witnessed in 2009.

MoonEx plans to mine the moon

2011-04-11T08:43:00.000-07:00

Moon Express Inc or MoonEx plans to mine the moon and is in the process of building robotic rovers that will search the lunar surface for precious metals and rare metallic elements. Moon Express Inc or MoonEx, co-founded by Naveen Jain, is building the robotic rovers alongside scientists at NASA's AMES Research Centre near San Jose. MoonEx is financially strong and its co-founders include Barney Pell, the head architect behind Microsoft's Bing Internet search engine and Robert Richards, a commercial space entrepreneur.

While there is no guarantee that the moon is "flush" with these materials, MoonEx thinks it "may be a gold mine of so-called rare earth elements. From an entrepreneur's perspective, the moon has never truly been explored," the report quoted Naveen Jain, chairman and company co-founder, as saying.

"We think it could hold resources that benefit Earth and all humanity."

MoonEx's machines are designed to look for materials that are scarce on Earth but found in everything from a Toyota Prius car battery to guidance systems on cruise missiles. MoonEx should be ready to land on the lunar surface by 2013," Jain said.

"It's our goal to be the first company there and stay there." MoonEx comprises 25 employees, including former NASA engineers, and has received a NASA contract worth up to USD 10 million.

The company is among several others that hope to win the Google Lunar X Prize 30 million dollar competition that requires a privately-funded team to successfully land a robot on the moon's surface.

The robot must be capable of exploring at least a third of a mile and must also transmit high definition video and images to Earth before 2016.

Naveen Jain said: “the idea of exploiting the moon's resources for private gain is unlikely to be a concern. I also think that the moon will be treated no differently than the international water in our oceans. In this case, no one really owns the water but any company or country can mine the resources ... from the international water as long as they follow certain safety/moral guidelines," he said in the report. MoonEx plans to publicly demonstrate its hardware in the coming months”.

SpaceX to Launch World's Most Powerful Rocket

2011-04-05T23:37:00.000-07:00

Falcon Heavy will lift more than twice as much as any other launch vehicle

Elon Musk, CEO and chief rocket designer of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) unveiled the dramatic final specifications and launch date for the Falcon Heavy, the world's largest rocket.

“Falcon Heavy will carry more payload to orbit or escape velocity than any vehicle in history, apart from the Saturn V moon rocket, which was decommissioned after the Apollo program. This opens a new world of capability for both government and commercial space missions,” Musk told a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

“Falcon Heavy will arrive at our Vandenberg, California, launch complex by the end of next year, with liftoff to follow soon thereafter. First launch from our Cape Canaveral launch complex is planned for late 2013 or 2014.”

Musk added that with the ability to carry satellites or interplanetary spacecraft weighing over 53 metric tons or 117,000 pounds to orbit, Falcon Heavy will have more than twice the performance of the Delta IV Heavy, the next most powerful vehicle, which is operated by United Launch Alliance, a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture.

53 metric tons is more than the maximum take-off weight of a fully-loaded Boeing 737-200 with 136 passengers. In other words, Falcon Heavy can deliver the equivalent of an entire commercial airplane full of passengers, crew, luggage and fuel all the way to orbit.

Falcon Heavy’s first stage will be made up of three nine-engine cores, which are used as the first stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle. It will be powered by SpaceX’s upgraded Merlin engines currently being tested at the SpaceX rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas. Falcon Heavy will generate 3.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. This is the equivalent to the thrust of fifteen Boeing 747s taking off at the same time.

Above all, Falcon Heavy has been designed for extreme reliability. Unique safety features of the Falcon 9 are preserved, such as the ability to complete its mission even if multiple engines fail. Like a commercial airliner, each engine is surrounded by a protective shell that contains a worst case situation like fire or a chamber rupture, preventing it from affecting other engines or the vehicle itself.

Anticipating potential astronaut transport needs, Falcon Heavy is also designed to meet NASA human rating standards, unlike other satellite launch vehicles. For example, this means designing to higher structural safety margins of 40% above flight loads, rather than the 25% level of other rockets, and triple redundant avionics.

