Science and technology this week: 22th Sep - 28st Sep 2814

MOM successful
India has created a history on 24th September by successfully inserting Mangalyaan into the Mars orbit. This achievement on its first attempt and at a cost less than what it takes to make a Hollywood movie brought accolades to the Indian Space Research Organisation.

The country’s space agency successfully completed the Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) manoeuvre and with this, it joins the elite set of the US, Europe and Russia in successfully sending probes to orbit or land on Mars.

India becomes the first Asian country to go to the Red Planet, beating even China. The first sign of success on the very last leg came when ISRO announced that at the end of four hours, the burning of engines on India’s Mars orbiter had been confirmed.

For the next six months, the MOM will move in an elliptical path around the planet studying the Mars surface and scanning its atmosphere for methane. It will not land on Mars.

The spacecraft, launched on November 5, 2013 through a PSLV-XL rocket from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, has travelled 666 million km (414 million miles) since.

The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is 100 per cent designed and developed in India.

Private partnerships
At least six ISRO labs collaborated with many private sector companies in the country to design and develop scientific equipment to deliver this sterling performance.

ISRO’s satellite, which has five scientific payloads, has travelled nearly 214 million km calculated under radio distance. Measured in heliocentric (solar) path, MOM has travelled nearly 660 million km. in transmission of satellite date to the earth ISRO took help of the US, Spain and Australia

Only Rs 450 crore spent
The cost of the Mars Orbiter Mission is put at Rs 450 crore, which is one-fifth of the money spent by the US and European space agencies.

European, American and Russian probes have managed to orbit or land on the planet, but after several attempts. The first Chinese mission to Mars, called Yinghuo-1, failed in 2011. Earlier in 1998, the Japanese mission ran out of fuel and was lost.

Important points

After a journey of over 660 million kilometres that took 10 months, India’s Mars Orbiter Mission has swept with effortless ease into orbit around the Red Planet

Till now only the United States, the former Soviet Union and the European Space Agency have succeeded in doing so.

The Indian probe joins four spacecraft already circling Mars, including America’s MAVEN (acronym for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) that went into orbit just two days earlier, as well as two U.S. rovers exploring the planet’s surface. The Indian and U.S. space agencies are holding discussions on possible scientific collaboration.

India has created global history by becoming the first Asian nation to reach the Mars orbit in a space mission.

On September 22, a mission by NASA called the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN), made at a cost of over $670 million, reached Mars. This Indian marathon took 300 days to cover a distance of over 670 million kilometres — a sprint really in a record time of 10 months.

The first official hint that India was undertaking a mission to Mars came in the budget speech of 2012. Subsequently, the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh formally declared in his Independence Day speech that year that an Indian mission was heading to Mars.

The mission itself was launched on November 5, 2013

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his last visit to ISRO, when he witnessed the launch of a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, said India’s Mars orbiter is a “great achievement” since it costs less than the making of the Hollywood blockbuster movie “Gravity” which had a tag of $100 million.

A few critics said why India should be sending a robotic mission to Mars when there is so much poverty, malnutrition, death, disaster and diseases among its 1.2 billon population, but analysis saiys that the cost of the Mars Orbiter mission of Rs.450 crore, for Indians it works out to be about Rs.4 per person.

India’s Mars Orbiter mission has paved the way for cheaper and faster inter-planetary probes. During his upcoming U.S. visit, Mr. Modi and U.S. President Barack Obama are likely to sign a new agreement for the making of the joint Indo-U.S. Radar Satellite Mission. China and India recently signed an agreement on “peaceful uses of outer space.” So, many are now wanting to partner in ISRO’s success.

The mission, within minutes of reaching Mars, has already taken its first images of the Martian surface. The Mars colour camera, which is essentially an Indian eye to track Mars, will bring back the first tangible truths to Indian taxpayers that their money has been well spent.

If the 20th century witnessed a “space race” between the U.S. and the USSR, the 21st century is seeing an Asian space race. In most aspects of space technology, China is way ahead of India. It has larger rockets, bigger satellites and several rocket ports. It even launched its first astronaut in space way back in 2003 and has a space laboratory in the making.

