Table of Contents
➢ Tiangong-1
China’s out-of-control Tiangong-1 space lab has reentered Earth’s atmosphere, landing in middle of the South Pacific Ocean near world’s ‘spacecraft cemetery or graveyard’.
Tiangong-1 (Heavenly Palace or Celestial Palace-1) was China’s first prototype space station or space laboratory. It was placed in orbit in September 2011 as part of China’s efforts towards building its own space station independent and unconnected to any other international space-active countries. It weighed around 8,506 kg and was having length 10.4 m and diameter of 3.35 m.
➢ Advanced Supersonic Parachute Inflation Research Experiment (ASPIRE)
NASA has successfully conducted Advanced Supersonic Parachute Inflation Research Experiment (ASPIRE) to test supersonic parachute that will help its space exploration missions to land on Mars. The parachute was launched aboard of sounding rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in US. The test of ASPIRE was meant to mimic conditions that spacecraft will experience during red planet entry, descent and landing (EDL).
NASA’s ambitious Mars rover mission is set to launch in 2020 to deploy six-wheeled vehicle on martian surface to study rocks on site and cache samples for eventual return to Earth. It will rely on special parachute to slow spacecraft down when it is entering Martian atmosphere at over speed of 12,000 mph (5.4 kilometers per second). The six-wheeled rover body is based heavily on NASA’s earlier Curiosity Mars rover.
➢ The RH-300 MKII sounding rocket developed by IRSO for atmospheric studies The RH-300 MKII sounding rocket developed by IRSO’s Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) was successfully launched from Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. The rocket was launched by VSSC under Sounding Rocket Experiment (SOUREX) programme for atmospheric studies. It utilises this rocket to study lower ionosphere regions of atmosphere. The study will enrich available atmospheric data and refine models used for tropical weather prediction. The objective of experiment is to measure neutral wind in dynamo region (80-120 km) of equatorial ionosphere using indigenously developed Electron Density and Neutral Wind Probe (ENWi). It will also perform crossvalidation using an independent Tri Methyl Aluminium (TMA) release technique.
➢ Ban on Oxytocin
The Union government has banned imports of hormone oxytocin to stop its misuse in livestock industry, where it causes hormonal imbalances and shortens the lives of milk animals. The Government has decided to rely on domestic production (public sector only) to satisfy requirements of hormone. It has asked customs officials to step up vigilance against those likely to try and smuggle oxytocin into India. Oxytocin is a hormone produced in humans by the hypothalamus (a part of brain) and secreted by the pituitary gland. It is also produced in animals naturally. Oxytocin, often called love hormone, is released naturally in human bonding activities such as sex, childbirth and breastfeeding. Usage of Oxytocin:
• During Childbirth- The hormone stimulates the uterine muscles to contract, so labor begins. It is also used to control post-delivery bleeding
• Breastfeeding- It promotes lactation by moving the milk into the breast during feeding.
• Human bonding activities- released naturally during sex, it is also known as ‘love hormone’.
• It has been misused for increasing milk production in animals, increasing size of vegetables, accelerate puberty among trafficked girls etc.
➢ Newly discovered antibiotic class, Odilorhabdins
Researchers have discovered new class of antibiotics called odilorhabdins or ODLs that fights drug resistance. It was produced by symbiotic bacteria found in soildwelling nematode worms that colonise insects for food. The bacterium helps to kill insect and secrete antibiotic to keep competing bacteria away. How they function?
• ODLs act on the ribosome — the molecular machine that makes proteins cells needed to function — of bacterial cells. When bound to the ribosome, the antibiotic disrupts its ability to interpret and translate genetic code.
• When ODLs are introduced to the bacterial cells, they impact the reading ability of the ribosome and cause the ribosome to make mistakes when it creates new proteins,” said Mankin. “This miscoding corrupts the cell with flawed proteins and causes the bacterial cell to die.
➢ Project Dhoop
• The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) launched ‘Project Dhoop’ to address rising incidence of Vitamin D deficiencies (VDD), particularly amongst the young people.