Falcon Heavy will be the first rocket in history to do propellant cross-feed from the side boosters to the center core, thus leaving the center core with most of its propellant after the side boosters separate. The net effect is that Falcon Heavy achieves performance comparable to a three stage rocket, even though only the upper stage is airlit, further improving both payload performance and reliability. Crossfeed is not required for missions below 100,000 lbs, and can be turned off if desired.

Despite being designed to higher structural margins than other rockets, the side booster stages will have a mass ratio (full of propellant vs empty) above 30, better than any vehicle of any kind in history.

Falcon Heavy, with more than twice the payload, but less than one third the cost of a Delta IV Heavy, will provide much needed relief to government and commercial budgets. In fact, Falcon Heavy at approximately $1,000 per pound to orbit, sets a new world record in affordable spaceflight.

This year, even as the Department of Defense budget was cut, the EELV launch program, which includes the Delta IV, still saw a thirty percent increase.

The 2012 budget for four Air Force launches is $1.74B, which is an average of $435M per launch. Falcon 9 is offered on the commercial market for $50-60M and Falcon Heavy is offered for $80-$125M. Unlike our competitors, this price includes all non-recurring development costs and on-orbit delivery of an agreed upon mission. For government missions, NASA has added mission assurance and additional services to the Falcon 9 for less than $20M.

Vehicle Overview

Mass to Orbit (200 km, 28.5 deg): 53 metric tons (117,000 lb)

Length: 69.2 m (227 ft)

Max Stage Width: 5.2 m (17 ft)

Total Width: 11.6 meters (38 ft)

Weight at Liftoff: 1,400 metric tons or 3.1 million lbs

Thrust on Liftoff: 1,700 metric tons or 3.8 million lbs

Dhanush and Prithvi-II tested successfully

2011-03-11T08:32:00.000-08:00

India’s Strategic Forces Command (SFC), which handles missiles with nuclear warheads, fired Dhanush and Prithvi-II missiles on March 11, 2011 and establishing the readiness of India’s nuclear deterrence systems. Both Dhanush and Prithvi-II are surface-to-surface missiles that can carry nuclear warheads. They are products of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

There are Army, Navy and Air Force versions of Prithvi, which is a single-stage missile that uses liquid propellants. Both Dhanush, the Naval version and Prithvi-II can carry nuclear warheads weighing 500 kg each. The stabilisation platforms of Dhanush-based ships enable its launching even during rough sea.

India's ballistic missile defence

2011-03-07T08:12:00.000-08:00

Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully tested a ballistic missile interception from its missile range on March 7^th 2011.

India's Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) Interceptor missile was fired from Wheeler Island, which successfully intercepted an incoming hostile missile fired five minutes earlier. The 'hostile' missile was a specially modified Prithvi missile, fired from the Launch Complex III of the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur-on-sea in Balasore district, about 70km away from Wheeler Island across the sea.

The incoming ''enemy'' ballistic missile was intercepted at an altitude of 16 km and was destroyed through ''a direct kill”. The interceptor had a specially designed 'directional warhead'.

India's remote sensing satellites face threat from space debris created by China's anti-satellite test in 2007. India is strongly opposed to any attempt to place weapons in space or conducting any unconventional weapons tests in space as it would pose a perennial threat to all space systems regardless of their use for civilian or military purposes."

India's concerns regarding China are behind the revival of ballistic missile defence (BMD) discussions between India and the US. A possible acquisition of the Arrow from Israel or Patriot 3 from the US is also part of India's missile defence programme.

ISRO discovers cave in moon

2011-02-24T22:26:00.000-08:00

ISRO scientists have discovered a giant underground cave on the moon, which could be used as a lunar base by astronauts for inter-planetary missions.

Scientists at the Space Applications Centre (SAC), using data gathered from Chandrayaan-I's Terrain Mapping Camera and Hyper Spectral Imager (HySI) payloads, found a 1.2 km long buried, uncollapsed and near horizontal lava tube.

The hollow cave situated just above the lunar equator on the nearside of moon, can accommodate a large number of astronauts and scientific instruments, and also protect them from hostile lunar environment.

"Such a lava tube could be a potential site for future human habitability on the Moon for future human missions and scientific explorations, providing a safe environment from hazardous radiations, micro-meteoritic impacts, extreme temperatures and dust storms," a team of scientists led by A.S. Arya of SAC, Ahmedabad.

