28 Nov 2013

Mars Orbiter Mission: Those five minutes are crucial


Mars orbiter spacecraft must be set off between 2.38 p.m. and 2.43 p.m. today

The Mars orbiter spacecraft has just five minutes for getting launched on Tuesday — or it slips into the next day.
It must be set off between 2.38 p.m. and 2.43 p.m.
And the mission has an overall deadline, until November 19, this year. The next best time is not for another 26 months.
“We are on the threshold of a complex mission. If there is a hold during automatic launch sequence there then we will not have it on that day. We can have a maximum of only five minutes. Each day, the launch time advances by 6-9 minutes. We hope that it will make it [on Tuesday],” K. Radhakrishnan, chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told The Hindu recently.
ISRO scientists, having missed the earlier date of October because a tracking ship reached its watch post near Fiji late, have their calendar laid out for each of the remaining days.
“There is just one opportunity in a day. For each lift-off time, we need to have a new steering programme ready, a new trajectory design, and all this has been done,” he said.
“In earlier missions we worried about only one trajectory and made only a minor change in the steering programme. This total trajectory design is for each lift-off time, which is one big challenge for the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).”
The flight on the four-stage PSLV-C25 lasts 43 minutes, more than double the time taken for its routine launches which need about 20 minutes, with a long coasting for the last stage.
Mr. Radhakrishnan said now they were concentrating on the launch on Tuesday and then on December 1, when the spacecraft should be put in the trajectory to Mars. Post-lunch, it will be a series of post-midnight exercises for scientists tracking the spacecraft from ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC). On Thursday morning, ISTRAC in Bangalore will start increasing its elliptical orbit in phases by firing its motors six times.
Dr. Radhakrishnan said the first orbit raising exercise was crucial and would happen on Thursday at 1.15 a.m.
The remaining orbit expansions would all be done around 2 a.m. on November 8, 9, 11 and 16, until the spacecraft’s apogee (farthest point from Earth in its elliptical orbit) reaches 1.92 lakh km.
The sixth and last Earth-bound manoeuvre is slated for December 1 at 12.42 a.m.
The trickiest time will be in September 2014, when the spacecraft will be near Mars. The scientists have to slow down the spacecraft and bring it into an elliptical orbit going around Mars. 

