Papers on Mars Missions

Planet Mars:-

• Some Fact Papers on Mars:

• Weather on Poles of Mars
• Compositional Interference of Phobos
• Evidence for Carbon dioxide on Mars
• Formation of Martian Clouds by Heldmann
• Mars Curiosity Landing
• Mars Fact Sheet - Comparison of Earth and Mars
• Mars by Sir.Nikola Tesla
• References by Pioneer Spacecraft
• References on Mars - Wikipedia
• Mars Science Laboratory Team Key Papers
• Mars Spacecraft Discoveries
• Methane on Mars - 2008
• Planetary Diameters of Mars by Surya Sidhanta Thompson
• Proof of Water on Red Soil of Mars
• Red Planet Script Movie
• Skylight of Mars
• Viking Resources of Mars - Mars Spacecraft
• Minerals on Mars

• Proposed Papers on Mars:

• Phootprint on Sample Return Mission - European Space Agency
• Mars Biological Oxidant and Life Detection
• India Mission to Mars
• Contamination Issues on Human Mars Missions
• Future Metnet Lander Missions for Mars
• Economic Analysis of Mars Exploration and Colonization
• Cameras for Mars Sample Return Mission
• Concept of Astrobiology on Mars by NASA

• Conferences: 

• Conference on Mars Astrobiology 2010
• Fourth Mars Polar Science Conference
• Mars Lunar Planetary conference on Phobos
• Mars Polar Science Conference of 2000
• Conference on Methane on Mars 

Read More

Mars Fact Sheet

Mass of Mars                                      : 0.64174x10^24 kg

Volume                                                 : 16.318x10^10 km^3

Equatorial Radius                               : 3396.2 km

Polar Radius                                        : 3376.2 km

Volumetric Mean Radius                    : 3389.5 km

Core Radius                                         : 1700.0 km

Ellipticity                                               : 0.00589 Flattening

Mean Density                                       : 3933 kg/m^3

Surface Gravity                                    : 3.71 m/s

Surface acceleration                           : 3.69 m/s^2

Escape Velocity                                    : 5.03 km/s

GM                                                         : 0.04283x10^6 km^3/s^2

Bond albedo                                         : 0.250

Solar Irradiance                                    : 589.2 W/m^2

Black Body Temperature                     : 210.1 K

Topographic range                               : 30 km

Moment of Inertia                                 : 0.366 I/MR^2

J2                                                            : 1960.45x10^-6

No.of Natural Satellites                       : 02 ( Phobos & Deimos)

Semimajor axis                                     : 227.92x10^6 km

Orbital Period                                       : 686.980 Days

Perihelion                                             : 206.62x10^6 km

Aphelion                                                : 249.23x10^6 km

Orbital Velocity                                     : 24.07 km/s

Orbit inclination                                   : 1.850 degree

Orbit eccentricity                                 : 0.0935

Length of the Day                                : 24.6597 Hours

Distance from Earth                            : 401.3x10^6 km

Surface Density                                   : 0.020 kg/m^3

Scale height of atmosphere              : 11.1 km

Total mass of atmosphere                  : 2.5x10^16 kg

Average Temperature                         : 210k

Wind Speeds                                        : 2-7 m/s (summer), 5-10 m/s (fall), 17-30 m/s (Dust storms)

Mean Molecular Weight                     : 43.34 g/mole

Information Credit : NASA

• Download NASA Mars Fact Sheet.pdf

Read More

James Webb Space Telescope

James Webb Space Telescope:

     The James Webb Space Telescope which was alternatively called JWST or Webb will be a large infrared telescope with 6.5 meter primary mirror. The telescope will be launched on an Ariane 5 Rocket from French Guiana Space Flight Center in Spring 2019.

Future Wonder of Space:

     James Webb Space Telescope will be the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It will study every phase in the history of our universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our solar system.

Next Generation Space Telescope:

     James Webb Space Telescope was formerly known as the "Next Generation Space Telescope" NGST it was renamed in September 2002 after a former NASA administrator, James Webb.

Joint Collaboration:

     JWST is an international collaboration between National Aeronautics Space Administration, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is managing the development effort. The main industrial partner is Northrop Grumman: the Space Telescope Science Institute will operate JWST after launch.