ISRO Scientists said identifying sites for permanent base for human settlements on the moon is important for further investigation.

Cosmic census finds 50 billion planets in the Milky Way

2011-02-20T07:19:00.000-08:00

Scientists finds the first cosmic census of planets in our galaxy and the numbers are astronomical at least 50 billion planets in the Milky Way. At least 500 million of those planets are in the not-too-hot, not-too-cold zone where life could exist. The numbers were extrapolated from the early results of NASA's planet-hunting Kepler telescope.

Kepler science chief William Borucki says scientists took the number of planets they found in the first year of searching a small part of the night sky and then made an estimate on how likely stars are to have planets. Kepler spots planets as they pass between Earth and the star it orbits.

So far Kepler has found 1,235 candidate planets, with 54 in the Goldilocks zone, where life could possibly exist. Kepler's main mission is not to examine individual worlds, but give astronomers a sense of how many planets, especially potentially habitable ones, there are likely to be in our galaxy. They would use the one-four-hundredth of the night sky that Kepler is looking at and extrapolate from there.

Borucki and colleagues figured one of two stars has planets and one of 200 stars has planets in the habitable zone, announcing these ratios Saturday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference in Washington. And that's a minimum because these stars can have more than one planet and Kepler has yet to get a long enough glimpse to see planets that are further out from the star, like Earth, according to Borucki.

Charles Hayden Planetarium

2011-02-15T06:43:00.000-08:00

In the growing hush of full darkness, more than 9,000 stars appear, with so many gradations of intensity that binoculars can reveal more detail than the naked eye. That is the sensation offered by the newly renovated Charles Hayden Planetarium, which opened on 13 February 11 at the Museum of Science here, after a $9 million yearlong reconstruction, its new equipment, software and 57-foot dome promising to take the next generation to the stars.

The dome of the Hayden Planetarium with a digital projection.

It is easy to lose one’s balance in the vastness of space, and over the last 15 years as planetariums around the country have revamped their systems and shows to take advantage of the latest in digital technology and the most refined fiber-optic projectors from Zeiss (the same company that outfitted the first modern planetarium in Germany in 1923), many times the moorings have come loose. The domes have been used to stage fantastical free-for-all shows of cinematic effects, including dinosaurs, cartoonish tubes of warped space and sub-woofer grumblings.

DRDO launches mosquitos repellent cream

2011-02-14T10:13:00.000-08:00

Missile maker DRDO now unveils a new insect repellent cream against mosquitoes, vectors of diseases like malaria, and dengue. Launching the ‘Maxo Military’ and ‘Maxo Safe and & Soft Wipes,’ DRDO said the cream based product will fool the mosquitoes, will have a pleasant fragrance and will not block your skin pores - a common problem with such products.

“This cream is based on a uniquely configured, researched and tested molecule which acts like a decoy and cheats the mosquito. It does not allow mosquitoes to sense the presence of human blood in their vicinity,” according to Prahlada, Chief Controller, Research & Development, of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)

The artificially developed molecules in the cream interfere with the sensory mechanism of the mosquito and stop it from biting the humans. Research and developed by DRDO, the product would be manufactured and marketed by Jyothy Laboratories Limited which also holds the license to sell it outside the defence forces. The first of its kind mosquito repellent has been developed under a special technology commercialisation programme signed between the DRDO and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

NASA and General Motors built Humanoid robot

2011-02-06T09:11:00.000-08:00

NASA and General Motors built a humanoid robot to be an astronaut assistant onboard the International Space Station will make a special guest appearance on the Fox Network's Super Bowl XLVpre-game show on Feb. 6. The robot named Robonaut 2 or R2 will appear on Fox's pre-game show with sports analyst Howie Long during the network's festivities before kickoff.

The R2 robot was designed and constructed to help NASA on the International Space Station. Somewhat resembling a person, the R2 has a human-like build, but most importantly, the machine has hands designed similar to those of us with a pulse: its fingers and thumbs can full articulate and react similar to human hands.

