Regional Navigation

ISRO will launch the third of seven series of satellites to put in place India's own navigation system on par with US' Global Positioning System (GPS) from the spaceport of Sriharikota on October 10. The launch has been scheduled at 1.56 AM on October 10, ISRO said today.

The IRNSS 1C satellite would be launched on the 28th flight of India's PSLV-C26 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, some 100 km from here. 

As part of its aspirations to build a regional navigational system equivalent to Global Positioning System of the US, ISRO plans to send seven satellites to put in place the Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS). The first two satellites in the series, IRNSS 1A and IRNSS 1B were launched from Sriharikota on July 1 2013 and April 4 this year respectively.

ISRO needs to launch at least four of the seven satellites to start operations of the IRNSS, ISRO officials said.

The official twitter handle of ISRO tweeted, 

source:dna

Space-Rangers Assemble

 NASA and ISRO are to be working in a collaboration as NASA tweeted" We're collaborating with @ISRO on a future Earth-observing mission & Mars exploration".This one partenership will take the advancement of science to a whole new level.

In a meeting Tuesday in Toronto, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and K. Radhakrishnan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), signed two documents to launch a NASA-ISRO satellite mission to observe Earth and establish a pathway for future joint missions to explore Mars.

While attending the International Astronautical Congress, the two space agency leaders met to discuss and sign a charter that establishes a NASA-ISRO Mars Working Group to investigate enhanced cooperation between the two countries in Mars exploration. They also signed an international agreement that defines how the two agencies will work together on the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission, targeted to launch in 2020.

“The signing of these two documents reflects the strong commitment NASA and ISRO have to advancing science and improving life on Earth,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “This partnership will yield tangible benefits to both our countries and the world.”

Lets wish the collaboration a very good luck.

Source:NASA

First Look

                     First Light

ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission captures its first image of Mars.
Taken from a height of 7300 km; with 376 m spatial resolution

Mars has got a MOM !

               This morning around 8:01am IST,sept 24th,a creation of history was witnessed.It was the hard work and determination of those ISRO scientist that helped the Mission Orbiter Mars also known as MOM,successfully entered the RED planet's surface.The history creating form-factor isn't the fact that it is one of the few to do so.But what makes it extra-ordinary is that the MOM has successfully entered Martian surface in the very first attempt by the Indians,and to say,its manufacture costed cheaper than an average hollywood movie i.e. 450 crores INR and it took just 18 months to reach there.

 The MOM is said to be revolving around the RED planet and send the accurate details of he Martian surface via huge networks.India had to pay heavy cash to the NASA to get a server,to communicate with MOM.

MOM and MAVEN would help the ISRO and NASA scientists respectively to study the RED planet's nature.So,yes this is a giant leap for mankind.The MOM is said to send a live image of the Martian surface,so stay tuned guys.

Meanwhile the NASA congratulated ISRO by tweeting, "We congratulate @ISRO for its Mars arrival! @MarsOrbiter joins the missions studying the Red Planet. #JourneyToMars."
To thank them in return ISRO tweeted,"Thank you MAVEN team! MT The #MAVEN team congratulates @ISRO for its #Mars arrival! @MarsOrbiter joins the missions studying the Red Planet."

#PROUD_INDIA

                    
         Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution also known as MAVEN,is NASA's spacecraft which entered the Mar's orbit at 10:24 pm EDT,Sunday the 21st,after ten long months of travelling through space.It will now begin to study the RED planet's atmosphere in a way that has been never done before.This spacecraft would be the first to do so.

         “As the first orbiter dedicated to studying Mars’ upper atmosphere, MAVEN will greatly improve our understanding of the history of the Martian atmosphere, how the climate has changed over time, and how that has influenced the evolution of the surface and the potential habitability of the planet,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “It also will better inform a future mission to send humans to the Red Planet in the 2030s".

The insertion about the spacecraft into the orbit was received from MAVEN data observed at the Lockheed Martin operations center in Littleton,Colorado,as well from the tracking dat monitored at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) navigation facility in Pasadena,California.The telemetry and tracking data were received by NASA’s Deep Space Network antenna station in Canberra, Australia.

Source:#NASA

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A giant leap from India is near......

Roopa MV looks at the screen in front of her in the mission control room at the Isro Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network, as it shows a graphical representation of the Mars Orbiter Mission’s (MOM) entry into Mars.

“We have finished uploading the commands to the spacecraft, which are now being verified,” says Roopa, the spacecraft operation manager for MOM — better known as Mangalyaan.

There is visible anxiety among the scientists as the nine-month period after the launch of Mangalyaan comes to an end next Wednesday. “Anxiety will obviously be there.  But if you are well prepared for the exam, your confidence level also increases,” says M Annadurai, programme director, Isro.

Before the Mangalyaan enters Mars on September 24, Isro scientists will have to endure nail-biting prelims on September 22, when the spacecraft enters the sphere of influence of Mars, which will essentially involve ‘waking ‘ up the 440 Newton liquid apogee motor (LAM) that has been in slumber for nearly 300 days.

“The engine will be fired for nearly 4 seconds and almost half a kg of fuel will be needed for this operation,” says Koteshwar Rao, scientific secretary, Isro.

“We are confident that it will work. But just in case it does not, we have a Plan B which involves firing the eight thrusters. This however will entail a longer firing period and will need more fuel,” he adds.

Besides the LAM firing, the fourth and the final trajectory-correction manoeuvre has also been planned for September 22.

Isro launched Mangalyaan on November 5 last year to find evidence of life on the red planet and position itself as a budget player in the global space race. If the mission succeeds, India will receive the first photographs of Mars by the afternoon of September 24

source:#Hindustan_times

Europe launches two navigation satellites into the wrong orbit!

Arianespace, the company that launches satellites for the European Union, has had to concede that its latest mission hasn't been a complete success. Friday's launch conveyed two satellites, Dorea and Milena, into orbit to help build out Galileo, the EU's homegrown alternative to GPS and GLONASS. Everything had gone to plan when the Soyuz rocketreached the upper atmosphere and deployed the satellites, but shortly after, authorities realized that the units were in "noncompliant orbit,which means they're spinning around the planet in the wrong orbit." 

For its part, Arianespace has already launched a full investigation in partnership with the European Space Agency and European Commission in the hope of finding and fixing the problem before the next launch. It's not the first time that Galileo has suffered a setback, running well past its deadlines and sailing far over its initial budget. With the loss of these two satellites, it's not clear if the union can still expect to have the system up and runningby 2017, or if the pair can be rescued. Speaking to AFP, Galileo co-ordinator Jean-Yves Le Gall has said that restoring Doresa and Milena to their working orbit would be "complicated," but then that's probably why they call it rocket science.