💥Join UPSC 2027,2028 Mentorship (August Batch) + XFactor Notes & Microthemes PDF
Talk to Mentor

Civilsdaily

Login

Subject: Space Technology

  • Chang’e-5 Lunar Probe

    China is preparing to launch an unmanned spacecraft to bring back lunar rocks, the first attempt by any nation to retrieve samples from the moon in four decades.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.What do you understand by the term Aitken basin:

    (a) It is a desert in the southern Chile which is known to be the only location on earth where no rainfall takes place

    (b) It is an impact crater on the far side of the Moon

    (c) It is a Pacific coast basin, which is known to house large amounts of oil and gas

    (d) It is a deep hyper saline anoxic basin where no aquatic animals are found

    Chang’e-5 Probe

    • The Chang’e-5 probe, named after the mythical Chinese moon goddess, aims to shovel up lunar rocks and soil to help scientists learn about the moon’s origins, formation and volcanic activity on its surface.
    • The goal of the mission is to land in the Mons Rumker region of the moon, where it will operate for one lunar day, which is two weeks long.
    • It will collect 2 kg of surface material from a previously unexplored area known as Oceanus Procellarum — or “Ocean of Storms” — which consist of vast lava plain.
    • The original mission, planned for 2017, was delayed due to an engine failure in China’s Long March 5 launch rocket.
    • If successful, China will be only the third country to have retrieved samples from the moon, following the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s.

    Significance of the mission

    • As per the Lunar and Planetary Institute, rocks found on the Moon are older than any that have been found on Earth and therefore they are valuable in providing information about the Earth and the Moon’s shared history.
    • Lunar samples can help to unravel some important questions in lunar science and astronomy, including the Moon’s age, its formation, the similarities and differences between the Earth and the Moon’s geologic features.
    • For instance, the shape, size, arrangement and composition of individual grains and crystals in a rock can tell scientists about its history, while the radioactive clock can tell them the rock’s age.
    • Further, tiny cracks in rocks can tell them about the radiation history of the Sun in the last 100,000 years.

  • Sentinel-6 Satellite

    The Copernicus Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite, designed to monitor oceans, was launched from the in California.

    Try this MCQ:

    The Jason Continuity of Service (Jason-CS) Mission recently seen in news is aimed at observing:

    (a)Microgravity changes

    (b)Sea level rise

    (c)Cosmic radiation

    (d)Space debris

    Sentinel-6 Satellite

    • This is a part of the next mission dedicated to measuring changes in the global sea level.
    • It has been named after Dr Michael Freilich, who was the Director of NASA’s Earth Science Division from 2006-2019 and passed away in August this year.

    What is the mission?

    • The mission, called the Jason Continuity of Service (Jason-CS) mission, is designed to measure the height of the ocean, which is a key component in understanding how the Earth’s climate is changing.
    • The spacecraft consists of two satellites, the other, called Sentinel-6B, to be launched in 2025.
    • It has been developed jointly by the European Space Agency (ESA), NASA, and France’s National Centre for Space Studies (CNES).

    What will the satellite do?

    • The satellite will ensure the continuity of sea-level observations into the fourth decade and will provide measurements of global sea-level rise.
    • Since 1992, high-precision satellite altimeters have helped scientists understand how the ocean stores and distributes heat, water and carbon in the climate system.
    • Essentially, the satellite will send pulses to the Earth’s surface and measure how long they take to return to it, which will help scientists measure the sea surface height.
    • It will also measure water vapour along this path and find its position using GPS and ground-based lasers.

    Significance of the mission

    • As per NASA, it is possible to observe the height of the oceans on a global scale and monitor critical changes in ocean currents and heat storage only from space.
    • Data from satellites such as Sentinel-6 help scientists foresee the effects of the changing oceans on the climate.
    • Further, in order to measure and track changes in the oceanic heat budget, scientists need to know the ocean currents and heat storage of the oceans, which can be determined from the height of the sea surface.

