Heena Sharma Blog

Indian space agency has released fresh set of pictures of impact craters on moon surface taken by its Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Tuesday releasing a picture on its Twitter handle said the images were taken by the Dual Frequency-Synthetic Aperture Radar (DF-SAR) on its Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter. According to ISRO, the Moon has been continuously bombarded by meteorites, asteroids and comets since its formation. This has resulted in the formation of innumerable impact craters that form the most distinct geographic features on its surface. Impact craters are approximately circular depressions on the surface of the moon, ranging from small, simple, bowl-shaped depressions to large, complex, multi-ringed impact basins. "In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal collapse, impact craters typically have raised rims and floors that are lower in elevation than the surrounding terrain," ISRO said. Read ...

NASA is analysing, validating and reviewing the images clicked by its lunar orbiter of the area on the Moon where India's Chandrayaan-2 mission made an unsuccessful attempt to soft land its Vikram module, according to a media report that quoted a project scientist of the US space agency. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft has snapped a series of images during its flyby on September 17 of Vikram's attempted landing sight near the Moon's uncharted south pole. LRO deputy project scientist John Keller shared a NASA statement confirming that the orbiter's camera captured the images. "The LROC team will analyse these new images and compare them to previous images to see if the lander is visible (it may be in shadow or outside the imaged area)," Keller was quoted as saying in the statement by cnet.com. NASA is validating, analysing and reviewing the images. It was near lunar dusk when the orbiter passed over, meaning large parts o...

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) said that it was yet to establish any communication with Chandrayaan-2 's lander, Vikram. On September 7, minutes before landing, Vikram, which was carrying a rover, Pragyan, went out of contact during its final descent, when it was just 2.1 km above the lunar surface. "Vikram Lander has been located by the orbiter of Chandrayaan 2, but no communication with it yet. All possible efforts are being made to establish communication with lander," said Isro. While reports claim that the Vikram lander lies on the lunar surface as a single piece, unbroken, and it is in a tilted position following a hard landing, Isro officials did not confirm, stating that they were trying to establish communication with the lander. Chandrayaan-2 comprises an orbiter, lander (Vikram) and rover (Pragyan). The mission life of the lander and rover is one lunar day, which is equal to 14 Earth days. Isro Chairman K Sivan earlier said that the...

"Let's pray for the successful soft-landing" -- that pretty much sums up the mood at Isro ahead of Saturday's highly crucial event of the Chandrayaan-2 mission. Nervous and anxious for sure, but the city-headquartered space agency is cautiously optimistic of "Vikram" module's soft-landing on the Lunar surface planned in the early hours of Saturday. "Everybody is tight-lipped. I am also tight lipped. Let the event be over", a senior official associated with the mission said on Thursday. "Every body's mind is only on what's happening in the (Chandrayaan-2) spacecraft and lander ('Vikram'). Let's all pray for the successful soft-landing," the official said. Chairman of Isro (Indian Space Research Organisation) K Sivan recently said the space agency "had done everything humanly possible" for the mission's success. Top space scientists have also expressed confidence about the success of th...

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) on Wednesday successfully conducted final orbit raising manoeuvre of Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft. It was carried out at 02:21 am IST. With this, Chandrayaan-2 entered the Lunar Transfer Trajectory. During this maneuver, the spacecraft's liquid engine was fired for about 1203 seconds. Earlier, the spacecraft's orbit was progressively increased five times during July 23 to August 6, 2019. The health of the spacecraft is being continuously monitored from the Mission Operations Complex (MOX) at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru with support from Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antennas at Byalalu, near Bengaluru. Since its launch on July 22, 2019 by GSLV MkIII-M1 vehicle, all systems onboard Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft are performing normal, said Isro officials. Chandrayaan-2 will approach Moon on August 20, 2019 and the spacecraft's liquid engine will be fired again to insert the spacecra...

The mood was euphoric on Monday at the mission control room of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (Isro’s) Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota. At 2.43 pm the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mk III (GSLV-Mk III), carrying the 3.8-tonne Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft, lifted off from its launchpad. GSLV-Mk III cost Rs 375 crore and Chandrayaan-2 Rs 603 crore. After a technical snag aborting the takeoff on July 15, the space agency succeeded in putting the satellite on the desired orbit, or a better orbit, as the first step of its 48-day journey to the moon’s unexplored south pole, about 384,000 km away. President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Isro and its scientists on this feat. Before the launch, however, it was a tense situation at the mission control room with former Isro chiefs A S Kiran Kumar and K Radhakrishnan, among others, watching the proceedings from the gallery. There was no lighthearted conversation as t...

