First Time Ever Two Civilian Ships To Help India's Mars Spacecraft

BANGALORE: For the first time in the history of India's space flights, two civilian ships will play a supporting role in India's forthcoming flight to Mars designated as the Mars Orbiter Mission.

The launch is slated for lift-off between October 21 and November 19 from Sriharikota.

On Wednesday, the 1,350 kg Mars Orbiter spacecraft with the five payloads was unveiled to the media for the first time at Isro's Satellite Centre. It was in the process of being fine-tuned and the clean room was the scene of hectic activity with scientists clad in their white robes attending to the orbiter.

The orbiter is set to be moved to Sriharikota on September 27. Speaking to TOI on Wednesday, B S Chandrasekhar, director of Isro Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network ( Istrac), said that Shipping Corporation of India's 'Yamuna' and 'Nalanda' ships will be positioned in the South Pacific Ocean. "They are now fully equipped and will depart for the South Pacific Ocean from Visakhapatnam on September 15 and will support the mission during the launch phase,'' he said.

He said that in a previous flight—the space capsule recovery experiment mission — a naval ship was used. "This is the first time we are using a civilian ship for a major interplanetary mission,'' he added.

Chandrasekhar said that the current plans project that the 70-metre antenna of Nasa's deep space network at Canberra in Australia will acquire the first signal of the crucial Mars orbiter insertion in September 2014 after a nearly 300-day flight.

A liquid apogee motor will play a major role in the orbit insertion. "This motor has a major part in orbital manoeuvres and has to restart for the insertion after a 300-day flight,'' an Isro official said.

SK Shivakumar, director of Isro Satellite Centre, said progress in the Indian Mars programme has been satisfactory. "We were able to achieve because we were able to regroup ourselves,'' he said.

Mylswamy Annadurai, programme director, said the mission will mark a quantum jump in technology. It posed a major challenge because globally the success rate of Mars missions was not even 30%, he said. Lessons learnt from the Chandrayaan mission have been embedded into the Mars mission. "The powering system of the spacecraft has been changed,'' he said.

S Arunan, project director, said that the mission had incorporated a number of redundant systems to ensure a successful Mars capture of the spacecraft. "The on-board autonomy called for the development of 68 new software modules,'' he said, adding that they have concentrated on those areas where foreign Mars missions had failed.

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- Unknown Updated at: Thursday, September 12, 2013

Last Day For Registration on Mars One Mission!

The final day has come for Indians and people around the world to apply for a one-way trip to Mars and never return to Earth for the rest of their lives.

The Mars One Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation that will establish a permanent human settlement on Mars in 2023. Till now, more than 1,65,000 people across the world and over 8,000 Indians have applied to become the lucky few to live on the planet for the rest of their lives.

Vinod Kotiya of Bhopal is one of the 'wannabe astrounauts' to have applied for Mars One mission.

The 31-year-old says, "It is my childhood dream of becoming an astronaut. I even cleared the Pilot Aptitude Battery Test for Indian Air Force but could not make it. Mars One is a surprise opportunity for me to have another go at my dream."

However, Kotiya had not informed his wife about his plan to visit Mars on a one way trip and never return. He says, "While uploading my profile on the site, I did not tell anyone, not even my wife. Initially, she thought it was a joke but later when things got serious, she threatened to lay in front of the space craft at the time of launching."

Kotiya feels that it is destiny to go to Mars and would like the opportunity to conduct experiments and study the red planet for the sake of science and humanity but won't abandon his family and would like to return someday.

He says, "I want to tell them that I am going to live on other planet in a different way as I live here. I hope that technology will evolve someday to get me back to earth. I will do everything to take care of my family."

Amulya Nidhi Rastogi, a 20-year-old mechanical engineer from Gurgaon, is one of the 8,000 applicants, who wishes to travel to Mars on a one-way trip to Mars with a hope of fulfilling the purpose of his life. He says, "Every human comes into this world with a purpose. I feel living on Mars is mine."

The Delhi-born lad is confident that if selected, he won't have to prepare himself as he feels that he has the patience and the mental stability required for it.