Courtesy with: THE HINDU

Mangalyaan: a steal at Re.4 per person


Mangalyan cost each of us 115 crore Indians about Rupees Four. File Photo
The Hindu Mangalyan cost each of us 115 crore Indians about Rupees Four. File Photo
Nine days ago India’s space mission termed Mangalyaan, the voyage towards the planet Mars, was launched. It was what one calls a “textbook” launch with zero error, and one that has made India say “Yes, we can”. And in 300 days, it will have covered 680 million kilometres to orbit the Red Planet on September 24, 2014. Once that happens, it will start analysing the surface of the planet for any methane, a gas which is believed to hint at the presence of any Martian biology or life forms.
It is a proud moment in the history of India, a nation that started its space programme just about 50 years ago, or to put it in another way, with the “Chutzpah” of a teenage nation. With the Mangalyaan experiment, some say that India has “arrived” as a member of technically advanced nations.
Yet some voices have been raised in the country about whether this is worth it, whether it is a meaningless bombast, and whether this money of Rs 460 crores spent on Mangalyan could not have been used to feed the starving millions across the country. India is a land of stark contrasts. Half the people here live on less than two dollars a day, of which many are estimated to live on even less than Rupees 30 a day.
To this, the criticism, the Space Commission Chairman Dr K Radhakrishnan responded saying that every rupee spent here benefits people all across India. To put it in perspective, he said that Mangalyan cost each of us 115 crore Indians about Rupees Four.
What has the “aam admi” got out of these four rupees; or even forty or four hundred, counting over the year? Plenty! Recall how Indian satellites hovering around us give us real time information on weather, information to fishermen and coastal farmers on the tides and fish flock, on the state of ships and other vessels near and far from the coast, carry radio and TV waves, and most of all help in saving lives of millions.
Thanks to help from our space programme, the loss of lives in the recent cyclone Phanini was limited to 44 and almost a million people were saved by prior evacuation. Earlier cyclones, when we did not have this facility of early warning killed tens of thousands. Yes, but why to Mars? Herein is where the idea of development becomes important. India is still thought of as a “developing nation”, once ridiculed as a “ship to mouth” economy.
How does development occur? When and how does a country become “developed”?
Development has multiple components: proper food, clothing and shelter for the people; adequate education and culture; good health; good environment; equal opportunity for all; ability to defend from enemies; economic stability and growth; and above all, good governance, all leading to a feeling of justifiable national pride. If you look at any one of these above components, technology plays a vital role in it. Technology comes out of logical, scientific and rational thought and its application. The greatest thing about technology is that it is scalable to millions, it becomes cheap and affordable once it is spread, demanded and used; it can thus offer convenience and progress for the entire nation. Thanks to technology, we have now moved from “ship to mouth” to a “silo to ship” economy, and we rid ourselves of smallpox and polio, and are vaccinating all children against some common childhood diseases. It is here that Mangalyan is relevant. The 460 crores expenditure has several useful effects. We are using the latest technology, indeed creating new ones, and at a frugal cost. Mars missions by European or American countries would be at least thrice costlier. And the design, building, testing and setting up have all been done by Indian engineers. Only some vital components are imported. It has thus led us to be self-sufficient and advanced our capabilities. The technological prowess to aim for Mars means that we can apply it, and even better it for terrestrial needs at home. It also brings us business (recall that we pack the payloads of other countries in our satellites). It has captured the imagination of youngsters (over 2 lakh “likes” on Facebook by 18-21 year-olds). Mangalyan thus is a tool to attract youth and advance science.
It is therefore not an expense but an investment for the future. Today it is Mars, tomorrow even greater challenges. Should India not be ready? Mars is thus a metaphor.
Should these 460 crores not have been spent on feeding the poor? Look at the larger picture. The budget of India for the year 2013-14 is Rs 16,65,297 crores; this amounts to an individual amount of about Rs 14,500 per person. We have budgeted Rs 27,049 crores for agriculture (Rs 235 per Indian), plus Rs 33,000 crores on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, to help the rural poor, which is another Rs 280 per person.
Money is thus earmarked and distributed to help the rural poor (Mangalyan has not taken away even a rupee out of these allocations). Despite these efforts, there are large holes in the programme, thanks to inefficient governance.
If we can tighten this up, complaint about feeding the poor will be far less or can even vanish. Here too, technology helps through efficiency, cutting out the middlemen and so forth. Compared to these, Rs 460 crores on Mangalyan, or Rs 4 per Indian (about an onion or two) is not just a grand bargain but a steal!
dbala@lvpei.org

Courtesy with: THE HINDU 

Mars mission’s D-day in three days


Indian Space Research Organisation scientists and engineers monitor the movements of the Mars orbiter at Spacecraft Control Centre in Bangalore on Wednesday.
AP Indian Space Research Organisation scientists and engineers monitor the movements of the Mars orbiter at Spacecraft Control Centre in Bangalore on Wednesday.

ISRO readies to thrust spacecraft out of Earth orbit on December 1

The first Indian Mars mission began its last orbit around the Earth on Wednesday morning, even as its controllers prepared for the big night three days away.
On the night of November 30-December 1, the spacecraft will be finally thrust away from the Earth, and all the way towards the Red Planet, after gathering a total escape speed of around 11.4 kms a second.
Indian Space Research Organisation’s Scientific Secretary V. Koteswara Rao told a pre-event briefing at the control centre at the Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) on Wednesday, “We are planning for the Mars spacecraft to depart the Earth in the early hours of December 1.”

‘Second big challenge’

Dozens of controllers at the Mission Operations Complex at ISTRAC were getting set for what the space agency’s chairman, K. Radhakrishnan, earlier termed ‘the second big challenge in the Mars mission’: the day when they must precisely increase the spacecraft’s velocity and slingshot it exactly towards Mars.
Saturday’s trans-Mars insertion (TMI) is set for 12.49 am. The spacecraft has been orbiting the Earth once in almost four days or 91.3 hours, since November 16.
About the TMI, Mr. Rao said, “On that day we must burn the liquid engine for roughly 23 minutes, which will impart to it an incremental velocity of 648 metres per second. Then begins a journey of 680 million km over 300 days.”
Once it nears Mars, we will have another major operation in September 2014 to make it orbit the planet, he said.
In six orbit-raising operations from November 7 to November 16, the spacecraft has gradually been given its present velocity of 873 metres a second and it reached an apogee (farthest point) of 1.92 lakh km.
Once it moves beyond 2 lakh km, ISTRAC’s Indian Deep Space Network at Byalalu would come into the picture with its two large antennas which can track huge interplanetary missions.
The spacecraft carrying five instruments to study Mars was launched on November 5 from Sriharikota. 

