Chennai, Oct 15 (IANS) A week before launch, India's maiden lunar mission has progressed one step further, with the Chandrayaan spacecraft that will orbit the moon installed atop the rocket ferrying it. "The spacecraft was fitted to the rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle C11 (PSLV C11) Tuesday night. Today (Wednesday) the heat shield will be fitted to make the rocket ready for moving to the launch pad," M. Annadurai, project director, Chandrayaan told IANS from the launch site Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, around 80 km from here.
The rocket is scheduled to be moved to the launch pad Saturday. Before that, all the systems are being tested over a four-day period.
Once the fully loaded rocket is moved to the launch pad at snail's pace on a mobile platform, the systems will be again tested for four days more.
The 52-hour countdown for the launch will begin at 4 a.m. Monday. The launch to deliver the Chandrayaan spacecraft into orbit is scheduled at 6.20 a.m. next Wednesday, Oct 22.
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
India’s Moon Mission Rides on Basketballer Turned Rocket Scientist
Chennai, Oct 13 (IANS) As a Kerala state player, George Koshy used to shoot the ball into the basket during his college days. Today, as a rocket scientist with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the tall, 58-year-old M.Tech from IIT-Bombay is the project director for Chandrayaan-1, India's maiden unmanned moon mission, and on his broad shoulders rests the ventures success.As things stand, on Oct 22, a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV C11) rocket carrying the lunar orbiter and six other satellites will blast off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.
Like a basketball player without any fixed positions, Koshy joining ISRO in 1972 and was rotated in different departments - fabrication, tool design, the Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV) project - ISRO's first rocket - and development of the PSLV separation systems.
For Koshy, Chandrayaan will be his third major space mission.
He was mission director when ISRO launched an Israeli satellite in a stripped down version of PSLV in January and played a similar role when the space agency sent up a cluster of 10 satellites in April.
While the PSLV rocket for the previous missions and the current one are the same, Koshy terms each launch as unique, with its own set of challenges and calculations.
Speaking about the moon rocket, Koshy told IANS: "The vehicle structure was altered to accommodate bigger strap-on motors."
Traditionally the PSLV's six strap-on motors are 10 metres in length and carry nine tonnes of solid propellant each. For the moon mission, they have been extended to 13.5 metres and will each carry 12 tonnes of fuel.
"All the six motors have been ground tested," Koshy said.
As a matter of abundant caution, the PSLV rocket has been padded up with additional thermal insulation.
Koshy said the fabrication of the 316-tonne rocket started two years ago and its integration with the lunar orbiter took another two months.
The rocket will sling into geosynchronous transfer orbit (GSO) the cuboid-shaped spacecraft.
With a lifespan of two years, the spacecraft will start orbiting the moon from Nov 8. It will also release a moon impact probe that will land on the lunar surface on Nov 14 - celebrated in India as Children's Day to mark the birthday of the country's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
The other notable feature of the moon rocket is that it will be the last one to be guided by ISRO's old avionics systems.
"We have developed our own processor that would start guiding our rockets from next year," Koshy said.
According to him, ISRO is working on plans to increase the thrust of the rocket's upper stage and carry more fuel in the second stage.
Koshy said ISRO is getting enquiries for the launch of 500-600 kg satellites. A new vehicle with ideal capacity would lower launch costs, he added.
As ISRO sends around four rockets up every year, one year's production was always in the pipeline, he pointed out.
Hailing from a big family of seven sisters and one brother, Koshy, the son of a Maths professor, is the only rocket scientist in his family. Even his daughter and son have stayed away from this tricky craft while his wife Rani Mary George is a principal scientist at the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute at Thiruvananthapuram.
Slated to retire in 2010, the rocket scientist has no career regrets.
"If I have to start my career all over again, I will choose ISRO as my employer," he asserted.
Meanwhile, the basketball fraternity can be proud that one amongst them is getting India on to the moon!
Like a basketball player without any fixed positions, Koshy joining ISRO in 1972 and was rotated in different departments - fabrication, tool design, the Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV) project - ISRO's first rocket - and development of the PSLV separation systems.
For Koshy, Chandrayaan will be his third major space mission.
He was mission director when ISRO launched an Israeli satellite in a stripped down version of PSLV in January and played a similar role when the space agency sent up a cluster of 10 satellites in April.