However, Amulya won't stop chasing his dream if not selected in the programme. "I’m doing my Bachelor’s while preparing for Mars One. In 2015, if everything goes as planned, I’ll have a Bachelor’s degree and I’ll be a Mars One Astronaut. But in case, I fail to make it to Mars One, I’ll continue with my Masters and PhD. After completing those degrees, I will try to become an astronaut for NASA, ESA, ISRO or some other space agency and then travel to Mars. Mars is the goal."

In April 2013, the Astronaut Selection Programme was launched in New York and Shanghai. Round 1 is an online application open to all nationalities. The selection programme proceeds with three additional rounds over the course of two years.

At the end of it around six teams of four individuals are selected for training. A new batch of the Astronaut Selection Programme begins every year to replenish the training pool regularly.

An analogue of the Mars habitat is to be constructed on Earth for technology testing and training purposes.

With just hours left before the registration ends, people around the world are waiting for their names to be short listed for the first-of-its-kind expedition.

Anyone above 18 years can enter the programme at http://www.mars-one.com/en/

Shared From DNA India

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- Unknown Updated at: Monday, September 02, 2013

1Lakh People Ready to Fly To Mars By 2022 And Never Return Back! : Science Desk

More than 100,000 people have applied to be a part of the Mars One project, which aims to colonize the red planet starting in 2022.

Out of the thousands, 40 people will be selected. Of the 40, just four will participate in the first passage to Mars, which is scheduled to leave in September 2022 and land seven months later in April 2023.

None of the four will ever return to Earth.

More than 30,000 Americans have applied for the chance to be the very first settlers on Mars, paying a $38 application fee.

The audacious project is the brainchild of a Dutch company run by CEO and creator Bas Lansdorp.

Lansdrop told CNN that the price based is on the gross domestic product per capita of different nations. For example, Mexicans pay a $15 application fee.

'We wanted it to be high enough for people to have to really think about it and low enough for anyone to be able to afford it,' Lansdorp said.

The very first mission to Mars will cost $6 billion, according to Lansdorp.

He intends to fund the mission by creating a 'reality TV' series about the mission, documenting everything from the astronauts' training on Earth right through to touch-down on Mars and their daily lives once on the planet.

Sponsors and media agencies would pay to broadcast the Mars mission.

'What we want to do is tell the story to the world. When humans go to Mars, when they settle on Mars and build a new Earth, a new planet. This is one of the most exciting things that ever happened, and we want to share the story with the entire world,' Lansdorp said.

Another second group of four will leave two years after the first...

Read Full Story @ Daily Mail

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- Unknown Updated at: Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Science : Rover Completes 1 Year At Mars

On the first anniversary of its landing, halfway through its primary mission to Mars, NASA's Curiosity rover still has a long way to go.

On the first anniversary of its landing, halfway through its primary mission to Mars, NASA's Curiosity rover still has a long way to go.

To be exact, 4.4 miles. That is the distance to the foothills of Mount Sharp, an 18,000-foot mountain whose rocks could provide clues to a time on Mars when life could have thrived.

Because Curiosity is driving at a careful pace - up to 100 yards a day - the journey will take eight or nine months.

For now, science is secondary as Curiosity crawls across a barren, largely uninteresting landscape. "Pretty much pure driving, pedal to the metal," said John P. Grotzinger, the mission's project scientist.

An interactive feature at nytimes.com/science offers a chronology of where Curiosity has been and what it has done so far; new images and information will be added as the rover progresses.

According to NASA, Curiosity has already traveled more than a mile, taken more than 36,700 images and fired 75,000 laser shots to analyze rocks and soil.

The first day - or sol, the term for a Martian day, which is about 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth - began in the early morning of Aug. 6, 2012. (At mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., it was late Aug. 5.) The spacecraft carrying Curiosity pierced the top of the Martian atmosphere at more than 13,000 miles per hour.

In precisely choreographed maneuvers so risky that NASA called them "seven minutes of terror," Curiosity was dropped to an undamaged standstill on the surface.

