After the nuke deal, comes a space deal

      First a controversial nuclear deal with the US. Now looms the possibility of a space deal.

      Such a hint was dropped by a US-based history scholar, Ashok Maharaj, on Wednesday while addressing a symposium on ``Key Moments in Human Spaceflight,'' to mark 50 years of the first manned space mission by Yuri Gagarin and 30 years of space flight operations.

      Ashok,  currently a Guggeinham fellow in the division of space history at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington announced: ``An Indo-Us space agreement similar to 123 pact of the Indo-Us nuke deal is in the offing.''

      The reason for this, he said was that the Us wanted to play an active role in India's space programme and Boeing wanted to have a major part.

      After the experience with the Indo-Us nuke deal, India needs to tread with considerable caution while going in for a space deal. The reason is while seeking advantages from the deal, India's space programme should not surrender to the Us. It should be completely slanted in favour of this country unlike the nuke agreement.

      In the case of the nuke deal, India seems to have tied itself up in knots because the liabality issue is beating all solutions. This has prevented the full operationalisation of the deal. A similar thing definately should not happen in the space sector.

      A possible scenario being envisaged is that the deal could perhaps lead to a situation, which may result in India completely scrubbing its manned space mission project and instead depend upon the US private players to fly an Indian to space. This should not happen.

     What is the message? Based on the experience of the Indo-Us nuke deal, let this country move cautiously while negotiating a space pact with the Us.

    Ashok's talk mainly focussed on this country's manned mission project which according to him was the result of China sending a man to orbit.

    Seeing the slow pace of development in the human space flight project, he estimated that it will take anything between 12 to 15 years for the project to fructify, not seven to eight years as being repeatedly mentioned.

    ``There is no planning and a launch vehicle has to be developed. The project has not received the formal go-ahead from the government,'' he said.

    ``Starting late has its advantage. India can learn from other countries to define its own programme and frame it to suit its own needs,'' he said while emphasising that its core programme should remain unaffected..

     He said that India's manned space mission project is driven by prestige to catch up with China, ``China has crossed several milestones. By the time,  India puts its first man in orbit, China will be far ahead. India should not ape China,'' he added.

     Though Isro officials refuse to make a firm committment on this issue, Ashok believes that if the human space flight programme by chance turns into a reality, then there is every likelihoold that ``in the next 20 years time frame there is a possibility of sending a man to the moon.''

     A valid point.

     But there are two or three points which can be dicussed:

     * China is building its own space station. What will be India's response if China invites India's participation in the programme?

     * Again what will be India's reaction, if Pakistan participates in the China's space station programme.

     * The Chinese space station will have a three-man crew. Can it be an Chinese, Indian and a Pakistani?

     Yes, a dream scenario, but it can become a reality.   
       
  

Congrats Voyager

Hats off Voyager!

Both of u have done it again!

U have crossed a major milestone in space exploration

A report prepared by Tony Philips of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says that more than 30 years later the twin Voyagers are still working. And with each passing day they are beaming back a message that, to scientists, is both unsettling and thrilling. 

The message is, "Expect the unexpected." 

"It's uncanny," says Ed Stone of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Voyager Project Scientist since 1972. "Voyager 1 and 2 have a knack for making discoveries."
Today, April 28, 2011, NASA held a live briefing to reflect on what the Voyager mission has accomplished--and to preview what lies ahead as the probes prepare to enter the realm of interstellar space in our Milky Way galaxy.

The adventure began in the late 1970s when the probes took advantage of a rare alignment of outer planets for an unprecedented Grand Tour. Voyager 1 visited Jupiter and Saturn, while Voyager 2 flew past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. (Voyager 2 is still the only probe to visit Uranus and Neptune.)

When pressed to name the top discoveries from those encounters, Stone pauses, not for lack of material, but rather an embarrassment of riches. "It's so hard to choose," he says.

Stone's partial list includes the discovery of volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io; evidence for an ocean beneath the icy surface of Europa; hints of methane rain on Saturn's moon Titan; the crazily-tipped magnetic poles of Uranus and Neptune; icy geysers on Neptune's moon Triton; planetary winds that blow faster and faster with increasing distance from the sun.