With the potential capabilities of the R2, NASA is bringing its example on the next trip to the international space station to perform mundane tasks such as wiping down handrails. In doing so, astronauts have more time to spend on more important jobs than keeping house. The R2 can use the same tools as a non-robotic person and can adapt its grip accordingly. NASA’s R2 is sitting aboard the Discovery awaiting a February 24th launch.

BrahMos to make cryogenic engines for ISRO

2011-02-02T09:45:00.000-08:00

BrahMos Aerospace is going to manufacture the cryogenic engine for (ISRO) for GSLV rockets. BrahMos is also in the process to induct its supersonic cruise missile into the Indian Air Force and develop hypersonic missile in six years' time, according to chief executive and managing director A. Sivathanu Pillai

ISRO is developing the cryogenic engine to power its GSLV (geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle) rockets. Once ISRO perfects the technology, we will make the engine as the space agency has asked us to do it,' Pillai said.

BrahMos ‘subsidiary BrahMos Aerospace Thiruvanthapuram Ltd (BATL) that already makes the liquid fuel powered engines and fuel tanks for rockets will make the cryogenic engine, he added.

BrahMos Aerospace is a joint venture between India's Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) that holds 50.5 percent stake and Military Industrial Consortium/MPO Machinostroyenia of Russia holding the remaining stake. According to Pillai, $300 million has gone into the venture.

Speaking about the supersonic cruise missile for the Indian Air Force, he said it will be ready next year.

The Supersonic missile, traveling at Mach 2.8, is nine times faster than other missiles in the world. About the hypersonic missile that would have a speed of Mach 7 - or seven times the speed of sound - he said: 'The basic technology is being developed. It will take around six years to come out with a missile.'

Speaking on ‘Science in Indian Defence' at the science festival, Mr. Pillai explains about India's Integrated Guided Missile Development Program (IGMDP). He gave a historical account of the reasons behind the development of the ballistic missile programme that consists of a battery of five missiles – Agni, Prithvi, Akash, Trishul and Nag.

Mr.Pillai said: “It was a woman scientist called G. Rohini Devi, who developed the carbon-carbon composite which is used in every Indian missile in operation today. Young girls in the audience must become like her. Designing the carbon-carbon composite material involved massive amounts of mathematical calculation.

Tejas, India's first Light Combat Aircraft

2011-01-11T07:36:00.000-08:00

India achieved a major milestone in military avionics today when the indigenously designed and developed Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas was given initial operational clearance (IOC) on January 10 in a function at the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited airport here paving the way for its induction into the Indian Air Force.

Defence Minister of India Shri AK Antony handing over the “Service Document of Tejas” to Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal PV Naik during Initial Operational Clearance function of Indigenous Tejas Light Combat Air Craft at Bangalore on 10 Jan 2011.

Defence Minister Shri AK Antony handing over the book on “Release of Service Certificate” to Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal PV Naik during Initial Operational Clearance function of Indigenous Tejas Light Combat Air Craft at Bangalore on 10 Jan 2011

Three suns over China

2011-01-11T01:38:00.000-08:00

An optical illusion has caused the appearance of 'triple suns' in the Chinese skies.

An astronomical phenomenon that appears to show three suns appears above Changchun, the capital city of Jilin Province in northeast China. Two smaller suns appeared on either side of the sun, with a strong light on top. The smaller twins were about one-tenth of the size of the sun. Together with the bright light, they formed a round, rainbow-like aura around the sun.

Experts said that such a phenomenon is called "phantom sun", which is an optical refraction in the atmosphere. In winter, the clouds are formed by ice crystals and they are relatively higher in the sky than in summer. When they happen to form a particular shape, they can reflect the sunshine in such a way that produces the astronomical phenomenon of "triple suns".

ISRO to implement Indian regional navigation satellite system

2011-01-06T00:33:00.000-08:00

ISRO is planning to implement the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) to provide India and neighboring countries with the Position Navigation and Timing (PNT) service.

The government had approved the project, which would be implemented in the next few years. Initially, the system would have seven satellites and then 11. At present, two space navigation systems operate in the world — the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) and the Russian Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS). The Galileo of Europe and China's COMPASS (Beidou) are likely to start working in five to 10 years.

