Isro tests lunar crew module on its heaviest rocket GSLV-Mark III

GSLV Mk-III integrated with CARE being transported to Second Launch Pad 

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) today successfully launched its heaviest rocket GSLV-Mk III on Thursday at 9:30 am from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, marking a significant day for India's space programme. The 630-tonne 42.4 metre tall three-stage rocket blasted off with an experimental crew module that separated from the launch vehicle after reaching a sub-orbital height of around 120km and then splashed into the Andaman Sea. Naval ships waiting for the splashdown later picked up the crew module. Isro would study the flight validation of the complex atmospheric flight regime of the crew module, called LVM 3. The experiment will validate the module's ability to re-enter the earth's atmosphere with thermal resistance, parachute deployment in cluster formation, aero braking system and apex cover separation procedures. The crew module separated from the rocket as planned and made a 'soft-crash' into the Bay of Bengal some few hundred kilometres from Indira Point in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands with the help of parachutes, which was picked up by Indian Coast Guard ships. GSLV-Mk III is conceived and designed to make India fully self reliant in launching heavier communication satellites of INSAT-4 class, which weigh 4,500 to 5,000 kg. It would also enhance the capability of the country to be a competitive player in the multimillion dollar commercial launch market. While the rocket cost Isro Rs140 crore, the crew module has taken another Rs15 crore. The crew module, shaped like a giant-size cup cake - black in colour on top and brown at the bottom - weighs around four tonnes. It is about the
size of a small bedroom and can accommodate two - three people.  Isro had earlier carried out a similar experiment on a smaller scale in which the module had orbited around the earth for 15 days before entering back and the current experimental flight of the LMV 3 is a further validation of Isro's human space mission capabilities. Isro chief Dr K Radhjakrishnan confirmed the successful launch of GSLV-Mk III, terming it a very significant day for India. The Isro chief congratulated his team on the highly successful launch. ''Isro has successfully carried out human crew module experiment. The module has safely splashed down into Bay of Bengal off Andaman and Nicobar Islands,'' said Radhakrishnan. "GSLV-Mark III test flight mission successful. It is a significant day in India's space history," Radhakrishnan said after the launch. Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Isro for the successful launch of GSLV Mk-III. "Successful launch of GSLV-Mk III is yet another triumph of brilliance and hardwork of our scientists," the Prime Minister tweeted. GSLV-Mk III was launched using a dummy engine as Isro is still in the process of developing the cryogenic engine capable of carrying heavier payloads up to four tonnes, which is expected to be ready within two years, Radhakrishnan said. He said the cryogenic engine was being developed at the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre at Mahendragiri in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu. The GSLV-Mk III was on Thursday launched with active S200 and L110 propulsive stages and a passive cryogenic stage (C25) with dummy engine. Isro, meanwhile, is gearing up for the launch of another Indian Regional Navigational Satellites System (IRNSS), the fourth in the series of seven satellites of the IRNSS, in the first week of March next year. With the completion of the system, India would join a select group of countries having their own navigation systems. This comes less than three months after Isro successfully launched Mangalyaan – a spacecraft orbiting Mars – catapulting India to the elite club of nations that have successfully sent missions to the red planet (See: MOM Mangalyaan sends pics of Martian dust storm). Source: Article

Read More........→January 04, 2015

India eyeing global satellite market with successful GSLV-D5 launch

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Rocketry is often a leap of faith. The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) knows this only too well as it begins the countdown on Saturday for the scheduled launch of the Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV)-D5 on Sunday from Sriharikota. Barring bad weather or any last-minute technical glitch, the rocket should put into orbit the GSAT 14 communication satellite. But more importantly, Isro is desperate to break a jinx that doomed the heavy-lift GSLV’s last three launch attempts. In fact, since its first experimental flight in 2001, there have been four failures in seven launches of the GSLV. The last attempt, in August 2013, was dramatically scrubbed a couple of hours before liftoff, when launch officials detected a leak in the hydrazine fuel system on the rocket’s second stage. So a successful return-to-flight of the GSLV