"Each of these discoveries changed the way we thought of other worlds," says Stone.

In 1980, Voyager 1 used the gravity of Saturn to fling itself slingshot-style out of the plane of the solar system. In 1989, Voyager 2 got a similar assist from Neptune. Both probes set sail into the void. 

Sailing into the void sounds like a quiet time, but the discoveries have continued.

Stone sets the stage by directing our attention to the kitchen sink. "Turn on the faucet," he instructs. "Where the water hits the sink, that's the sun, and the thin sheet of water flowing radially away from that point is the solar wind. Note how the sun 'blows a bubble' around itself."

There really is such a bubble, researchers call it the "heliosphere," and it is gargantuan. Made of solar plasma and magnetic fields, the heliosphere is about three times wider than the orbit of Pluto. Every planet, asteroid, spacecraft, and life form belonging to our solar system lies inside. 

The Voyagers are trying to get out, but they're not there yet. To locate them, Stone peers back into the sink: "As the water [or solar wind] expands, it gets thinner and thinner, and it can't push as hard. Abruptly, a sluggish, turbulent ring forms. That outer ring is the heliosheath--and that is where the Voyagers are now."

The heliosheath is a very strange place, filled with a magnetic froth no spacecraft has ever encountered before, echoing with low-frequency radio bursts heard only in the outer reaches of the solar system, so far from home that the sun is a mere pinprick of light.

"In many ways, the heliosheath is not like our models predicted," says Stone.

In June 2010, Voyager 1 beamed back a startling number: zero. That's the outward velocity of the solar wind where the probe is now. No one thinks the solar wind has completely stopped; it may have just turned a corner. But which way? Voyager 1 is trying to figure that out through a series of "weather vane" maneuvers, in which the spacecraft turns itself in a different direction to track the local breeze. The old spacecraft still has some moves left, it seems.

No one knows exactly how many more miles the Voyagers must travel before they "pop free" into interstellar space. Most researchers believe, however, that the end is near. "The heliosheath is 3 to 4 billion miles in thickness," estimates Stone. "That means we'll be out within five years or so."

There is plenty of power for the rest of the journey. Both Voyagers are energized by the radioactive decay of a Plutonium 238 heat source. This should keep critical subsystems running through at least 2020. 

After that, he says, "Voyager will become our silent ambassador to the stars."

Each probe is famously equipped with a Golden Record, literally, a gold-coated copper phonograph record. It contains 118 photographs of Earth; 90 minutes of the world's greatest music; an audio essay entitled Sounds of Earth (featuring everything from burbling mud pots to barking dogs to a roaring Saturn 5 liftoff); greetings in 55 human languages and one whale language; the brain waves of a young woman in love; and salutations from the secretary general of the United Nations. A team led by Carl Sagan assembled the record as a message to possible extraterrestrial civilizations that might encounter the spacecraft.

"A billion years from now, when everything on Earth we've ever made has crumbled into dust, when the continents have changed beyond recognition and our species is unimaginably altered or extinct, the Voyager record will speak for us," wrote Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan in an introduction to a CD version of the record.

Some people note that the chance of aliens finding the Golden Record is fantastically remote. The Voyager probes won't come within a few light years of another star for some 40,000 years. What are the odds of making contact under such circumstances?

On the other hand, what are the odds of a race of primates evolving to sentience, developing spaceflight, and sending the sound of barking dogs into the cosmos?
Expect the unexpected, indeed.

The Voyagers were built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which continues to operate both spacecraft. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate. 

For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/ andhttp://www.nasa.gov/voyager .

Written by Tony Phillips
Contact:
Jia-Rui Cook 818-354-0850/359-3241
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jccook@jpl.nasa.gov

2011-128

Related Links

› Voyager mission website

• 

1	Voyager Set to Enter Interstellar Space

2	Five Things About NASA's Voyager Mission

3	NASA Invites Public to Journey Toward Interstellar Space

4	NASA Technology Looks Inside Japan's Nuclear Reactor

A great Gagarin tribute. China unveils plan for its space station

        Trust China to do it.