Courtesy with: THE HINDU 

24 Nov 2013

Sky-gazers’ date with ISON comet


Amateur astronomer K. Radha Krishna watching comets along with a few enthusiasts in Vijayawada. —Photo: Ch.Vijaya Bhaskar
Amateur astronomer K. Radha Krishna watching comets along with a few enthusiasts in Vijayawada. —Photo: Ch.Vijaya Bhaskar 
 
                Here is a chance for you all to see a bright comet on the eastern horizon of the city one hour before sunrise. It is International Scientific Optical Network (ISON), the name given to the comet that is very active for the several days and people all over the world had been tracking it with their telescopes. An amateur astronomer, K. Radha Krishna, who developed the hobby in 1980, watches several interesting things in the sky with the help of a telescope from his terrace near Hanuman Temple on Eluru Road in Vijayawada.
              The latest to watch have been the ‘Beautiful’ comets ISON along with Lovejoy. “While Lovejoy can be seen with a telescope or good binoculars from midnight overhead in Vijayawada, it is visible in the eastern sky from around 4.30 a.m.,” Mr. Radha Krishna told The Hindu .
On November 28 the Sun-grazing Comet ISON will fly by the Sun at a distance of only 1.8 million km. On November 7, ISON’s light intensity increased abruptly; several observers announced a sudden rise in the comet’s activity, he explained. “The comet may not be able to return after flying past Sun or if it returns, it will be again visible to naked eye for some more days from December 1,” he says. Images of ISON taken by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany and the Wendelstein Observatory now offer possible evidence for the cause of this outburst. On November 14 and 16, the researchers aimed their telescope towards the approaching visitor.
This comet once going out of the Solar System, will not return at all. Comet Lovejoy can be seen in Great Bear Constellation and has been formally designated C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy), and it is a long-period comet and Kreutz Sungrazer (going menacingly close to Sun).

Courtesy with:  THE HINDU 

22 Nov 2013

Sky gazers’ date with ISON comet


Amateur astronomer K. Radha Krishna watching comets along with a few enthusiasts in Vijayawada. —Photo: Ch.Vijaya Bhaskar 
Amateur astronomer K. Radha Krishna watching comets along with a few enthusiasts in Vijayawada. —Photo: Ch.Vijaya Bhaskar 
 
              Here is a chance for you all to see a bright comet on the eastern horizon of the city one hour before sunrise. It is International Scientific Optical Network (ISON), the name given to the comet that is very active for the several days and people all over the world had been tracking it with their telescopes. An amateur astronomer, K. Radha Krishna, who developed the hobby in 1980, watches several interesting things in the sky with the help of a telescope from his terrace near Hanuman Temple on Eluru Road in Vijayawada.
The latest to watch have been the ‘Beautiful’ comets ISON along with Lovejoy. “While Lovejoy can be seen with a telescope or good binoculars from midnight overhead in Vijayawada, it is visible in the eastern sky from around 4.30 a.m.,” Mr. Radha Krishna told The Hindu .

            On November 28 the Sun-grazing Comet ISON will fly by the Sun at a distance of only 1.8 million km. On November 7, ISON’s light intensity increased abruptly; several observers announced a sudden rise in the comet’s activity, he explained. “The comet may not be able to return after flying past Sun or if it returns, it will be again visible to naked eye for some more days from December 1,” he says. Images of ISON taken by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany and the Wendelstein Observatory now offer possible evidence for the cause of this outburst. On November 14 and 16, the researchers aimed their telescope towards the approaching visitor.
This comet once going out of the Solar System, will not return at all.
Comet Lovejoy can be seen in Great Bear Constellation and has been formally designated C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy), and it is a long-period comet and Kreutz Sungrazer (going menacingly close to Sun).


Courtesy with: THE HINDU