The rover, roughly the size of a car, ended up right where it had been aimed - within Gale Crater, a 96-mile-wide scar from an asteroid impact at least 3.5 billion years ago. In that time layers of sediment filled much of the crater, which were then somehow carved away, leaving Mount Sharp at the center...

Read Full Story @ NDTV

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- Unknown Updated at: Wednesday, August 07, 2013

Science : UK Teams Design Human Mission To Mars!

Scientists at Imperial College London have designed a concept mission to land astronauts on Mars.

The plan envisages a three-person crew journeying to Mars aboard a small two-part craft.

The craft would rotate to generate artificial gravity and use a heat shield to protect itself against solar flares.

The crew would then return to Martian orbit in a pre-sent craft fuelled using ice from beneath the planet's surface.

The concept, developed in conjunction with the BBC, is intended to spark further debate about the technical obstacles and risks that would have to be overcome in order to put humans on Mars.

"Every part of this mission scenario has been demonstrated one way or the other, including the in situ propellant production on the surface of Mars," said Prof Tom Pike, who led the Imperial design team.

"There are big, big jumps between a demonstration at one level and putting together the engineering systems for a mission, but they are engineering challenges. They are not fundamentally about making new discoveries."

The new Imperial concept comes amid renewed interest in the Red Planet with two private groups having proposed missions in recent months.

The Imperial team have designed a two-part craft, consisting of a Martian lander with a heat shield, inside which the crew would also ascend into Earth orbit....

Read Full Story @ BBC Science

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- Unknown Updated at: Thursday, July 25, 2013

Science : India's Mars Mission - not for pride, but business

As India prepares to launch its Rs. 450 crore mission to Mars this year, a top space official said the country’s first martian odyssey — that has attracted some criticism — is not just for pride but for undertaking “meaningful research”.

K. Radhakrishnan, Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), also debunked perception in some quarters that the Mars Orbiter mission around the red planet, that’s just three months away, is primarily a “feel-good” package to just pat ourselves on the back.

“It’s not for pride because the exploration of Mars has its own scientific value and possibly a future habitat which people are talking about...may be 20 years...30 years from now...it’s possible”, he said in an interview, referring to the colonisation angle.

India will be the sixth country to launch a mission to Mars after the U.S., Russia, Europe, Japan and China.

ISRO says the primary objectives are to demonstrate India’s technological capability to send a satellite to orbit around Mars and conduct meaningful experiments such as looking for signs of life, take pictures of the red planet and study Martian environment.

“What’s the most interesting question on Mars? Life. So, we talk about Methane...which is of biological origin or geological origin. So, we have a methane sensor plus a thermal infrared spectrometer. These two together should be able to give some information”, said Mr. Radhakrishnan, who is also Secretary in the Department of Space.

Critics of the Indian Mars mission wondered whether the country can afford huge costs for this space voyage.

The Mars satellite, which would be launched on board Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-XL), will carry compact science experiments, totalling a mass of 15 kg. There will be five instruments to study Martian surface, atmosphere and mineralogy.

After leaving earth orbit in November, the spacecraft will cruise in deep space for 10 months using its own propulsion system and will reach Mars (Martian transfer trajectory) in September 2014.

The 1350 kg spacecraft subsequently is planned to enter into a 372 km by 80,000 km elliptical orbit around Mars.

“We want to look at environment of Mars for various elements like Deuterium-Hydrogen ratio. We also want to look at other constituents — neutral constituents”, Mr. Radhakrishnan said.

“There are several things which Mars will tells us, this is what the scientific community thinks about the life on Mars”, he said, adding that scientists started taking interest on Mars from the 18th century onwards.

“Our (Mars mission) experiments are planned in such a way that you can decide when you want to put on each of these systems”, Mr. Radhakrishnan said.

“If we succeed (in the mission), it positions India into group of countries who will have the ability to look at Mars.

In future, certainly, there will be synergy between various countries in such exploration. That’s taking place. That time India will be a country to be counted”, he said...

Read Full Story @ The Hindu

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- Unknown Updated at: Tuesday, July 23, 2013