Atlantis back to home from its final journey to space

Sorry for the late update ......spacecraft Atlantis is back home on this Wednesday from its final mission and the landing was smooth.



My earlier post was on last inspection of Atlantis before landing. Atlantis has been on 32 flights. It was first launched in October 1985. It has made 5 military missions, 7 flights to the Russian Mir Space station and 11 to ISS ( International Space Station).

It is expected that someday Atlantis will be put in museum in ground.

Astronauts in Atlantis to make first space walk

In my previous post i wrote about Atlantis final journey in space . Now the astronauts in Shuttle Atlantis will do their first space walk in space.

There are 6 crew members in Atlantis and they will be there till next week.



It is said that mission specialists Garrett Reisman and Steve Bowen will venture outside the platform for about 6.5 hours to install an antenna and a robot tool tray.Bowen is making his fourth spacewalk and Reisman is making his second.

The other key tasks will include the replacement of six large batteries and the addition to the underside of the platform of a Russian docking and storage module.

StudSet Satellite all set to launch on May 9

After recent failure of India's space program a unique India-made smallest satellite StudSat which promises to send Indian into higher orbit will leave the ISRO Satellite Center in Bangalore and move to Sriharikota for integration for launch on May 9.
The satellite weighs around 850 gms and it has been designed and developed by about 40 undergraduate students of Engineering college in Bangalore and Hyderabad.
StudSat is an acronym of student satellite . It will be the second Indian satellite to be launched by ISRO in a year.
Last year on 20th April , 2009 the 40-kg Anusat was placed into orbit . StudSat is the country's first pico satellite - the smallest one.
The satellite will be placed in a 700 -km sun synchoronous orbit and will have a mission life ranging between six months and 2 years . The cost of project was Rs. 55 lakhs in Indian currency.

GSLV failure - a set back for India's space program

There is a set back for India's space program , GSLV D-3 , the satellite launch vehicle showcasing its indigenous cryogenic technology , trailed off its designated course and went out of control shortly after lift-off from the spaceport on 15th April , 2010. India was having a great expectation from this launch as it would have become the sixth nation to successfully deploy the cryogenic technology joining US , Japan , China and France .
The rocket and its two payloads - satellites GSAT -4 and GAGAN - crashed into the Bay of Bengal after ISRO failed to receive any communication from the vehicle .
It took 17 years to develop cryogenic motors as US opposed import bids in 1992.
The powerful booster technology using super cooled liquid fluid is designed to put heavier satellites into high orbits about 36 ,000 km from Earth.
This was second time in six launches that a GSLV mission has failed.
ISRO Chairman Dr.K. Radhakrishnan said , " The mission objectives are not met fully. Everything was fine till the end of the second stage at around 293 secs . The cryogenic stage is supposed to fire almost half the velocity to give the thrust to inject the satellite in its geostationary arch. We are not sure if the engine ignited ."

Apollo 13 could have become a space tomb

We are celebrating the 40th anniversary of Apollo 13 mission . As we know that Apollo 13 was the third Apollo mission which was supposed to land on the Moon but unfortuntely a mid oxygen tank rupture caused sufficient damage to force the landing to be aborted .

According to the new study if the NASA's rescue plan had not succeeded in bringing the capsule back to Earth in 1970 then sadly Apollo 13 would have got drifted on a never- ending journey billions of miles in space as a tomb, carrying frozen bodies of the crew members.

Computer simulations by a team of software experts in Philadelphia have shown that lunar gravity would have sent the spacecraft and its astronauts to a creamation in the Earth's atmosphere after only five weeks.

American, Russian satellites collide

An American and a Russian communications satellite collided with each other hundreds of kms above the Earth and the scientists are monitoring on orbital debris created.
The collision occured over Serbia on 10th February, 2009 was of high impact said NASA officials and it will take weeks to determine the full magnitude of the crash and threat if any to other satellites.
However NASA believes that there is low threat to International Space Station and its three astronauts.
There has been four other cases in which space objects have collided accidentally in orbit NASA said but those were considered minor and involved parts of spent rockets or small satellites.