  • [pib] IRNSS now part of World Wide Radio Navigation System

    The Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) has been accepted as a component of the World Wide Radio Navigation System (WWRNS) for operation in the Indian Ocean Region by the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

    Try this PYQ:

    With reference to the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), consider the following statements:

    1. IRNSS has three Satellites in geostationary and four satellites the geosynchronous orbits.
    2. IRNSS covers entire India and about 5500 sq. km beyond its borders.
    3. India will have its own satellite navigation system with full global coverage by the middle of 2019.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

    (a) 1 only            

    (b) 1 and 2 only

    (c) 2 and 3 only

    (d) None

    What is IRNSS?

    • The IRNSS, with an operational name of NavIC (acronym for Navigation with Indian Constellation) is an Indian regional satellite navigation system that provides accurate real-time positioning and timing services.
    • It covers India and a region extending 1,500 km around it, with plans for further extension.
    • The system currently consists of a constellation of seven satellites, with two additional satellites on ground as stand-by.
    • The constellation is in orbit as of 2018, and the system was expected to be operational from early 2018 after a system check.
    • It will provide two levels of service, the “standard positioning service”, which will be open for civilian use, and a “restricted service” (an encrypted one) for authorised users (including the military).

    Benefits of the move

    • This move will enable merchant vessels to use IRNSS for obtaining position information similar to GPS and GLONASS.
    • This will assist in the navigation of ships in Indian ocean waters within the area covered by 50°N latitude, 55°E longitude, 5°S latitude and 110°E longitude (approximately up to 1500 km from Indian boundary).

    Back2Basics: International Maritime Organisation (IMO)

    • IMO is the UN specialized agency with responsibility for the safety and security of shipping and the prevention of marine pollution by ships.
    • Its primary purpose is to develop and maintain a comprehensive regulatory framework for shipping and its remit today includes safety, environmental concerns, legal matters, technical co-operation, maritime security and the efficiency of shipping.
    • IMO is governed by an assembly of members and is financially administered by a council of members elected from the assembly.

  • Leonid Meteor Shower

    The Leonid meteor showers are currently making their yearly appearance and will reach their peak in India on November 17 and 18.  In August this year, there was another meteor called Perseids Shower.

    Try this question from CSP 2014:

    Q.What is a coma, in the content of astronomy?

    (a) Bright half of material on the comet

    (b) Long tail of dust

    (c) Two asteroids orbiting each other

    (d) Two planets orbiting each other

    What is Leonid Meteor Shower?

    • Meteor showers are named after the constellation they appear to be coming from.
    • The Leonids originate from the constellation Leo the Lion– the groups of stars which form a lion’s mane.
    • They emerge from the comet Tempel-Tuttle, which requires 33 years to revolve once around the Sun.
    • These meteors are bright and among the fastest moving– travelling at speeds of 71 km per second.
    • During this year’s showers, peaks of around 10 to 15 meteors are expected to be seen every hour.
    • The Leonid showers include fireballs– bright and large meteors than can last longer than average meteors, and “earthgazers”– meteors which appear close to the horizon with colourful and long tails.

    What is a meteor shower?

    • On its journey around the Sun, the Earth passes through large swathes of cosmic debris.
    • The debris is essentially the remnants of comets — great frigid chunks of matter that leave behind dirty trails of rocks and ice that linger long after the comets themselves have passed.
    • As the Earth wades through this cloud of comet waste, the bits of debris create what appears from the ground to be a fireworks display in the sky — known as a meteor shower.
    • Several meteor showers can be seen around the year. According to NASA, over 30 meteor showers occur annually and are observable from the Earth.

    Back2Basics:

  • SpaceX-NASA’s Crew-1 Mission

    SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft will lift off carrying a crew of four people to the International Space Station (ISS) on a six-month-long mission.

    What is the Crew-1 Mission?