• The project urges the schools to shift their morning assembly timing to noon time so that children are able to absorb optimum levels of Vitamin D through natural sunlight.
• It is a nationwide campaign launched by FSSAI along with NCERT, New Delhi Municipal Council and North MCD Schools to spread awareness about 6 consumption of Vitamin D through natural sun light and consuming fortified food among school going children.
• It will ensure that the children are exposed to sun light that will give them the required 90% of Vitamin through sun light.
• The sunshine from 11AM to 1PM is most beneficial for bones of human body because during that time the best UVB radiation is received.
➢ ESA’S GAIA MISSION
Recently, a 3-dimensional map of the milky way was released using data from the Gaia mission of European Space Agency (ESA).
More about Gaia mission
• In the latest data, it pins down the positions of nearly 1.7 billion stars and also helps in revealing the composition, formation and evolution of the Galaxy.
• The new data not only includes positions, distance indicators and motions of stars in the milky way, but also of asteroids within our Solar System and stars beyond our Galaxy.
• Analysing all these could provide clues to the nature of dark matter and could lead to a more precise measurement of Hubble, which describes how fast the universe is expanding.
➢ TRANSITING EXOPLANET SURVEY SATELLITE (TESS) MISSION
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a new planet-hunting spacecraft onboard of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Carnival, Florida, US. Purpose of TESS:
• The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is the next step in the search for planets outside of our solar system, including those that could support life.
• Other missions of NASA to explore exoplanets are KEPLER and K2. Mission: 8 TESS will focus on stars that are 30 to 100 times brighter than those Kepler examined. This will help astronomers better understand the structure of solar systems outside of our Earth, and provide insights into how our own solar system formed. Orbit: TESS will occupy a never-before-used orbit high above Earth. The elliptical orbit, called P/2, is exactly half of the moon’s orbital period; this means that TESS will orbit Earth every 13.7 days. Its closest point to Earth (67,000 miles or 108,000 kilometers) is about triple the distance of geosynchronous orbit, where most communications satellites operate.
➢ Researchers develop potent molecule to treat Chikungunya Researchers from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee have identified two small potent molecules Pep-I and Pep-II, for their inhibitory activity to treat Chikungunya disease. The antiviral activity of these molecules was so high that their small amount was able to achieve almost 99% reduction in virus. Currently, there are no drugs to treat chikungunya or any vaccine to prevent it.
➢ Parker Solar Probe
• It is NASA’s mission to explore Sun’s outer atmosphere. NASA is going to launch Parker Solar Probe in 2018 to explore the sun’s outer atmosphere. It will be launched onboard of Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle… It will perform its scientific investigations in a hazardous region of intense heat and solar radiation. Primary goals of mission: Trace how energy and heat move through solar corona. Explore what accelerates solar wind as well as solar energetic particle. What is Parker Solar Probe mission? It is NASA’s planned robotic spacecraft to probe outer corona of Sun. It is named after solar astrophysicist Eugene Parker. This is first time NASA spacecraft named after living person. The spacecraft is designed to endure harsh environment near Sun, The spacecraft 10 systems and scientific instruments are located in central portion of shield’s shadow, where direct radiation from Sun is fully blocked.
Aims :
• To trace how energy and heat move through solar corona.
• To explore what accelerates solar wind as well as solar energetic particles. • Determine structure and dynamics of magnetic fields at sources of solar wind. • Explore dusty plasma near Sun and its influence on solar wind and energetic particle formation. • It will be a robotic spacecraft.
• It is named after solar astrophysicist Eugene Parker, first spacecraft of NASA to be named after living person.
• Will be launched in 2018.
➢ IRNSS 1I The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch the IRNSS-1I satellite on April 12 from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, through its PSLV-C41. It will be the 20th flight of PSLV-XL version. This satellite will transmit signals for the accurate determination of position, navigation and time. This launch comes exactly two weeks after ISRO’s launch of communication satellite GSAT-6A, with which it lost contact in two days. What is IRNSS?
