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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY - March 2018

Mar 2018

Oct 19, 2020

Prithvi-2 Missile Blasts off from Odisha in User Trial

India successfully conducted another night trial of its nuclear-capable Prithvi-2 missile as part of a user trial for the armed forces from a test range in Odisha coast. User trial was carried out by the Strategic Force Command.
The liquid-propelled Prithvi-2 has a range of 250 km and can carry a 1 tonne warhead. The 9-metre tall missile is the first to have been developed by DRDO under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme. It is India's first indigenous surface-to-surface strategic missile.
The trajectory of the missiles was tracked by a battery of long-range, multi-function radars and electro-optic telemetry stations at different locations.

Soyuz Rocket Departs for the International Space Station in Historic Final U.S.-Russian Flight

Since the launch of Sputnik and Yury Gagarin from the desert of Kazakhstan over 60 years ago, the history of spaceflight has been measured in milestones.
The first satellite, the first human in space, the first to the Moon. But the launch of Soyuz MS-17 was a different kind of milestone: the end of an era.
A Soyuz rocket blasted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Russia's sprawling and remote space launch facility in Kazakhstan, to the International Space Station.
It was the last time NASA paid for an American astronaut to fly with the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos, on such a flight. Next year, for the first time since the start of the ISS program 20 years ago, Russia will fly all-Russian crews on Soyuz.

Oct 18, 2020

BepiComlombo Spacecraft Reaches Mercury in its Journey Towards Venus

The BepiColombo Spacecraft was launched jointly by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and European Space Agency to planet Mercury. The space craft has now crossed Venus on its way to Mercury.
The mission BepiColombo consists of two satellites launched together. They are Mercury Planetary Orbiter and Mercury Magentospheric Orbiter. The two satellites will separate on arriving Mercury.
The mission will perform study of mercury. This will include characterisation of magnetosphere, magnetic field in both interior and on the surface of the mercury.
The spacecraft Bepicolombo was launched on Ariane 5 rocket.
It will arrive Mercury in 2025.
The Mission is a part of the Horizon 2000+ Programme of European Space Agency and was the last mission of the programme.
BepiColombo characterises the solid and liquid cores of mercury. It will also perform magnetic and gravitational field mappings. Using the Gamma ray and neutron spectrometers provided by Russia, the mission will verify existence of water in the polar craters of Mercury. These craters are in permanent shadow from the sun's rays.
Objectives of the Mission
To study the origin and evolution of Mercury
To investigate the exosphere of Mercury, its composition, dynamics
To study the magnetosphere of mercury
To verify Relativity Theory of Einstein
The BepiColombo was named after the scientist Giuseppe Bepi Colombo. He was an engineer, mathematician and scientist from Italy. He proposed the Interplanetary Gravity Assist. It was first used in 1974 on Mariner 10 mission. The technique is now frequently used by planetary space crafts.

Europe Steps up Contributions to Artemis Moon Plan

Thales Alenia Space in Italy will produce Europe's two major contributions to the Lunar Gateway, a US-led space station around the Moon.
TAS will build two pressurised sections: one where astronauts can live, and the other on which refuelling and telecoms equipment can be mounted.
The UK-arm of TAS will provide the refuelling hardware.
The Gateway is intended as a staging post for astronauts as they shuttle back and forth to the Moon's surface.
At 40 tonnes, the station is a key part of the American space agency NASA's Artemis project, which is targeting a human return to the lunar environment 50 years after Apollo.
The first landing is envisaged for 2024, although it will be later in the decade before all the sections of the Gateway are in place.
TAS's iHab and Esprit modules will most likely be launched on separate Falcon Heavy rockets from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

Oct 15, 2020

Russian-US Crew Launches on Fast Track to Space Station

A trio of space travellers has been launched successfully to the International Space Station, for the first time using a fast-track maneuver to reach the orbiting outpost in just three hours.
NASA's Kate Rubins along with Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos lifted off as scheduled from the Russia-leased Baikonur space launch facility in Kazakhstan for a six-month stint on the station.
For the first time, they are trying a two-orbit, three-hour approach to the orbiting space outpost. Previously it took twice as long for the crews to reach the station.

NASA to Launch Nano Satellite Developed by Three Tamil Nadu Students

An experimental satellite by three students from Tamil Nadu's Karur district will be launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Agency into the sub orbit in June, next on NASA's sounding rocket 7.
The three students M. Adnaan of Thanthonrimalai, M. Kesavan of Nagampalli and V. Arun of Thennilai — started with their experimental model when they were in their high school. Mentored by Chennai-based Space Kids India, the satellite model has outnumbered many other satellites designed as part of the global competition conducted by the Cubes in Space, a programme of Idoodledu Inc in association with NASA.
Their innovation, India Sat, which took more than two years of extensive research, has been deemed world's smallest and lightest satellite, made with reinforced graphene polymer is 3 cm in size and weighs 64 gm.

Oct 14, 2020

Five Thousand Villages to Receive Internet Using ISRO Satellites

In order to implement the Bharat net project, the BSNL has provided a contract to a private firm Hughes. The firm is to provide internet services to 5000 remote villages using ISRO satellites.
The remote villages to receive the internet connection are located in Tripura, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Eastern Ladakh and Manipur. In order to achieve this, the ISRO communication satellite such as GSAT 11 and GSAT 19 are to be used.
The ISRO satellites will be using a proprietary Jupiter system created by Hughes. It is a very small aperture terminal platform, VSAT platform. It is designed to provide highest possible efficiency and capacity for satellite broadband implementation. System is currently being used in more than 40 satellites worldwide.

Oct 13, 2020

IIT-Guwahati Signs MoU with the C-DAC, Pune

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune to establish Rs. 17 crore worth of 650TF Supercomputing Facility under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM).
The MoU has been signed for a period of five years. This system will consist of 10 master/service nodes, 107 CPU only compute nodes, 10 GPU nodes and 39 High Memory CPU only compute nodes.
The MoU was signed by T.G. Sitharam, Director, IIT Guwahati, and Dr. Hemant Darbari, Director General, C-DAC, India.

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