India’s heaviest rocket GSLV Mk-III , nicknamed ' Bahubali ', lifted off successfully from Sriharikota on July 22. The rocket, which is carrying the Chandrayaan-2 mission, was originally planned to lift off on July 15, but the plan was aborted due to a technical glitch, that the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) said on Thursday its scientists had resolved. The rocket lifted off at 2:43 pm IST on Monday, July 22, from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota, off the coast of Andhra Pradesh. The rocket is carrying a three-component 3,850-kg spacecraft consisting of an orbiter, lander and rover. Isro Chairman K Sivan called this a historic day for science and technology in India. “I am extremely happy to announce that GSLV-MKIII injected Chandrayaan-2 in the defined orbit which in fact is 6,000 KMS more, which is good.” “ The satellite has more life. It is the beginning of a historical journey for India to land on the moon’s south pole and explore ...

I still remember a cartoon in a newspaper in July 1969, just before the first Apollo moon landing. It showed the ground crew reminding the astronauts as they boarded their rocket, “Don’t forget to bring back some rock!” This was a nod to an old holiday cliché – people who went to the seaside were often asked to bring back some “rock”, referring to rock candy. It wasn’t very funny, but it does demonstrate that, once the race against the Soviets was won, the point of it all was to find out about the moon’s geology. The scientific value of landing on the moon would have been diminished without studies to establish the context of the landing sites. The primary consideration was to touch down somewhere safe, but rocks collected from these places would have conveyed much less information had effort not gone into working out the nature of, and more importantly the relationships between, the rock units from which the samples were collected. This was done by making detailed geological...

Even fifty years after astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon, there are people who still insist that it never happened and that it was a hoax perpetrated by the US government. On July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 Mission landed two men on the Moon. Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin piloted the lunar module, which detached from the spacecraft and landed on the Moon's surface. Their commander, Neil Armstrong, became the first man on the Moon. He passed away in 2012 at the age of 82. However, conspiracy theories that claimed that the moon landing was faked and that it was all a Hollywood-like cinematic production shot on Earth have been doing the rounds for decades. The Associated Press recently listed the most common claims and the counters to them: 1) Claim: In the photos from the Moon, the American flag looks like it's flapping in the wind. That would be impossible because there's no air up on the Moon. Fact: Instead of letting the American f...

Days after its scheduled take-off had to be postponed due to a technical glitch, India's second mission to the Moon — Chandrayaan-2 — is now confirmed to be launched on Monday (July 22). "Chandrayaan-2 launch, which was put off due to a technical snag on July 15, 2019, is now rescheduled for 2:43 pm IST on Monday, July 22, 2019," said an Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) official. Chandrayaan-2 was originally scheduled to take off in the first week of January but was rescheduled for 2:50 am on July 15. It had to again be postponed after a snag was observed in its most powerful rocket, less than an hour before its launch from a spaceport. Isro scientists had put the launch on hold to assess the seriousness of the problem with the heavylift rocket GSLV Mk-III rocket carrying the satellite that put a halt to the ambitious Rs 976 crore lunar mission. The lift-off of the three-component spacecraft weighing 3,850 kg and comprising an orbiter, the lander and the...

India's second Moon mission that is planned for a July launch will have 13 payloads and one passive experiment from American space agency NASA, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said on Wednesday. "Thirteen Indian payloads (8 on orbiter, 3 on lander and 2 on rover) and one passive experiment from NASA," ISRO said in a mission update, but did not specify them or their objective. The spacecraft with a mass of 3.8 tonnes has three modules--Orbiter, Lander (Vikram) and Rover (Pragyan). All the modules are getting ready for Chandrayaan-2 launch during the window of July 9 to July 16, 2019, with an expected Moon landing on September 6, the space agency had said earlier this month. The orbiter will orbit 100 km from the lunar surface, while lander (Vikram) will do the soft landing near the south pole of moon, and Rover (Pragyan) will conduct in-situ experiments. The orbiter and lander modules will be interfaced mechanically and stacked together as an ...

China on Thursday successfully landed a spacecraft on the far side of the moon, becoming the first in history to touch the lunar surface unseen from Earth , according to media reports.The Chang’e-4 lunar probe, named after the mythical Moon Goddess, landed at 10:26 am Beijing time. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) landed the robotic probe — Change's 4 — in the unexplored South Pole-Aitken basin, which is the largest, oldest and deepest crater on the moon's surface. The probe entered an elliptical path around the moon last weekend, drawing up to 15-kilometre close from the surface. The Change's-4 was launched from Xichang, southwestern China, on December 8. The probe reached the final orbit around the moon after 22 days and transmitted the first-ever "close range" image of the dark side of the moon. Landing on the unexplored region will enable Chang’e-4’s rover to better study the moon because of the lack of electromagnetic inter...