        Instead of the usual speeches and cultural programmes to mark the 50th anniv of the first manned space flight by Yuri Gagarin on April 12,1961, China observed the anniversary in a bigger way which will be always be remembered.

        Any guess how China observed the anniv?

        On Monday April 25, almost a fortnight after the anniversary, it unveiled a detailed plan of its own space station which is expected to become operational in 2020---around the same time when the International Space Station (ISS) could perhaps end its life span.

        Right now the Chinese space station has been christened Tiangong which means heavenly palace, but the office of China's Manned Space Engineering Office has invited the public to suggest names for the space station. Why cannot India emulate the example of China and invite atleast school students to think of names for the rover which will land on the moon during the Chandrayaan-2 mission tentatively in 2013?

        According to ``China Daily,'' and other media, the weight of the Chinese station will be 66 tonnes which will accommodate a crew of three and will have two labs relating mainly to the areas of astronomy, microgravity and biological studies. Contrast this to the weight of the ISS which is 419 tonnes and the Russian Mir Station (decommissioned in 2001) 137 tonnes.

       China has invited scientists from all over the world to participate in its space station programme. The question is what will be India's response?  It has been dithering over the decision to take part in the ISS despite repeated pressures from the US including its president Obama.

       With the growing stature of India as an important global space power will there be a competition now between the US and the China to pull this country towards their own space stations?. This is of course not to suggest that the ISS is entirely an US enterprise: it is a 17-nation programme.

        ``China Daily,'' states that the cargo spaceship to transport supplies to the Chinese space station will also be developed.

        The programme envisages Tiangong-1 (the first phase of the space station) and Shenzhou-7 being launched this year and executing the first unmanned rendevous. Thereafter, Shenzhou 1X and X will be launched to dock with Tiangong-1

        China will gradually build the space station and going by its earlier record one is certain that it will be ready by 2020.    

        Congrats China.

        In India, the government did not use the 50th anniv of Gagarin's flight to announce its support for the country's human space mission programme.

        What a pity!

Cold War politics at the International Space Station.?

        The next eight months promise to be a period during which space enthus like ``Beyond Moon and Mars (BMM) will watch with interest the space relationship between the two old Cold War rivals---the US and the Soviet Union (former).

        Will it be marked by confronation or colloboration? Ironically this development is taking place at a time when the world is observing the 50th anniv of the first human space mission on April 12, 1961, by Yuri Gagarin.

         When astronauts like Rakesh Sharma and Sunita Williams stated in an interview to BMM recently that people must fly to space as reps of the earth rather than that of any single nation, a sort of a tension is slowly developing between the US and Russia. This can perhaps impact on the space ties among other nations as well.

          How did this happen? The unexpected controversy has been triggered by SpaceX, a private American space organisation, planning to dock its spacecraft,  Dragon, with the International Space Station (ISS) in December 2011. SpaceX has saught the approval of Nasa.  Nasa recently announced a multi million dollar commercial crew development contract with SpaceX.

         On Friday--April 22--the head of Roscosmos' manned spaceflight department, Alexei Krasnov, said in a statement::  ``We will not issue docking permission unless the necessary level of reliabity and safety of the spacecraft is proven. So far we have no proof that those spacecraft duly comply with the accepted norms of the spaceflight safety,'' he stated. It has been published by Ria Novosti.

         SpaceX's flight plan envisages two Dragon flights taking place this year.  In the first flight, the spacecraft will perform a flyby---flying around the space station---and approaching it within 10 kms. In the second mission, it will actually dock with the space station which will take place in December 2011.
   
         Maybe the Russians have a point, but at the same time it must be noted that the SpaceX will not execute a mission which will compromise on safety levels. Their reputation will be at stake if anything fails. 

         In this scenario, one wonders how the US Congress will respond? Will it be a knee jerk reaction saying that the US should deny permission to Russian spacecraft to dock at the ISS?