programme this  weekend would loft into orbit much more than a communication satellite: the rocket would carry aloft the spirit of India’s space scientists. Standing 161 feet tall and weighing 640 tonne at liftoff, the GSLV-D5 belongs to the GSLV-Mk III series and is the heaviest rocket built in India. After the last launch attempt failed, Isro engineers worked tirelessly to redesign the launcher’s liquid hydrogen-fuelled second stage. They seem to be leaving nothing to chance this time round, swarming all over the launcher with technical tooth combs to ensure an uninterrupted countdown and liftoff. "The solid first stage and core base shroud have also been inspected and the affected elements replaced. The vehicle’s four strap-on engines, too, have been replaced," says S Somnath, GSLV-Mk III’s project director. The most important objectiveof the GSLV-D5  mission, however, is to flight-test the rocket’s all-important third stage: the indigenously-built cryogenic upper stage (CUS). The CUS, expected to be the mainstay of future GSLV flights, replaces the Russian cryogenic engine which was used in the rocket’s earlier experimental flights. There will be a lot of crossed fingers at Sriharikota during the launch, considering the new engine had a disastrous maiden flight in April 2010, shutting down less than a second after ignition, with the rocket plunging into the sea. The GSLV’s significance lies in the fact that the future of the global satellite market lies in the field of communications. The GSAT 14 satellite piggybacking the GSLV-D5 carries six Ku-band and six extended C-band transponders to help in digital audio broadcasting and other communications across the entiresubcontinent. Designed to last for a dozen years in its orbit, the satellite will replace the GSAT-3 (EDUSAT) which has been in orbit for 10 years. The big boosters in the GSLV series can hoist heavy communication satellites into geosynchronous orbits 36,000 km above the equator. In this position, the satellite keeps pace with Earth’s rotation and, as a result, appears stationary from the ground. This makes it easier to build simpler antennas on the ground, which do not have to track moving satellites in the sky. But powerful GSLV Mark IIIs (like the GSLV-D5) that can carry five-tonne satellites need cryogenic engines. These engines use fuels like oxygen and hydrogen inliquid form — stored at extremely low temperatures — to produce enormous amounts of thrust per unit mass (engineering parlance for the mass of fuel the engine requires to provide maximum thrust for a specific period such as, say, pounds of fuel per hour per pound of thrust). Rockets powered by cryogenic motors, therefore, need to carry much less fuel than would otherwise be required. Cryogenic fuels are also extremely clean as they give out only water while burning. A successful GSLV-D5 flight will make India only the sixth nation to possess this cutting edge technology, joining the United States, Russia, France, Japan and China in an elite club. India’s cryogenicmotor development encountered some rough weather in 1993 when exaggerated US jitters — that India might utilise its space capabilities for military purposes — led to Moscow chickening out of a cryo-engine technology transfer deal with New Delhi. Of course, the real reason for guarding cryogenic engine technology so zealously probably had more to do with economics than national security. India’s arrival in the global heavy-lift launch market as a low cost launch source would have threatened the business interests of Europe, Russia, and the US. In hindsight, though, it seems to have been a disguised blessing for Indian scientists who were forced to developthe technology on their own. The GSLV will reduce India’s dependence on foreign launchers like the ESA’s Ariane to launch INSAT-class satellites. Isro sources speak of plans to fly two more GSLVs at six-month-intervals before using the third one for the Chandrayaan-2 Moon mission. The GSLV-Mark III is also earmarked for launching human space flights in future and building orbiting space stations. Isro has built up an impressive portfolio of comparatively cheap space products and services that are attractive to foreign space agencies that want to outsource space missions. Together with the old workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), the GSLV can bolsterIndia’s launch capability, which already boasts 30 to 35% cheaper launches than other countries. That said, however, the space agency cannot afford to ignore the fact that other players jostling in the international space market are constantly pushing the bar still higher. For the moment, though, all eyes will be on the GSLV-D5 mission, which will determine how soon Isro can claim its rightful share of the $300 billion global space market. GSLV D5 successfully places GSAT-14 on orbit: Sriharikota: The Indian Space Research Organisation or ISRO achieved another milestone today as it successfully launched the Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle or GSLV-D5 from the space port at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The advanced GSAT-14 communications satellite that GSLV-D5 is carrying has also been separated from the

rocket. If  launched into orbit successfully, the Rs. 350-crore mission will mark India's entry into the multi-billion dollar commercial launcher market on a fully indigenous large rocket. An India-made cryogenic engine powers the GSLV-D5, which stands almost 50 meters tall (as high as a 17-storey building) and weighs a whopping 415 tons (as much 80 full grown elephants). "I am happy to saythat Team ISRO has done it," ISRO chief Dr K Radhakrishnan said after what was called a make-or-break launch owing to two failures earlier. The GSLV program had suffered twin back-to-back failures three years ago and its last launch in August was aborted minutes before lift-off. On August 19, 2013, a major mishap was averted and the launch of the GSLV was aborted 74 minutes before lift-off after ISRO scientists found that about 750 kilograms of highly inflammable and explosive fuel had leaked out in the second stage. Source: Article1, Images: http://antariksh-space.blogspot.in

