NASA to send spacecraft to Venus

NASA is planning to send a future fleet of spacecraft to Venus. According to NASA, the USD 4-billion Venus mission, to be launched between 2020 or 2025, could reveal more about the planet's runaway greenhouse effect, any oceans it may have had, and the volcanic activity.

Two high-altitude balloons built to hover in sulphuric acid clouds could also be part of the fleet to Venus which has more in common with Earth than any other in terms of distance from the Sun, size and mass, the US space agency has said.

And, the mission's two balloons would each carry a gondola full of scientific instruments to sniff the atmosphere at an altitude of 55 kilometers.

In fact, in 2008, NASA tasked a group of scientists to formulate goals for the mission. The team's study outlines a plan to study the planet and the mission concept includes one orbiter, two balloons and two short-lived Landers, all of which would launch into space on two Atlas V rockets.

"Our understanding of Venus is so low, we really need this armada," team leader Mark Bullock of Southwest Research Institute in Colorado was quoted as saying.

Researchers believe water was once plentiful enough to have been able to cover the entire planet in a layer 100 meters deep. But Venus’s hothouse climate eventually dried up most of this water, a process that might have also slowed and eventually stopped plate tectonics on the planet. The landers, which would only last a few hours in the intense heat, could look for evidence of minerals formed by water.

Since such hydrated minerals have a limited lifetime, they could help reveal how long Venus’s oceans might have lasted, a question that could shed light on whether life might have arisen on the planet.

The mission’s two balloons would each carry a gondola full of scientific instruments to sniff the atmosphere at an altitude of 55 kilometers.

The mission could also help reveal more about the origin of Venus’s current carbon dioxide atmosphere, which produces crushing surface pressures 90 times those on Earth.

China plans to launch 16 satellites in 2009

China is planning to launch 15-16 satellites in 2009, Zhang Jianqi, deputy chief commander of the manned space project

"Though the global financial crisis is taking toll on world economy, it has no impact on China's space programs," said Zhang Jianqi, deputy chief commander of the manned space project.

China is at present "batch-producing" the three spacecraft, Shenzhou-8, Shenzhou-9 and Shenzhou-10, according to Zhang, who is also a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislature.

"This is the first time for the country to conduct researches and production on three spacecraft at the same time," he said.

China plans to launch Tiangong-1, an unmanned space module, into orbit by the end of 2010, informed Zhang.

The country plans to launch the Shenzhou-8 and Shenzhou-9 spacecraft in 2011, a former chief designer of the manned-space project said earlier.

According to Zhang, the country is selecting a new batch of taikonauts, which may include the country's first female taikonaut.

China has sent an average of eight satellites into space annually during the first two years of its 11th five-year-plan (2006-2010), and the number was 1.5 before its ninth five-year-plan (1996-2000), figures from the China Academy of Space Technology showed.

Iran to send manned spacecraft flight by 2021

Iran has kick off a 12-year project to send an astronaut into space, just days after putting its first home-built satellite into orbit, Press TV reported on Thursday.

Reza Taqipour, the head of the Iranian Aerospace Organization said: "The programme's preliminary needs, assessments and feasibility studies have been carried out".

The organization had drawn up a comprehensive plan for the project and various academic and research institutions must play to carry out a successful space mission by 2021, he said.

"China and India managed to send an astronaut to space in a 15 year program. We see ourselves taking the same path, but we hope to reach that goal in a shorter period.

On February 03, Iran's Omid (Hope) lightweight telecommunications satellite was sent into space by the Iranian-produced satellite carrier Safir-II.

Equipped with two frequency bands and eight antennae, Omid would transmit information to and from earth while orbiting the planet 15 times a day.

After orbiting for one to three months, Omid would return to earth with data that would help Iranian experts send an operational satellite into space.

In February 2007, Iran joined the international space-faring community when it successfully tested a rocket that went into space as part of its planned drive to launch five satellites into orbit by 2010.

Iran has been pursuing a space program for the past few years. In October 2005, Iran's first satellite (the Russian-made Sina-I) was put into orbit by a Russian rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

India to develop spacecraft which can carry 3 astronauts

India plans to develop a spacecraft that can carry up to three astronauts in the seven-day manned mission to space. "Concept is getting evolved" Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman G Madhavan Nair said on 11th February while addressing an international seminar here

ISRO is looking at developing a capsule (spacecraft) with service module which can lodge three astronauts and take it to lower earth orbit using the indigenous GSLV (Geo-Synchronous Launch Vehicle) in the year 2015. The Mission duration is seven days.

There would also be emergency mission abort and crew rescue provisions in case of necessity. Crew module would be designed for re-entry and service module for mission management.

He said the GSLV-Mk III, which can launch four tonne class satellites, would bring down the launch cost by half. The maiden flight of GSLV-Mk III is slated for next year.

About Chandrayaan-1 moon mission, Nair said instruments on board have thrown up voluminous data which would take a few years for scientists to analyze and come out with exact results. Entire mapping of the lunar surface is expected to be carried out in a year's time. There is no trace of water on moon so far.