         BMM feels that the issue will be finally settled thru diplomatic channels involing also the White House and Kremlin. The US should agree to some of the demands which Roscosmos is likely to make for giving the final approval for allowing Dragon to operate to the space station. There has to be a spirit of give and take.

         Let both the countries not forget the Apollo-Soyuz mission which literally marked the end of the Cold War.

         The era of the space shuttle will come to an end in June 2011. If American astronauts have to fly to the space station, they have no choice but to depend upon the Russians until the US develops its own replacements for the space shuttle. Indian-American astronaut, Sunita Williams will begin training for a Soyuz flight in May 2011. She is expected to fly to the space station in May 2012.

         To repeat the words of Sunita and Rakesh, let there be colloboration rather than confrontation in manned space missions.

           
        

Space coincidence

          It was a coincidence in space.

         On Wednesday, there was a strengthening of Indo-Russian space sector when the mighty Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) flew a Russian instrument on board the YouthSat satellite---one of the three satellites carried by the rocket.

         The instrument designed and developed by the Moscow State University, is called Solrad and will be used for mainly studying solar radiation.

         On Thursday, just 24 hours after the highly successful PSLV mission, an exhibition about the world's first spaceman, a Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, opened in the first floor lobby of the Nehru Planetarium in Worli. The show will remain open till April 30 between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m.

         It comprises the same 75 pics which were on display earlier at the Russian Centre For Science and Culture on Pedder Road and the Russian Consulate on Napean Sea Road. The main advantage of having it at the planetarium is that it will definately provide a greater exposure to the public about Gagarin, who became the first man to fly into space on April 12, 1961.

         As planetarium director, Piyush Pandey, said at the inauguration on Thursday about 2000 visitors come to the planetarium daily. So he predicted that the same number will see the Gagarin show.

         Though the exhibition is interesting and educative, two or three things came to the mind of `Beyond Moon and Mars (BMM). First:  why is a film about Gagarin's historic flight is not being screened anywhere? A lot of them are available on the net and BMM had downloaded two of them and transferred them into a dvd. A film show would have made the Gagarin exhibition more exciting and memorable.

          Second:  was I.M.Kadri the right person to inaugurate an exhibition about Gagarin? Maybe, the Russian consul general, A.A.Novikov, or the director of the Russian centre, V.V. Dementiev, would have certainly been a better choice.

          Another thing---cannot these super pics be converted into a catalogue and sold to the public?

          This would be a real precious souvenir of the 50th year of first manned space flight.             

          A food for thought folks

          Let us make the Gagarin anniv more exciting and memorable..

        

Congrats Isro. U have done it.

       It was all smiles in the mission control room at Sriharikota on Wednesday morning.

       Tonight Isro scientists will perhaps uncork the champagne bottle.And the first to do it could even by Isro chairman, K.Radhakrishnan, who has suffered a spate of misfortunes ever since he took command of the space agency in October/ November 2009.

       Why not? 

       After two consecutive failures of the Geo Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) and the controversy relating to the Antix-Devas deal, which plunged Isro into a deep crisis, Isro began bouncing back today --to use the phrase of Tifr space scientist, Mayank Vahia.

       The 44.4 metre tall Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) carrying three satellites---Resourcesat-2, YouthSat, a joint Indo-Russian venture and a brain child of APJ Abdul Kalam, and X-Sat from Singapore, lifted Isro out of its crisis, atlleast partially. The much awaited lift off was at sharp 10.12 a.m. from Sriharikota. Eighteen minutes later the three satellites were placed in their respective orbits amidst thunderous applause from those in the mission control room.

       Frankly, ``Beyond Moon and Mars (BMM)'' was a little apprehensive because when it activated the TV and tuned on to DD National, there was an nterview with Raja Ramanna, the father of the Indian nuclear bomb. It was the same interview which was shown on December 25,2011 just before the telecast of the GSLV launch began. The GSLV took off and headed straight towards the sea!

      BMM is a close friend and admirer of Ramanna. But, sometimes one becomes a little supersititious. So when the telecast of the Ramanna interview began just before the PSLV launch coverage, BMM hoped in a light hearted way that the PSLV flight will not be a replay of the Christmas day GSLV mission!