Webb Telescope Technologies:

     Several Innovative technologies have been developed for James Webb Space Telescope. These include a primary mirror made of 18 separate segments that unfold and adjust to shape after launch. The mirrors are made of ultra-light weight beryllium. JWST's biggest feature is a tennis court sized five layer sunshield that attenuates heat from the Sun more than a million times. The telescope's four Instruments, camera spectrometers have detectors that are able to record extremely faint signals. One instrument NIR Spectrometer has programmable microshutters, which enable observation up to 100 objects simultaneously. JWST also has cryocooler for cooling the mid-infrared detectors of another of another instrument MIRI to a very cold 7 K so they can work.

Credits :  The James Webb Telescope in NASA Webpage

More Information:

• National Aeronautics Space Administration
• European Space Agency
• Canadian Space Agency
• Goddard Space Flight Center
• Space Telescope Institute

Tags : James Webb Space Telescope | Hubble Space Telescope | Space Telescopes

Read More

Farthest Inactive Icy Comet-K2

About Image:

     The image shown above is comet C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS) and it was taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, which has been travelling for millions of years from its home in the frigid outer reaches of the solar system, where the temperature is about minus 440 degrees Farenheit. The Comet's orbit indicates that it came from the Oort Cloud, a spherical region almost a light-year in diameter and thought to contain hundreds of billions of comets. Comets are the icy leftovers from the formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago and therefore pristine in icy composition.

Inactive Bound Comet:

 

     NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has photographed the farthest active inbound comet ever seen, at a whopping distance of 1.5 billion miles from the sun (beyond Saturn's orbit). Slightly warmed by the remote Sun, it has already begun to develop 80,000 mile wide fuzzy cloud of dust, called a coma, enveloping a tiny, solid nucleus of frozen gas and dust. These observations represent the earliest signs of activity ever seen from a comet entering the solar system's planetary zone for the first time.

Discovery:

     K2 was discovered in May 2017 by the Panormic Survey Telescope and rapid Response System in Hawaii, a survey project of NASA's near earth object observations program. Jewitt used Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 at the end of June to take closer look at the icy visitor.

Credit: Text and Image Credits goes to NASA

More Information:

Download : The Science Paper by D.Jewitt et al.pdf

For More Information About Hubble : Hubble Page

Read More

Pluto Giant Ice

    NASA's New Horizons mission revolutioned our knowledge of Pluto when it flew past that distant world in July 2015. Among its many discoveries were images of strange formations resembling giant knife blades of ice, whose origin had remained a mystery.

Now, scientists have turned up a fascinating explanation for this "bladed terrain". the structures are made almost entirely of methane ice, and likely formed as a specific kind of erosion wore away their surfaces, leaving dramatic crests and sharp divides.

These jagged geological ridges are found at the highest altitudes on Pluto surface, near its equator, and can soar many hundreds of feet into the sky - as high as a New York city skyscrappers. They are one of the most puzzling feature types on Pluto, and it now appears the blades are related to Pluto's complex climate and geological history.

Pluto Mystery:

Scientists found the Ice caps on higher altitudes of Pluto mountain, which mostly are Methane Ice. They found by using high spectral image of Pluto taken by New Horizons spacecraft. It encountered the hemisphere of Pluto. Scientists predict that the Methane ice evaporates into gases and gases again converted into Methane ice, a process called Sublimation. Similar type of cycle takes place in Earth also.

Methane is now linked in higher elevations, researchers can use the data that indicates where methane is present around Pluto's globe. This provides opportunity to map out altitudes of some parts of Pluto's surface not captured in high resolution, where bladed terrains also appear to exist.

Credits:

Text and Image Credit : NASA

More Information:

• Pluto Ice Strange Formation
• Results of Ice Formation - New Horizons
• Pluto Ice Mystery NASA

See Video on Pluto Ice:

This video was taken from NASA official youtube channel. 

Read More

Parker Solar Probe

Mission Overview:

     National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA's) Parker Solar Probe will be the first ever mission to touch the sun. The spacecraft is about the size of the small car, which will travel directly into the sun's atmosphere about four million miles from our star's surface. The launch date is slated for summer 2018.

