ISRO released pictures of comet Siding Spring taken by Mars Orbiter Mangalyaan

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While the +European Space Agency, ESA  had placed a robot Philae on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) released images of Comet Siding Spring, taken by its Mars Orbiter 'Mangalyaan' on October 2014. ISRO's Mars Orbiter had the opportunity to witness the Comet Siding Spring approach Mars on October 19th, for which the spacecraft repositioned itself for its safety.

The Mars Colour Camera on board ISRO's Mars Orbiter has captured the Coma (top bright portion) of the comet partly, as it approached MOM during last 40 minutes of the imaging session before Mars-Comet close encounter, ISRO said in its social networking site along with the pictures.

Credit image: ISRO

The India's Mars Orbiter Mission, the Mangalyaan probe is a spacecraft powered by solar arrays and packed with five instruments to study the surface and atmosphere of Mars. The 1350 kg of the spacecraft has been launched with success from a pad at the agency's Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on November 5th 2013. India was particularly proud that MOM was developed with homegrown technology and for a bargain price of about $75 million, a cost that Modi quipped was lower than many Hollywood film budgets. By comparison, NASA's much larger Maven mission cost nearly 10 times as much at $671 million.

Credit image: ISRO

It also will search Mars for methane, a key chemical in life processes on Earth that could also come from geological processes. None of the instruments will send back enough data to answer these questions definitively, but experts say the data will help them better understand how planets form, what conditions might make life possible and where else in the universe it might exist India wanted the spacecraft, also called Mangalyaan, meaning "Mars craft" in Hindi, to show the world its ability to design, plan, manage and operate a difficult, deep-space mission. India has already conducted dozens of successful satellite launches, including sending up the Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter, which discovered key evidence of water on the Moon in 2008 and validated few month ago.

The country's space scientists are already planning new missions, including putting a rover on the Moon. But space agency chief K. Radhakrishnan said their main focus would be to continue developing technologies for commercial and navigational satellite applications.

Source: ISRO

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Mars orbiters healthy after Siding Spring comet flyby

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Last week, we informed you that a huge ice comet, called C/2013 A1, will be so close to Mars on Sunday October 19th. All mars orbiter, as the Indian spacecraft, has been repositioned in order to reduce the effect of and not be disturbed by the flyby of the comet Siding Srping. The other orbiters from NASA orbiters around Mars confirmed their healthy status Sunday after each took shelter behind Mars during a period of risk from dust released by a passing comet.

Credit image: +Hubble Space Telescope 

Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) orbiter all are part of a campaign to study comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring and possible effects on the Martian atmosphere from gases and dust released by the comet. 

Credit image: +NASA 

The comet sped past Mars today much closer than any other know comet flyby of a planet. Actually, the comet missed the red planet by just 140,000 kilometers.

As we said in Friday October 17th, the comet could be observed from Earth, here, an image of the comet C/2013 A1 taken from the ESA's Optical Ground Station, equipped with a 1-meter telescope, on Tenerife, Canary Islands.

Credit image: +European Space Agency, ESA 

Source: NASA


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ISRO repositioned Mars Orbiter to be not affected by the comet Siding Spring

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Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has repositioned its Mars Orbiter, as the national space agency along with its counterparts around the world are expecting Comet Siding Spring to fly by the Red Planet on October 19. ISRO, but also the US space agency NASA and other space agencies in the world, which have sent their missions to the Red Planet have taken precautionary measures to save their satellites from any possible collision with the space debris, which might be facilitated by the movement of the Comet near Mars. 

Kiran Kumar, Director of Space Application Centre from ISRO aannouncedthat they have repositioned the Mars Orbiter, as the Comet Siding Spring is expected to be close to the Mars on October 19. They have taken the Orbiter to a position farthest from the tail of the Comet so that it doesn't affect the satellite,".

According to NASA, Comet Siding Spring has traveled many billions of km and would come within about 140,000 km of Mars on October 19. The comet comes from the Oort Cloud, material left over from the formation of the solar system. India is the fourth country to send a mission to the red planet. This was in November 2013 !

All five operational spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet — NASA's Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and MAVEN probes, India's Mangalyaan spacecraft and Europe's Mars Express, will observe the flyby. And NASA's Opportunity and Curiosity rovers will crane their necks up to watch from the Martian surface as well.

Source

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First picture of the Indian Mars orbiter

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yesterday, India announced the successful of its first mission to mars. Today the ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission captures its first image of the red planet. The picture has been taken from a height of 7300 km of altitude with a 376 m spatial resolution by the Mangalyaan probe.

Credit image: ISRO

India's 1,350 kg orbiter will now circle the planet for at least six months, with five solar-powered instruments gathering scientific data that may shed light on Martian weather systems as well as what happened to the water that is believed to have existed once on Mars in large quantities.

Source: Indian Space and Research Organization

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Success of the fourth Ariane5 launch in 2013

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yesterday night, two satellites were successfully geostationary transfer orbit by an Ariane 5 rocket fired from Kourou, French Guiana, +Arianespace announced. It is the 215th Ariane launch and 71st for the Ariane 5 space launcher.This fourth Ariane launch of the year from the Guiana Space Centre began at 17:30 Kourou time (22h30 Paris time) at the beginning of the launch window.

Credits: AFP

This fourth Ariane launch of the year from the Guiana Space Centre began at 17:30 Kourou time (22h30 Paris time) at the beginning of the launch window.

This is the 57th consecutive success for the European launcher, which "confirms the unparalleled level of reliability of our delivery systems," said the CEO of +Arianespace, Stéphane Israel.

The payload placed on a geostationary orbit was two satellites: EUTELSAT 25B/Es of the European operator Eutelsat and Qatari Es'hailSat, and GSAT-7 for Indian space agency (ISRO).

With a total launch mass of about 6.3 tons, EUTELSAT 25B/Es satelliste must serve the growing markets of the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. This satellite will enhance the coverage and power of EUTELSAT 25C which he will take over.

GSAT-7 is the 17th satellite entrusted by the Indian space agency to the European launcher. With a weight of 2.6 tonnes, this satellite will offer to the entire Indian subcontinent telecommunications services multi-band (Ku, C, S and UHF).

Update : video of the take-off

The India GSLV launch has been delayed after a fuel leak

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yesterday India planed to launch GSLV rocket with the payload GSAT-14 from the Satish Dhawan Space Center at Sriharikota Island on India's east coast. However, it seems that a fuel leak before the countdown stop the launch process. This launch should be the first one since back-to-back failures in 2010.

Credits: ISRO

The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicule (GSLV) is and expendable launch system operated by the India Space Reasearch Organisation (ISRO). This launcher has been developed to enable India to launch its own INSAT-type satellites into GEO orbit and to make India less dependent on foreign rockets such as Ariane5 or the Soyuz program.

Successful launch of Navigation Satellite from India

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yesterday, Monday July 1st , India has successfully put the country’s first Navigation Satellite into orbit on Monday. A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on India’s East coast at 18:11 UTC.

Credits: +ISRO

The IRNSS-1A spacecraft has been delivered to its intended orbit about 20 minutes after launch. This successful flight starts the race for India to its own navigation constellation, the Indian Regional Navigation System that will cover the country and surrounding areas.