    • The mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, whose objective is to make access to space easier in terms of its cost.
    • This will carry four astronauts on NASA missions, maintaining a space station crew of seven to maximize time dedicated to scientific research on the orbiting laboratory.
    • With this, the cargo and crew can be easily transported to and from the ISS, enabling greater scientific research.
    • At the ISS, the crew will join the members of Expedition 64, the space station crew currently in residence at the ISS.

    Mission goals

    • The goals of the mission are the same as that of Expedition 1 that lifted off 20 years ago.
    • NASA has called both of these ISS missions “historic”.
    • At the ISS, the Crew-1 team will join members of Expedition 64 and conduct microgravity studies and deliver new science hardware to ISS.
    • Once in orbit, NASA astronauts will collect samples to provide data to scientists back on Earth so that they can continue to study how dietary changes affect his body.
    • The crew will also study the effects of dietary improvements on immune function and the gut microbiome and how those improvements can help crews adapt to spaceflight.

    The term micro-g environment is more or less synonymous with the terms weightlessness and zero-g, but with an emphasis on the fact that g-forces are never exactly zero—just very small.

  • GRACE-FO Mission

    The GRACE-FO mission has mapped deviation in Earth’s surface mass and spatial variations in the rate of sea-level rise between 1993 and 2018 using altimetric and gravimetric analysis.

    Try this MCQ:

    Q.NASA’s VIPER mission sometimes seen in news is related to the study of-

    a)Moon

    b)Venus

    c)Sun

    d)None of these

    GRACE-FO Mission

    • The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission launched in 2018 is a partnership between NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ).
    • It is a successor to the original GRACE mission, which orbited Earth from 2002-2017.
    • It carries on the extremely successful work of its predecessor while testing a new technology designed to dramatically improve the already remarkable precision of its measurement system.

    How did NASA measure this?

    (1) Altimetric Study

    • Altimetry missions are used to know the ocean surface topography — the shape and height of the ocean’s peaks and valleys.
    • Radar altimeters continually send out pulses of radio waves (microwaves) that bounce off the surface of the ocean and reflect back toward the satellite.
    • The instrument calculates the time it takes for the signal to return, while also tracking the precise location of the satellite in space. From this, scientists can derive the height of the sea surface directly underneath the satellite.

    (2) Gravimetric Study

    • Gravimetry is a process of using ice’s gravitational pull on a pair of satellites. It helps estimate ice loss and its contribution to sea-level rise.
    • The twin satellites in each mission detect subtle shifts in Earth’s gravity field.
    • The strength of gravitational forces is determined by mass, so changes in Earth’s gravity field indicate a change or redistribution in mass.

  • What is a Fast Radio Burst (FRB)?

    NASA has reported that it observed a mix of X-ray and radio signals never observed before in the Milky Way.

    Such news makes us think about alien and extraterrestrial life at the first. Do not get carried away with such thoughts. Its simply a space based phenomena.

    What is an FRB?

    • The first FRB was discovered in 2007, since when scientists have been working towards finding the source of their origin.
    • Essentially, FRBs are bright bursts of radio waves (radio waves can be produced by astronomical objects with changing magnetic fields).
    • Its durations lie in the millisecond-scale, because of which it is difficult to detect them and determine their position in the sky.

    Who discovered it?

    • The X-ray portion of the simultaneous bursts was detected by several satellites, including NASA’s Wind mission.
    • Further, a NASA-funded project called Survey for Transient Astronomical Radio Emission 2 (STARE2) also detected the radio burst.

    Why are they significant?

    • First noticed in 2018 by the Canadian observatory the waves have created ripples across the globe for one reason — they arrive in a pattern.
    • This gave birth to theories that they could be from an alien civilization.
    • Initially, it was believed that the collision of black holes or neutron stars triggers them.
    • But the discovery of repeating FRBs debunked the theory of colliding objects.

    What is the origin of the FRB detected in April?

    • The source of the FRB detected in April in the Milky Way is a very powerful magnetic neutron star, referred to as a magnetar.
    • Magnetar is located in the constellation Vulpecula and is estimated to be between 14,000-41,000 light-years away.
    • The FRB was part of one of the magnetar’s most prolific flare-ups, with the X-ray bursts lasting less than a second.