      But the flight proved that superstitious should be set aside. One needs to know that space folks are generally extremely superstitious, Read about the rituals followed by Russian cosmonauts before they take off! 

      And the PSLV did succeed. And what a success. Everyone in the mission control room heaved a sigh of relief and the day undoubtedly belonged to mission director P.Kunhi Krishnan. All their prayers were answered. Watching the lift off with BMM were workmen who are refurbhing the house. They were all excited and thrilll seeing the awesome rocket lift off travelling in a plume of yellowish and white smoke. Ever since they have started working in this house most of them have been converted into space freaks! 

      After the success of the mission was formally declared by Isro chairman, K.Radhakrishnan, BMM contacted scientists in Mumbai,  Pune and Kolkata for their response. All of them said that the success will restore the image of Isro which had been bruised by the two failures of the GSLV and the Antrix-Devas controvery.

     Surprisingly, the best quote came from director of Nehru Planetarium, Piyush Pandey, with whom BMM always had quarrels regarding the wording of his reactions. But, today there was no fight or argument and BMM decided went to the extent of even leading with his comment while filing a report for The Times of India.

     Let these smiles remain during the next missions.

     We are told that there will be quite a number of them.

     Good wishes and God Speed.       
    

What a book about Chandrayaan !

        One has to be truly passionate and devoted to Chandrayaan-1 in order to be a proud owner of this beautiful coffee table book.

        On Monday afternoon when ``Beyond Moon and Mars (BMM)'' was reading a book about The Times of India, the contractor who is supervising the renovation of our flat brought a huge packet and handed it over to it.

         BMM ripped open the huge cover and what did it contain? A lunar atlas called ``Images Of The Moon From Chandrayaan-1.''  Published by Isro's Ahmedabad-based Space Application Centre, According to the centre director, R.R.Navalgund, who has played a key role in bringing out the volume, the atlas was released on January 11,2011, during the inauguration of the centre's new auditorium and was presented to PM Manmohan Singh, the governor of Gujarat and chief minister of Gujarat on March 26,2011.

        The atlas contains numerous pictures obtained from Chandrayaan-1's Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC), the Hyper Spectral Imager (HySi), both designed and developed at the Space Applications Centre, and the Moon Impact Probe.

        Many of the pictures have revealed hitherto unknown aspects about the Chandrayaan-1 mission as well as the moon. Interestingly, the Moon Impact Probe's imagery and the estimated impact point locations have also been provided in different plates. In the opening chapter, entitled ``Man and the Moon,'' it says that the features imaged by the TMC camera and mineralisation of the HySi ``will further boost up the efforts to understand our nearest neighbour and in future how this moon's surface could be utilised for launching other planetary missions with establishing a lunar base.''

       There are details about the 11 payloads  and a picture taken of India by Chandrayaan-1 on March 25,2009. Equally, fascinating is the picture of the earthrise over the moon taken by the TMC on July 22,2009.

        The pictures of the craters and the lava flows are indeed three dimensional which will definately make the reader feel it he or she was the 12th payload on board Chandrayaan-1!

         One of the most important pictures is that of the rilles with un-collaspsed and intact roof tops which are supposed to be potential sites for the future human settlements on the moon as they would protect them from the lethal shower of falling object, the extreme surface temperatures durng the day and the harmful cosmic rays.

         BMM first heard about this while participating at a Chandrayaan science meet organised by the Physical Research Laboratory at Ahmedabad in January 2010.

         There are also photographs of the Apollo 15 and Apollo 17 landing sites.

         Regarding the images from the Moon Impact Probe and the estimation of its landing point, the atlas says that based on ``calculations the MIP should have travelled 13 km on the moon surface for capturing five frames. There is a picture of the Shackleton Crater and Jawahar Sthal where the Indian National Flag is placed.

         A fantastic atlas and congrats to the SAC team particularly Dr Navalgund.

         And thank you Dr Navalgund for sending it to BMM.

         One suggestion----is there a possibility of making this atlas accessible to the public?.