Journey to the Sun:

In order to unlock the mysteries of the sun's atmosphere, Parker Solar Probe will use Venus gravity during seven flybys over nearly seven years to gradually bring its orbit closer to the sun. The spacecraft will fly through the sun's atmosphere as close as 3.9 million miles to our star's surface, well within the orbit of Mercury and more than seven times closer than any spacecraft has come before 

Extreme Exploration:

     Parker Solar Probe will perform its scientific investigations in a hazardous region of intense heat and solar radiation. The spacecraft will fly close enough to the sun to watch the solar wind speed up from subsonic to supersonic, and it will fly through the birthplace of the high-energy solar particles.

     To perform this unprecedented investigations, the spacecraft and its instruments will be protected from the sun's heat by 4.5 inch thick carbon composited shield, which will need to withstand temperatures outside the spacecraft that reach nearly 2,500 F which is equal to 1,377 degree Celsius.

More Information:

• Know more about Parker Solar Probe

Credits : Text and Image Credit : NASA

Read More

Hubble Constant Video

      This videos shows the reconfirmation Hubble Continuous Constant determined by National Aeronautics Space Administration. This video was released by Nasa Science Casts

Nasa Science Casts releases regular space updates documentaries on its official Youtube channel NASA. You can subscribe and get regular updates.

Video credit : NASA

What is Hubble Constant?

     We know that universe is expanding and now Hubble's law serve as one of the pieces of evidence most often in support of the Big Bang model of expansion of the Universe. Although widely attributed to Edwin Hubble, the law was first derived from the general relativity equations by Georges Lemaitre in a 1927 article where he proposed the expansion of the universe and suggested an estimated value of the rate of expansion, now called the Hubble Constant.

Read More

Asteroid Bound Spacecraft - OSIRIS-REx Mission

Mission Overview:

     NASA asteroid sample return mission, OSIRIS-Rex (origin, spectral interpretation, resource, Identification, and security - Regolith Explorer) will pass about 17,000 kilometers above the Earth on 22nd Friday 2017. Using Earth as a singleshot, the spacecraft will receive an assist to complete its journey to the asteroid Bennu.

OSIRIS-REx mission is to investigate the near earth asteroid to study the surface, collect samples and bring safely to the Earth. This is the first National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA's) asteroid sample return mission. Now the spacecraft is on the half way to the Bennu asteroid and the mission duration is 2 years.

Start of Mission:

     The OSIRIS-REx mission was officially begins after the successful launch on 8th September 2016. The largest was a deep space maneuver on 28th December 2016, that extremely changed the speed and path of the spacecraft to the target Earth for the flyby. There have also been three trajectory correction maneuvers - one on 7th October 2016 and another on 18th January 2017 and the last on 23 August 2017 - thirty days before the gravity assist - that further refined spacecraft's trajectory in preparation for the flyby.

Mission Management:

    NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center provides overall mission management, systems engineering and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson is the principal investigator, and the University of Arizona also leads the science team and the mission science observation planning and data processing Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft and is providing flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the agency's new frontiers program for its Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

More Information:

• To know more about OSIRIS-REx Mission http://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex
• To Know about Goddard Space Flight Center http://www.nasa.gov/goddard

Credits: Text and Image Credit : National Aeronautics Space Administration

Read More

Anusat Satellite

Anusat - Anna University Satellite:

     ANUSAT ( Anna University Satellite ) is the first satellite developed by Indian University under the overall guidance of Indian Space Research Organisation and will demonstrate the technologies related to message and forward operations.

Design:

     This is a microsatellite developed and integrated by students of Madras Institute of Technology and Anna University. The mission director was Prof. P.V Ramakrishna of College of engineering, Guindy.

    Anusat was cubesat of 600 millimeter. The satellite was spin stablished and spin axis is pointed normal towards the sun. The satellite was integrated and tested at MICSAT, the MIT Chromepet clean room.

Launch:

   

     The Anusat was launched aboard aboard a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-CA designated as PSLV-C12, along with RISAT-2, from the second launch pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre. The launch was carried out on 20th April 2009 at 01:15 GMT.