While the PSLV rocket for the previous missions and the current one are the same, Koshy terms each launch as unique, with its own set of challenges and calculations.
Speaking about the moon rocket, Koshy told IANS: "The vehicle structure was altered to accommodate bigger strap-on motors."
Traditionally the PSLV's six strap-on motors are 10 metres in length and carry nine tonnes of solid propellant each. For the moon mission, they have been extended to 13.5 metres and will each carry 12 tonnes of fuel.
"All the six motors have been ground tested," Koshy said.
As a matter of abundant caution, the PSLV rocket has been padded up with additional thermal insulation.
Koshy said the fabrication of the 316-tonne rocket started two years ago and its integration with the lunar orbiter took another two months.
The rocket will sling into geosynchronous transfer orbit (GSO) the cuboid-shaped spacecraft.
With a lifespan of two years, the spacecraft will start orbiting the moon from Nov 8. It will also release a moon impact probe that will land on the lunar surface on Nov 14 - celebrated in India as Children's Day to mark the birthday of the country's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
The other notable feature of the moon rocket is that it will be the last one to be guided by ISRO's old avionics systems.
"We have developed our own processor that would start guiding our rockets from next year," Koshy said.
According to him, ISRO is working on plans to increase the thrust of the rocket's upper stage and carry more fuel in the second stage.
Koshy said ISRO is getting enquiries for the launch of 500-600 kg satellites. A new vehicle with ideal capacity would lower launch costs, he added.
As ISRO sends around four rockets up every year, one year's production was always in the pipeline, he pointed out.
Hailing from a big family of seven sisters and one brother, Koshy, the son of a Maths professor, is the only rocket scientist in his family. Even his daughter and son have stayed away from this tricky craft while his wife Rani Mary George is a principal scientist at the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute at Thiruvananthapuram.
Slated to retire in 2010, the rocket scientist has no career regrets.
"If I have to start my career all over again, I will choose ISRO as my employer," he asserted.
Meanwhile, the basketball fraternity can be proud that one amongst them is getting India on to the moon!
Monday, 20 October 2008
Orionid Meteor Watch
Space Weather News for Oct. 20, 2008
http://spaceweather.com
ORIONID METEOR WATCH: If you wake up before sunrise on Tuesday, Oct. 21st, set aside 15 minutes or so to watch the sky around Orion. You might see some meteors. The annual Orionid meteor shower, caused by dusty debris from Halley's Comet, is peaking today and tomorrow. Little was expected of this year's display because a bright Moon is hanging in the pre-dawn sky, causing an interfering glare. Surprisingly, however, sky watchers on Oct. 20th witnessed 15 or more Orionids per hour, many of them brighter than first magnitude stars. If this stronger-than-expected display spills into Tuesday, you might be glad to wake up early. Check http://spaceweather.com for updates and a sky map.
http://spaceweather.com
ORIONID METEOR WATCH: If you wake up before sunrise on Tuesday, Oct. 21st, set aside 15 minutes or so to watch the sky around Orion. You might see some meteors. The annual Orionid meteor shower, caused by dusty debris from Halley's Comet, is peaking today and tomorrow. Little was expected of this year's display because a bright Moon is hanging in the pre-dawn sky, causing an interfering glare. Surprisingly, however, sky watchers on Oct. 20th witnessed 15 or more Orionids per hour, many of them brighter than first magnitude stars. If this stronger-than-expected display spills into Tuesday, you might be glad to wake up early. Check http://spaceweather.com for updates and a sky map.
NASA Launches IBEX Mission to Outer Solar System
GREENBELT, Md. -- NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer mission, or IBEX, successfully launched from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean at 1:47 p.m. EDT, Sunday. IBEX will be the first spacecraft to image and map dynamic interactions taking place in the outer solar system.
The spacecraft separated from the third stage of its Pegasus launch vehicle at 1:53 p.m. and immediately began powering up components necessary to control onboard systems. The operations team is continuing to check out spacecraft subsystems.
"After a 45-day orbit raising and spacecraft checkout period, the spacecraft will start its exciting science mission," said IBEX mission manager Greg Frazier of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Just as an impressionist artist makes an image from countless tiny strokes of paint, IBEX will build an image of the outer boundary of the solar system from impacts on the spacecraft by high-speed particles called energetic neutral atoms. These particles are created in the boundary region when the 1-million mph solar wind blows out in all directions from the sun and plows into the gas of interstellar space. This region is important to study because it shields many of the dangerous cosmic rays that would flood the space around Earth.