Read More........→December 04, 2013

Study Finds Climate Link To 'Atmospheric River' Storms

Image Credit: Anthony Wimmers and Chris Velden, University of Wisconsin-CI

A new NASA-led study of "atmospheric river" storms from the Pacific Ocean may help scientists better predict major winter snowfalls that hit West Coast mountains and lead to heavy spring runoff and sometimes flooding. Animation of the atmospheric-river event. This animation shows an atmospheric river event over Dec. 18-20, 2010. High-altitude winds pull large amounts of water vapor (yellow and orange) from the tropical ocean near Hawaii and carry it straight to California. Atmospheric rivers -- short-lived wind tunnels that carry water vapor from tropical oceans to mid-latitude land areas -- are prolific producers of rain and snow on California's Sierra Nevada mountains. The finding, published in the journal Water Resources Research, has major implications for water management in the West, where Sierra runoff is used for drinking water, agriculture and hydropower. The research team studied how two of the most common atmospheric circulation patterns in the Northern Hemisphere interact with atmospheric rivers. They found when those patterns line up in a certain way, they create a virtual freeway that leads the moisture-laden winds straight to the Sierras. Bin Guan of the Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering, a collaboration between NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., and the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), led a team of scientists from NASA, UCLA , and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on this research. The high- and low-pressure anomaly areas on the map, shown in red/orange (high) and blue (low), are typical of the combined negative phases of the Arctic Oscillation and the Pacific/North American teleconnection. The low-pressure system northwest of California directs atmospheric rivers toward the Sierra Nevada, and the high-pressure systems at higher latitudes prevent the low from drifting northward away from California. 

Image credit: Bin Guan, NASA/JPL-Caltech and UCLA.

An atmospheric river is a narrow stream of wind, about a mile high and sometimes of hurricane strength. Crossing the warm tropical Pacific in a few days, it becomes laden with water vapor. A moderate-sized atmospheric river carries as much water as the Mississippi River dumps into the Gulf of Mexico in an average week. When the river comes ashore and stalls over higher terrain, the water falls as snow or rain. "Atmospheric rivers are the bridge between climate and West Coast snow," said Guan. "If scientists can predict these atmospheric patterns with reasonable lead times, we'll have a better understanding of water availability and flooding in the region." The benefit of improving flood prediction alone would be significant. A single California atmospheric-river storm in 1999 caused 15 deaths and $570 million in damage. Guan's team used data from the JPL-developed Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite, along with NOAA satellite data and snowpack data from the California Department of Water Resources. They looked at the extremely snowy winter of 2010-2011, when 20 atmospheric rivers made landfall. The team compared the dates of these events with the phases of the Arctic Oscillation (AO) and the Pacific/North American teleconnection (PNA). These large-scale weather patterns wax and wane, stretching thousands of miles across the atmosphere and shaping the climate of the mid-latitudes, somewhat as the better-known El Niño and La Niña patterns do in the tropical Pacific. Satellite water-vapor measurements from Dec. 18, 2010, show an atmospheric river making landfall in California. Continents appear in black. The belt of very moist air (red) centered on the equator is the reservoir that supplies atmospheric rivers. On this date, the AO and PNA were both in their negative phases. Water vapor data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager and the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder instruments on Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellites. 

Image credit: Bin Guan, NASA/JPL-Caltech and UCLA.

Each pattern affects a different part of the Northern Hemisphere by seesawing between phases of lower-than-average and higher-than-average air pressure over various parts of the globe. For example, the negative phase of the AO is associated with higher pressure in the Arctic and lower pressure in the surrounding lower latitudes. In the positive phase, those highs and lows are reversed. The phases of each pattern change irregularly and at varying intervals. The researchers charted these phases throughout the winter of 2010-2011. During 15 of the winter's 20 atmospheric river occurrences, both patterns were in the negative phase. The team then looked at the period 1998-2011 and found a similar correspondence: more atmospheric rivers occurred when both patterns were negative. According to Guan, in the double-negative periods the high- and low-pressure systems associated with that phase in each pattern mesh to create a lingering atmospheric low-pressure system just northwest of California. That low directs the atmospheric river fire hose straight toward the Sierra Nevadas. Guan points out that the double-negative phase correlation is rare. "I looked at 50 years of atmospheric data. Only five months had those phases of the PNA and AO occurring together for more than 15 days of the month," he said. AIRS was built and is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Aqua is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Contacts and sources: Alan Buis Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Source: Nano Patents And Innovations