IRNSS stands for Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System. It is a set of satellites which together can provide India a regional positioning system similar to the GPS. According to the ISRO website, the system is designed 11 to give position accuracy better than 20 metres to users in its primary coverage area. It can also service regions extending up to 1500 km around India’s boundary. The Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) is an independent satellite based regional system developed indigenously by India on par with USbased GPS, Russia’s Glonass and Galileo developed by Europe. It was renamed “Navic” (Navigation with Indian Constellation).
The NAVIC system is constellation of seven satellites, (namely IRNSS-1I, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E, 1F and 1G) of which three are geostationary and four are non-geostationary. The indigenous satellite-based navigation system under one’s control and command is considered a deep strategic asset. The NAVIC navigation system has both civilian and military uses. Moreover, it helps not just in land navigation but also in marine and aerial navigation. It offers wide services like terrestrial and marine navigation, disaster management, vehicle tracking and fleet management visual and voice navigation for drivers.
➢ Four bacterial strains to remove sulphur from fossil fuels Scientists from CSIR-Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology (CSIR-IMMT) have found four bacterial strains that remove sulphur from fossil fuel such as petroleum and coal. Sulphur is one of the major pollutants emitted during the combustion of fossil fuels. It was found that four bacteria were able to use almost 99% of sulphur compound in just 10 days. Researchers were also able to identify process of bio desulfurization of these bacterial strains through specific pathway (4-S pathway). 12 The process of bio-desulfurization using these four bacterial strains is also eco-friendly and economical. These bacterial strains can be potentially used on commercial scale for removal of sulphur from fossil fuels on commercial scale.
➢ Bhabha Kavach
• It is an armour panel developed by BARC which gives personal protection against bullets of different threat levels. Key features:
• Bhabha Kavach made up of BARC Nano-Sheets are lighter in weight with reduced trauma level with respect to the existing jackets.
• The jacket is made using extremely hard boron carbide ceramics that is hot-pressed with carbon nanotubes and composite polymer.
➢ REMOVE DEBRIS MISSION
The first satellite named Remove DEBRIS was successfully deployed from International Space Station (ISS) and to demonstrate a range of innovative technologies to clean up space debris orbiting Earth.
About:
• It is co-funded by the European Commission and the project partners led by the Surrey Space Centre (SSC), University of Surrey, UK.
• It is 100kg demonstrator project launched onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
• Remove DEBRIS mission is aimed at performing key Active Debris Removal (ADR) technology demonstrations (e.g capture, deorbiting) representative of operational scenario during low-cost mission using novel key technologies for ADR.
• The mission will comprise of main satellite platform that once in orbit will deploy two CubeSats as artificial debris targets to demonstrate four methods for release, capture and deorbit two space debris targets, called DebriSATs. These four methods areNet capture: It involves net that will be deployed at target CubeSat. Harpoon Capture: It will be launched at target plate made of representative satellite panel materials. Vision-based navigation: It will send data about debris back to the ground for processing using cameras and LiDAR (light detection and ranging). De-orbiting process: The spacecraft after entering Earth’s atmosphere during de-orbiting process will burn up, leaving no debris behind. Issues related to Space Junk
• Huge space junk: Only 1,400 of the 19,000 artificial objects presently being tracked in Earth orbit are functional satellites. The remaining objects are collectively known as “space debris”.
• Anti-satellite weapons development: The intentional destruction of the Fengyun-1C weather satellite by China in 2007 has created huge debris and the race of creating ASWs is likely to aggravate the problem 14
• Accidents: The accidental collision of American and Russian communications satellites in 2009 greatly increased the number of large debris. However, such collisions are bound to increase with increasing ambitions of countries in space.
• No international treaty on orbital debris at present: However, Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IDAC) has been formed comprising various space agencies as an international governmental forum for the worldwide coordination of activities related to the issues of man-made and natural debris in space.
• Voluntary guidelines: United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space has given some guidelines regarding this but they are voluntary in nature
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