"No one has seen an image of the interaction at the edge of our solar system where the solar wind collides with interstellar space," said IBEX Principal Investigator David McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "We know we're going to be surprised. It's a little like getting the first weather satellite images. Prior to that, you had to infer the global weather patterns from a limited number of local weather stations. But with the weather satellite images, you could see the hurricanes forming and the fronts developing and moving across the country."
IBEX is the latest in NASA's series of low-cost, rapidly developed Small Explorers spacecraft. The Southwest Research Institute developed the IBEX mission with a team of national and international partners. Goddard manages the Explorers Program for the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more information about the IBEX mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/ibex
The spacecraft separated from the third stage of its Pegasus launch vehicle at 1:53 p.m. and immediately began powering up components necessary to control onboard systems. The operations team is continuing to check out spacecraft subsystems.
"After a 45-day orbit raising and spacecraft checkout period, the spacecraft will start its exciting science mission," said IBEX mission manager Greg Frazier of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Just as an impressionist artist makes an image from countless tiny strokes of paint, IBEX will build an image of the outer boundary of the solar system from impacts on the spacecraft by high-speed particles called energetic neutral atoms. These particles are created in the boundary region when the 1-million mph solar wind blows out in all directions from the sun and plows into the gas of interstellar space. This region is important to study because it shields many of the dangerous cosmic rays that would flood the space around Earth.
"No one has seen an image of the interaction at the edge of our solar system where the solar wind collides with interstellar space," said IBEX Principal Investigator David McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "We know we're going to be surprised. It's a little like getting the first weather satellite images. Prior to that, you had to infer the global weather patterns from a limited number of local weather stations. But with the weather satellite images, you could see the hurricanes forming and the fronts developing and moving across the country."
IBEX is the latest in NASA's series of low-cost, rapidly developed Small Explorers spacecraft. The Southwest Research Institute developed the IBEX mission with a team of national and international partners. Goddard manages the Explorers Program for the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more information about the IBEX mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/ibex
- end -
Friday, 10 October 2008
COMET REPORT FOR OCTOBER....
Nothing in the way of bright Comets to report for this Month the brightest Comets being Mc Naught 2008 A1 which is now a Southern Hemisphere Object at magnitude 7.5 and fading-other Comets are 6P/D'arrest at Magnitude 9 which is also fading and is a Southern Sky object, other Comets of Magnitude 10 to 14 are beyond the scopes of us amateur observers.
Comet C/2007 N3 Lulin should become visible in late December at Magnitude 7 and into February of 2009 when it should reach magnitude 4.7 at its best-I will keep you all informed and updated about this one and any other phenomena happening in the sky.
Comet C/2007 N3 Lulin should become visible in late December at Magnitude 7 and into February of 2009 when it should reach magnitude 4.7 at its best-I will keep you all informed and updated about this one and any other phenomena happening in the sky.
Thursday, 9 October 2008
Spaceflight Now | Breaking News | Saturn moon flyby will look at solar system's history
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AND NASA NEWS RELEASES
This graphic shows the trajectories for the Cassini spacecraft flybys planned for Oct. 9 and 31. Credit: NASA/JPL
Posted: October 7, 2008
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- NASA's Cassini spacecraft is scheduled to fly within 16 miles of Saturn's moon Enceladus on Oct. 9 and measure molecules in its space environment that could give insight into the history of the solar system.
"This encounter will potentially have far-reaching implications for understanding how the solar system was formed and how it evolved," said professor Tamas Gombosi, chair of the University of Michigan Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences.
This graphic shows the trajectories for the Cassini spacecraft flybys planned for Oct. 9 and 31. Credit: NASA/JPL
Gombosi is the interdisciplinary scientist for magnetosphere and plasma science on the Cassini mission. His role is to coordinate studies that involve multiple plasma instruments on the spacecraft.
Enceladus is Saturn's sixth-largest moon, orbiting within the planet's outermost ring. It is approximately 313 miles in diameter.