In 2008, when India undertook its first mission to moon Chandrayaan-1, China raced ahead and orbited its Chang’e-1 satellite ahead of India. But in this Martian marathon, India has reached the finish line ahead of China. This now puts India in the pole position as far as Asian Martian exploration goes.

In 2012, the first Chinese probe to Mars Yinghuo-1 failed. It was riding atop a Russian satellite called Phobos-Grunt. But the Chinese probe failed to even leave earth.

Earlier in 1998, a Japanese probe to Mars ran out of fuel.

HAL-ISRO to set up cryogenic engine facility
The HAL-ISRO partnership will further get strengthened in the years to come. An Integrated Cryogenic Engine Manufacturing Facility (ICMF) will be set-up at HAL’s Aerospace Division here and the division will manufacture cryogenic/semi cryogenic engines for ISRO, said Dr R.K. Tyagi, Chairman, HAL.

At present discussions with ISRO are already on for Assembly Integration and Testing of IRNSS satellites and for productionisation of propulsion sub-system for spacecraft and launch vehicle projects.

Work packages for the Chandrayan-2 and Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) projects are also on the anvil. HAL has partnered and supported ISRO throughout its journey by providing hardware for satellites, SLV, ASLV, PSLV, GSLVMKII and GSLV MKIII (LVM3).

Electric car sets world speed record
An ultra-light electric car built by students at a US university has set a new land speed record in its class, besting the previous mark by nearly 80kmph. Electric Blue, an E1 streamliner designed and modified by more than 130 Brigham Young University (BYU) students over the past 10 years, averaged 330kmph on two qualifying runs this month. The new mark obliterates the previous record, 250kmph, which was set by the same BYU car in 2011. The car notched the record this month in front of approximately 180 teams and their cars at the Bonneville Salt Flats in northwestern Utah.

Jim Burkdoll, president of the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association, drove the car to set the record, which was certified by the Southern California Timing Association. Electric Blue is called a streamliner because it has a long, slender shape and enclosed wheels that reduce air resistance.

Biggest climate gathering since Copenhagen
The largest gathering of world leaders on climate change opened at the United Nations on 23rd September amid calls for action to put the planet on course toward reversing global warming. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is hosting the summit of 120 leaders, the first high-level gathering since the Copenhagen conference on climate change ended in disarray in 2009. Diplomats and climate activists see the event as crucial to building momentum ahead of the Paris conference in late 2015 that is to yield a deal on reducing greenhouse gas emissions after 2020.

UN Climate Change Summit 2014 was held at UN headquarters to put the planet on course towards reversing global warming.

The purpose of the 2014 Climate Summit was to raise political momentum for a meaningful universal climate agreement in Paris in 2015. Moreover, it aimed to galvanize transformative action in all countries to reduce emissions and build resilience to the adverse impacts of climate change.

It is the largest gathering of world leaders on climate change after the Copenhagen conference on climate change that ended in disarray in 2009. However, absence of leaders of China and India puts the cloud over the event.

Contributions announced

Leaders announced to mobilise over 200 billion US dollars for financing low-carbon and climate-resilient development.

Countries strongly reaffirmed their support for mobilizing public and private finance to meet the 100 billion US dollar goal per annum by 2020.

Leaders expressed strong support for the Green Climate Fund and many called for the Fund’s initial capitalization at an amount no less than 10 billion US dollars. Six others committed to allocate contributions by November 2014.

The European Union committed 3 billion US dollars for mitigation efforts in developing countries between 2014 and 2020.

The International Development Finance Club (IDFC) announced that it is on track to increase direct green/climate financing to 100 billion US dollars a year for new climate finance activities by the end of 2015.

Leading commercial banks announced their plans to issue 30 billion US dollars of Green Bonds by 2015, and announced their intention to increase the amount placed in climate-smart development to 10 times of the current amount by 2020.

A coalition of institutional investors committed to decarburizing 100 billion US dollars by December 2015.

The insurance industry committed to double its green investments to 84 billion US dollars by the end of 2015.

Three major pension funds from North America and Europe announced plans to accelerate their investments in low-carbon investments across asset classes up to more than 31 billion US dollars by 2020.