July 22, 2020 marks the one-year anniversary of the launch of #Chandrayaan2, India’s second lunar exploration mission developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
Initially scheduled to launch on July 14, 2019, this mega-mission launch was aborted and rescheduled with just an hour to go due to a technical glitch.
Subsequently, at 2:43 p.m. IST on July 22, the mission was successfully launched from the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh, on board the GSLV MK III M1 launch vehicle.
About 29 days after the launch, on August 20, 2019, the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft entered the lunar orbit. Vikram Lander separated from the C2 Orbiter on September 2, and began its descent towards the southern lunar pole on September 6.
While its initial descent was within mission parameters, the Lander's trajectory began to deviate as it edged closer to the surface, and it eventually crash-landed on the Moon.
While the Lander shattered upon impact, the Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter, with its eight scientific instruments, remains operational, and will continue its seven-year mission to study the Earth’s natural satellite.
Meanwhile, in spite of the failure in the Lander aspect of the mission, @isro has remained intent on stepping foot on the Moon, and it aims to achieve the same by next year through the Chandrayaan-3 mission.
Based on the lessons learnt from Chandrayaan-2, the Chandrayaan-3 mission is expected to sport a configuration that allows robust design and capacity enhancement for mission flexibility, all while retaining the ‘heritage’ of its predecessor.
Moreover, reports suggest #ISRO scientists will also be considering incorporating improvements that experts have suggested after analysing what went wrong in the previous mission.
One such priority could be “strengthening the legs of the lander”, so as to improve its chances of survival in the event of another crash.
Considering the fact that the C2 Orbiter continues to function as expected, #Chandrayaan3 will only consist of a lander and a rover.
This would also make the mission more economical, with @isro chairman K. Sivan estimating it to be worth ₹615 crore rupees. In comparison, #Chandrayaan2 cost India ₹970 crore rupees—an extremely economic figure still, as far as space missions go.
The type of payloads (instruments) #Chandrayaan3 will carry remains unknown as of now. If it does retain all the main objectives of C2, it is likely to consist of payloads identical to those within Vikram Lander and Pragyan Rover that were destroyed during the hard landing.
While much remains unknown, what we do know for certain is that @isro has successfully commenced work on #Chandrayaan3 back in November 2019. And while the #COVID19Pandemic may have affected developments, the mission remains likely to be launched by 2021.
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While searching for life in the Gulf of Mexico, researchers pulled out a new bizarre-looking species of isopod, whose head resembles the Darth Vader from Star Wars!
This new-found crustacean, named Bathonymus yucatanensis, has 14 legs and is around 26 cm long — approximately 25 times larger than its closest relative, the common woodlouse.
While these blonde creatures seem pretty scary, the "Vanilla Vaders" are, in fact, harmless to humans.
Their huge size is only due to deep-sea gigantism — a phenomenon wherein ocean dwellers grow bigger than their terrestrial relatives due to lack of sunlight.
This super-Earth is a rocky world, on which a year is equal to just 11 Earth days.
The short orbit is down to the red dwarfs being a lot smaller than the Sun that centres our solar system. But the smaller sizes also make their gravitational fields less expansive than the Sun's.
Therefore, Ross 508b revolves around its red dwarf at a distance of just 5 million km. Mercury, in comparison, is about 60 million km from the Sun.
The short distance between this super-Earth & its red dwarf begs the question: how could it possibly be habitable?
#Japan is making grand plans of creating interplanetary #trains and champagne flute-like glass habitats in its bid to send and host humans on the #Moon and #Mars!
An interplanetary transportation system dubbed the 'Hexatrack', which maintains a gravity of 1G during long-distance travel to mitigate the effects of prolonged exposure to low gravity, has been proposed by #Japanese researchers.
The #trains will also possess 'Hexacapsules', which are essentially hexagon-shaped capsules with a moving device in the middle.
In 2012, the almost-complete skeleton of a new kind of #dinosaur was found in the northern Patagonia region of #Argentina.
The dinosaur has been christened #Meraxes gigas. The generic epithet is an ode to a dragon in the #GameOfThrones series.
Standing at the height of 11 m (36 ft) and weighing roughly 4000 kgs, the #dinosaur sported several crests, bumps and horns on its skull, which lent it a menacing appearance.
But the highlight of the findings is that the dinosaur had teeny-tiny arms, just like the #Trex!
Dr Jose, along with an international research team from the US, UK and Australia, will be examining the Galactic Centre Cloud (GCC) — the central molecular zone of our Milky Way — in April 2023.
They have been allotted 27.3 hours over the access period of 12 months.