In this flyby, Cassini will be close enough to Enceladus to identify individual molecules in the moon's space environment, including ions and isotopes. An ion is a charged particle, or a version of an element that has lost or gained negatively charged electrons. An isotope is a version of an element that has in its nucleus the typical protons for that element, but a different number of neutrons, thus exhibiting a different atomic weight.
The atoms around Enceladus are expected to hold clues to the past because they come from interior regions that have changed little since the moon was formed. Geysers near the moon's south pole spew water and other molecules from the satellite's interior. Because of Enceladus' weak gravity and low atmospheric pressure, the water and gas molecules waft off to space.
"We know that Enceladus produces a few hundred kilograms per second of gas and dust and that this material is mainly water vapor and water ice," said Gambosi. "The water vapor and the evaporation from the ice grains contribute most of the mass found in Saturn's magnetosphere.
"One of the overarching scientific puzzles we are trying to understand is what happens to the gas and dust released from Enceladus, including how some of the gas is transformed to ionized plasma and is disseminated throughout the magnetosphere."
The encounter will contribute to scientists' understanding of how particles become charged and energized in Saturn's magnetosphere. Also, when Cassini identifies the different isotopes in the space around the moon, it will help scientists discern the temperatures at various stages in Enceladus' formation eons ago.
Cassini discovered the geysers on Enceladus in 2005. Scientists believe that there could be a liquid ocean beneath the moon's surface. They also detected organic molecules at the moon in March. Organic molecules have carbon-hydrogen bonds, and are found in living organisms, and in comets.
"The mission as a whole is expected to bring central pieces of the solar system evolution puzzle into place," Gombosi said. "This encounter is expected to provide some of those puzzle pieces."
This will be Cassini's fifth encounter with Enceladus. A sixth encounter, during which it will approach within 122 miles of the moon, is scheduled for Oct. 31.
On Oct. 31, the cameras and other optical remote sensing instruments will be front and center, imaging the fractures that slash across the moon's south polar region like stripes on a tiger.
These two flybys might augment findings from the most recent Enceladus flyby, which hint at possible changes associated with the icy moon. Cassini's Aug. 11 encounter with Enceladus showed temperatures over one of the tiger-stripe fractures were lower than those measured in earlier flybys. The fracture, called Damascus Sulcus, was about 160 to 167 Kelvin (minus 171 to minus 159 degrees Fahrenheit), below the 180 Kelvin (minus 136 degrees Fahrenheit) reported from a flyby in March of this year.
"We don't know yet if this is due to a real cooling of this tiger stripe, or to the fact that we were looking much closer, at a relatively small area, and might have missed the warmest spot," said John Spencer, Cassini scientist on the composite infrared spectrometer, at the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo.
Results from Cassini's magnetometer instrument during the August flyby suggest a difference in the intensity of the plume compared to earlier encounters. Information from the next two flybys will help scientists understand these observations.
"The October doubleheader gives Cassini two more opportunities to hit the ball out of the park," said Bob Pappalardo, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "With high scores in geology, surface heat, watery plumes and magnetospheric effects, Enceladus could win the 'world championship' title this year!"
Scientists anticipate reporting results from the two flybys in November and early December.
Four more Enceladus flybys are planned in the next two years, bringing the total number to seven during Cassini's extended mission, called the Cassini Equinox Mission. The next Enceladus doubleheader will be November 2 and 21, 2009.
Cassini has been orbiting Saturn since 2004. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL.
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about near-Earth asteroids
ASTEROID IMPACT: (Updated Oct. 8th) On Oct. 7th, asteroid 2008 TC3 hit Earth and exploded in the atmosphere over northern Sudan. An infrasound array in Kenya recorded the impact: map. Dr. Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario has inspected the data and he estimates that the asteroid hit at 0243 UTC with an energy between 1.1 and 2.1 kilotons of TNT. The explosion was imaged by the weather satellite Meteosat 8:
Image credit: Zdenek Charvat, Czech Hydrometeorological Institute.
"The explosion was visible in all 12 of the satellite's spectral channels, covering wavelengths from 0.5 to 14 microns," says Jiri Borovicka of the Czech Academy of Sciences, who is analyzing the data. "The satellite takes pictures every five minutes; the fireball appeared at 0245 UTC and had faded away by 0250 UTC."