Read More........→November 09, 2013

Shapley Supercluster

While scanning the sky for the oldest cosmic light, ESA’s Planck satellite has captured snapshots of some of the largest objects populating the Universe today: galaxy clusters and superclusters. Several hundred galaxies and the huge amounts of gas that permeate them are depicted in this view of the core of the Shapley Supercluster, the largest cosmic structure in the local Universe. The supercluster was discovered in the 1930s by American astronomer Harlow Shapley, as a remarkable concentration of galaxies in the Centaurus constellation. Boasting more than 8000 galaxies and with a total mass more than ten million billion times the mass of the Sun, it is the most massive structure within a distance of about a billion light-years from our Milky Way Galaxy. The hot gas pervading galaxy clusters shines brightly in X-rays, but it is also visible at microwave wavelengths, which Planck sees as a distinctive signature in the Cosmic Microwave Background – the afterglow of the Big Bang. Looking for this signature – called the Sunyaev–Zel’dovich effect – Planck has already spotted more than 1000 galaxy clusters, including several superclusters and pairs of interacting clusters. This composite image of the core of the Shapley Supercluster combines the gas detected with Planck at large scales between the members of the supercluster (shown in blue) with that detected in X-rays within the galaxy clusters of Shapley using the Rosat satellite (pink), as well as a view of its rich population of galaxies as observed at visible wavelengths in the Digitised Sky Survey. The largest pink blobs of X-rays identify the two galaxy clusters Abell 3558 on the right and Abell 3562 on the left, as well as a couple of smaller groups between them. The image measures 3.2 x 1.8 square degrees and shows the central portion of the Shapley Supercluster. It was produced by reconstructing the Sunyaev–Zel’dovich effect from the Planck frequency maps, and was first published in a Planck Collaboration paper in March 2013. Image credit: ESA & Planck Collaboration / Rosat/ Digitised Sky Survey. Source: Article

Read More........→October 25, 2013

NASA-Funded Scientists Detect Water on Moon's Surface that Hints at Water Below

Chandrayaan-1 Moon mission description

NASA-funded lunar research has yielded evidence of water locked in mineral grains on the surface of the 

moon from an unknown source deep beneath the surface. Using data from NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument aboard the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists remotely detected magmatic water, or water that originates from deep within the moon's interior, on the surface of the moon. The findings, published Aug. 25 in Nature Geoscience, represent the first detection of this form of water from lunar orbit. Earlier studies had shown the existence of magmatic water in lunar samples returned during the Apollo program. M3 imaged the lunar impact crater Bullialdus, which lies near the lunar equator. Scientists were interested in studying this area because they could better quantify the amount of water inside the rocks due to the crater's location and the type of rocks it held. The central peak of the crater is made up of a type of rock that forms deep within the lunar crust and mantle when magma is trapped underground. "This rock, which normally resides deep beneath the surface, was excavated from the lunar depths by the impact that formed Bullialdus crater," said Rachel Klima, a planetary geologist at the Johns Hopkins University

NASA patch / NASA / ISRO - Chandrayaan-1 Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) patch's.

Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md. "Compared to its surroundings, we found that the central portion of this crater contains a significant amount of hydroxyl - a molecule consisting of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom -- which is evidence that the rocks in this crater contain water that originated beneath the lunar surface," Klima said. In 2009, M3 provided the first mineralogical map of the lunar surface and discovered water molecules in the polar regions of the moon. This water is thought to be a thin layer formed from solar wind hitting the moon's surface. Bullialdus crater is in a region with an unfavorable environment for solar wind to produce significant amounts of water on the surface. "NASA missions like Lunar Prospector and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite and instruments like M3 have gathered crucial data that fundamentally changed our understanding of whether water exists on the surface of the moon," said S. Pete Worden, center director at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Similarly, we hope that

LADEE Mission poster

upcoming NASA missions such as the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, or LADEE, will change our understanding of the lunar sky." The detection of internal water from orbit means scientists can begin to test some of the findings from sample studies in a broader context, including in regions that are far from where the Apollo sites are clustered on the near side of the moon. For many years, researchers believed that the rocks from the moon were bone-dry and any water detected in the Apollo samples had to be contamination from Earth. "Now that we have detected water that is likely from the interior of the moon, we can start to compare this water with other characteristics of the lunar surface," said Klima. "This internal magmatic water also provides clues about the moon's volcanic processes and internal composition, which helps us address questions about how the moon formed, and how magmatic processes changed as it cooled." APL is a not-for-profit division of Johns Hopkins University. Joshua Cahill and David Lawrence of APL and Justin Hagerty of the U.S. Geological Survey's Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Ariz., co-authored the paper. NASA's Lunar Advanced Science and Engineering Program, the NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI) at Ames and the NASA Planetary Mission Data Analysis Program supported the research. NLSI is a virtual organization jointly funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate and NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate in Washington, to enable collaborative, interdisciplinary research in support of NASA lunar science programs. For more information about NASA programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov. Images, Text, Credit: NASA / JPL / ISRO. Greetings, Orbiter.ch. Source: Orbiter.ch Space News

Read More........→October 16, 2013