Instruments Carried:

1. Amateur Radio
2. Communication Systems

More Information:

• Anusat Official Webpage
• Anusat Satellite Catalogue
• Anusat in ISRO - www.isro.gov.in/Spacecraft/anusat-1

Anusat Overview:

Launch Mass | 40 kg

Launch Vehicle | PSLV - C12

Type of Satellite | Student

Manufacturer | ISRO

Owner | ISRO

Application | Student Satellite

Orbit Type | SSPO

Read More

Cassini - Mission to Saturn

Cassini - Huygens:

     Cassini - Huygens - Mission to Saturn | Cassini mission is a joint collaboration between National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA), European Space Agency (ESA) and Italian Space Agency (ISA) to study the planet Saturn and its system of rings and natural satellites. This mission consists of Orbiter - Cassini | Lander - Huygens which landed on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Cassini occupies fourth probe, to visit Saturn and the firstto enter Saturn's orbit.

Launch:

     The Cassini spacecraft was launched on 15 October 1997 and it was carried by Titan IVB/Centaur rocket. Cassini spent more than 20 years on mission. Before reaching Saturn, it performed Venus flyby in April 1998, Earth flyby in August 1999, Asteroid 2685 Masurky and Jupiter in December 2000. Its mission ended on 15th September 2017

Journey:

     The Huygens module traveled a huge distance along with Cassini spacecraft until it get separated from probe on 25th December 2004 and successfully landed by parachute on Titan on 14th January 2005. Huygens returned data back to the Earth, 90 minutes after the successful landing on Saturn's moon.

Objectives:

• To study the time viability of Titan clouds
• To study the dynamic behavior of Saturn's atmosphere and its magnetosphere
• To determine the nature and origin of dark material on lapetus
• To determine the composition of satellite surfaces and its geologic history
• To determine the three-dimensional structure and dynamic behavior of Saturn Rings'
• To characterize Titan's surface on a regional scale

Origin:

     Cassini mission was originated in 1982 when the European Science Foundation and the American National Academy of Sciences formed a working group to investigate future cooperative missions.

Scientific Instruments:

• Optical Remote Sensing
• Composite Infrared Spectrometer
• Imaging Science Subsystem
• Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph
• Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer
• Fields | Particles and Waves
• Cassini Plasma Spectrometer
• Cosmic Dust Analyzer
• Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer
• Magnetometer
• Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument
• Radio and Plasma Wave Science
• Microwave Remote Sensing
• Radar
• Radio Science

Technical Details:

• Cassini spacecraft was powered by Plutonium Power Source (Plutonium-238 of 33 kilogram)
• Cassini has 1,630 interconnected electronic components
• And 22,000 wire connections which are of 14 kilometers of Cabling
• The Computer CPU was MIL-STD-1750A System
• Main propulsion was R-4D bipropellant rocket engine producing thrust 490 newtons

First Mission Extension:

     On 15th April 2008, Cassini received funding for a 27 month extended mission. It consist of 60 more orbits of Saturn, with 21 more close Titan flybys, seven of Enceladus, six of Mimas, eight of Tethys, and one targeted flyby each of Dione, Rhea and Helene. The extended mission began on 1st July 2008, and was renamed the Cassini Equinox Mission as the mission coincided with Saturn Equinox..

Second Extended Mission:

     A proposal was submitted to NASA for a second mission extension from September 2017 to May 2017, provisionally named the extended mission or XXM. This was approved in February 2010 and renamed the Cassini Solstice Mission. It included Cassini orbiting Saturn 155 more times , conducting additional flybys of Titan and 11 more of Enceladus.

Grand Finale and Destruction:

     Cassini ended its mission, involving a series of close Saturn passes, approaching within the rings, then an entry into Saturn's atmosphere on 15th September 2017, to destroy the spacecraft. This method was chosen because it is imperative to ensure protection and prevent biological contamination to any of the moons of Saturn thought to offer potential habitability.

More Information:

• Cassini - Huygens Quick Facts
• Cassini - Propulsion 
• Cassini -Mission Celebration
• Infrared Mapping Spectrometer - PDF
• Cassini - NASA | ESA | ASI
• Cassini by Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Read More