So far, no ground pictures of the fireball have been submitted; the impact occurred in a remote area with few and possibly no onlookers capable of recording the event. The only report of a visual sighting comes from Jacob Kuiper, General Aviation meteorologist at the National Weather Service in the Netherlands:
"Half an hour before the predicted impact of asteroid 2008 TC3, I informed an official of Air-France-KLM at Amsterdam airport about the possibility that crews of their airliners in the vicinity of impact would have a chance to see a fireball. And it was a success! I have received confirmation that a KLM airliner, roughly 750 nautical miles southwest of the predicted atmospheric impact position, has observed a short flash just before the expected impact time 0246 UTC. Because of the distance it was not a very large phenomenon, but still a confirmation that some bright meteor has been seen in the predicted direction. Projected on an infrared satellite image from Meteosat 7, I have indicated the position of the plane (+) and the predicted impact area in Sudan (0)."
2008 TC3 was discovered on Oct. 6th by astronomers using the Mt. Lemmon telescope in Arizona as part of the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey for near-Earth objects. Asteroids the size of 2008 TC3 hit Earth 5 to 10 times a year, but this is the first time one has been discovered before it hit.
BONUS: 2008 TC3 was so close to Earth, different observers around the globe saw the asteroid trace different paths among the stars. This effect, called parallax, is beautifully illustrated in a compilation of 566 published observations prepared by Matthias Busch.
Impact of Asteroid 2008 TC3 Confirmed - NASA
Confirmation has been received that the asteroid impact fireball occurred at the predicted time and place. The energy recorded was estimated to be 0.9 to 1.0 kT of TNT and the time of detection was 02:45:45 on October 7 (Greenwich Standard Time). More details on this detection will be forthcoming. An additional confirmation was apparently reported by a KLM airliner (see: http://www.spaceweather.com/). As reported by Peter Brown (University of Western Ontario, Canada), a preliminary examination of infrasound stations nearest to the predicted impact point shows that at least one station recorded the event. These measurements are consistent with the predicted time and place of the atmospheric impact and indicate an estimated energy of 1.1 - 2.1 kT of TNT.
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about near-Earth asteroids
ASTEROID IMPACT--UPDATE: Asteroid 2008 TC3 hit Earth this morning, Oct. 7th, and exploded in the atmosphere over northern Sudan. An infrasound array in Kenya recorded the impact. Dr. Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario has inspected the data and he estimates that the asteroid hit at 0243 UTC with an energy between 1.1 and 2.1 kilotons of TNT. Most of the 3-meter-wide space rock should have been vaporized in the atmosphere with only small pieces reaching the ground as meteorites.
No pictures of the fireball have been submitted; the impact occurred in a remote area with few and possibly no onlookers capable of recording the event. So far, the only report of a visual sighting comes from Jacob Kuiper, General Aviation meteorologist at the National Weather Service in the Netherlands: "Half an hour before the predicted impact of asteroid 2008 TC3, I informed an official of Air-France-KLM at Amsterdam airport about the possibility that crews of their airliners in the vicinity of impact would have a chance to see a fireball. And it was a success! I have received confirmation that a KLM airliner, roughly 750 nautical miles southwest of the predicted atmospheric impact position, has observed a short flash just before the expected impact time 0246 UTC. Because of the distance it was not a very large phenomenon, but still a confirmation that some bright meteor has been seen in the predicted direction. Projected on an infrared satellite-image of Meteosat-7 of 0300 UTC, I have indicated the position of the plane (+) and the predicted impact area in Sudan.
2008 TC3 was discovered on Oct. 6th by astronomers using the Mt. Lemmon telescope in Arizona as part of the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey for near-Earth objects. Asteroids the size of 2008 TC3 hit Earth 5 to 10 times a year, but this is the first time one has been discovered before it hit.
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
THE "LOST" SEASON....
Well Autumn is really upon us and many of the leaves are now falling off the trees-I really do think we need all our Seasons to keep the Earth in balance and stable but I fear one of these seasons is now lost.
Its Winter the season when it should snow and Jack frost should creep around during the early hours so when we awake we know he's been.
Winter should be renamed and called the "Lost Season" as Winter and its snows and frosts are truly now a thing of the past and seem gone forever.
I wonder if we should re-name The Winter Solstice "The Lost Solstice" or "The Lost Season Solstice"?
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