About the satellite navigation system, Prof. Kibe said a combination of satellite navigation and satellite communication had resulted in the production of handset phones capable of communication and position determination. ISRO's GPS-Aided Geo Augmented Navigation (GAGAN) project was being implemented for the benefit of civil aviation. It would especially be useful in aircraft landing.

“For landing, you need accuracy of less than six metres.” Despite being useful in position, GPS did not offer the guarantee of service, he said, and this shortcoming would be addressed in the GPS augmentation system like GAGAN.

Talking about the challenges in space observations, R.R. Navalgund, Director, ISRO Space Applications Centre, said very high resolution system, instruments to measure accurately greenhouse gases and constellation of satellites for disaster monitoring, besides long-term calibrated climate data records of land, ocean and atmosphere, would be required to assess the likely scenario of changes in the resources of the earth.

On space biology, P. Dayanandan, emeritus professor, said 14 nations of the International Space Exploration Coordination Group, including India, were hopeful that one day, human beings might live and work in other destinations within the solar system. The most challenging of all problems in space colonisation would be to provide a permanent life support system.

The research now focused on building bio-regenerative systems, which would be based on the principle of biospherics that imitated the life-sustaining biosphere of the earth. He appealed to the Union government and the ISRO to establish a comprehensive space biology programme and give academic institutions greater encouragement.

ISRO to launch Singapore's first satellite

2011-01-04T02:28:00.000-08:00

ISRO is going to launch Singapore's first satellite X-Sat in orbit February 2011. The launch of the satellite, dubbed X-Sat, has been delayed since 2007. Experts estimated that the delay has raised the cost of satellite four-fold to more than 40 million Singaporean dollar from earlier estimates of 10 million, according to a report in The Straits Times today.

The X-Sat will be launched on Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) which has made 17 launches since its maiden flight in 1993, and have successfully put 38 satellites into the space out of the 40.

The X-Sat, a refrigerator-sized micro-satellite, would be in orbit for three years at a height of 800 km. It would take photographs to measures soil erosion and environmental changes on Earth, then relay them to a ground station at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan said: “the PSLV was in the assembling stage. We will be doing the flight testing stage later in January, and are expecting it to be launched in the first week of February," he was quoted as saying in recent media reports. The 100-kg X-Sat would be one of the three riding on the PSLV rocket

The X-Sat would make Singapore one of the first Southeast Asian countries to have locally-built satellite in space. The satellite is built by NTU, one of Singapore's top universities and research and development centers.

Happy New Year 2011

2010-12-31T09:28:00.000-08:00

Think of joy,

Forget the fear,

Keep the smile,

Leave the tear,

Hold the laugh,

Leave the pain,

Be joyous,

Coz it’s New Year!

Wishing You All A very Happy and Prosperous New Year 2011

Marshall Space Flight Center

2010-12-31T07:45:00.000-08:00

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center which develops key transportation and propulsion technologies. The George C. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) is the U.S. government's civilian rocketry and spacecraft propulsion research center

Department of Space to launch 30 satellites

2010-12-29T09:56:00.000-08:00

The Department of Space plans to launch “not less than 30 satellites in the next decade. These include a series of resourcesat, cartosat, ocean and atmospheric satellites, National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) Director V. Jayaraman told reporters on the sidelines of a conference on Karnataka Geo-Spatial Database on Tuesday.

The Hyderabad-based NRSC, which comes under the Department of Space, acquires processes and disseminates remote sensing data for applications and disaster management.

“We will launch Resourcesat-2 in early February or January-end. It will be a replacement satellite for Resourcesat-1, which gives us 5.8 metres, 70 km multi-spectral data for the first time,” Dr. Jayaraman said.

An “integrated multi-mission ground segment” would be set up in Hyderabad, which would enable the Indian Space Research Organisation to receive satellite data and to supply 1000 space products every day directly to the users.

Emergency products:

At present, the NRSC needed four to five days to deliver space products. With the new ground segment, the centre would be able to do that within 12 hours and even supply “emergency products” within an hour of receiving the data. The ground segment would be set up at a cost of around Rs. 40 crore and was expected to be operational by June 2011.

Delivering the keynote address at the conference, Dr. Jayaraman said experts in GIS and remote sensing must tap into the power of cloud computing. GIS, he added, must be made simple, friendly and easy-to-use.