    What is a magnetar?

    • A magnetar is a neutron star, “the crushed, city-size remains of a star many times more massive than our Sun.”
    • The magnetic field of such a star is very powerful, which can be over 10 trillion times stronger than a refrigerator magnet and up to a thousand times stronger than typical neutron stars.
    • Neutron stars are formed when the core of a massive star undergoes gravitational collapse when it reaches the end of its life.

  • Asteroid 16 Psyche

    A recent study has found that asteroid 16 Psyche, which orbits between Mars and Jupiter, could be made entirely of metal and is worth an estimated $10,000 quadrillion.

    A NASA mission has recently landed on and collected samples from an asteroid. Do you remember that? Yes. Its the Asteroid Bennu

    16 Psyche

    • Located around 370 million km away from Earth, asteroid 16 Psyche is one of the most massive objects in the asteroid belt in our solar system.
    • The somewhat potato-shaped asteroid has a diameter of around 140 miles.
    • It was first discovered on March 17, 1853, by the Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis and was named after the ancient Greek goddess of the soul, Psyche.
    • Unlike most asteroids that are made up of rocks or ice, scientists believe that Psyche is a dense and largely metallic object thought to be the core of an earlier planet that failed in formation.
    • Its surface may mostly comprise iron and nickel, similar to the Earth’s core, according to a study.

  • EOS-01 Satellite

    India would launch its latest earth observation satellite EOS-01 and nine international customer spacecraft onboard it’s PSLV-C49.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.The term ‘IndARC’, sometimes seen in the news, is the name of:

    (a) An indigenously developed radar system inducted into Indian Defence

    (b) India’s satellite to provide services to the countries of Indian Ocean Rim

    (c) A scientific establishment set up by India in Antarctic region

    (d) India’s underwater observatory to scientifically study the Arctic region

    EOS-01

    • EOS-01 is intended for applications in agriculture, forestry and disaster management support.
    • This is the first launch by the Indian Space Research Organisation since the COVID-19-induced lockdown came into force in March.
    • This will be the 51st mission of ISRO’s workhorse, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.

    What is Earth Observation Satellite (EOS)?

    • An EOS or remote sensing satellite is a satellite used or designed for Earth observation (EO) from orbit, including spy satellites and similar ones intended for non-military uses such as environmental monitoring, meteorology, cartography and others.
    • Starting with IRS-1A in 1988, ISRO has launched many operational remote sensing satellites.
    • Today, India has one of the largest constellations of remote sensing satellites in operation.
    • Currently, *thirteen* operational satellites are in Sun-synchronous orbit and *four* in Geostationary orbit.
    • The data from these satellites are used for several applications covering agriculture, water resources, urban planning, rural development, mineral prospecting, environment, forestry, ocean resources and disaster management.

  • Water on the Moon

    The Moon has water at places where none had been detected before and has potentially more water than previously believed in regions where it was already understood to exist.

    Try this MCQ:

    Q.NASA’s VIPER mission sometimes seen in news is related to the study of-

    a)Moon

    b)Venus

    c)Sun

    d)None of these

    Water on the moon

    • In two separate studies in Nature Astronomy, scientists have reported findings with potentially huge implications for sustaining humans on the Moon in the future.
    • One study reports the detection of water on the Moon’s sunlit surface for the first time.
    • The other estimates that the Moon’s dark, shadowy regions, which potentially contain ice, are more widespread than thought.

    Why is the discovery of water important?

    • Apart from being a marker of potential life, water is a precious resource in deep space.
    • For astronauts landing on the Moon, water is necessary not only to sustain life but also for purposes such as generating rocket fuel.
    • NASA’s Artemis programme plans to send the first woman and the next man to the Moon in 2024 and hopes to establish a “sustainable human presence” there by the end of the decade.

    What was known about water on the Moon?

    • Previous Moon studies, including by the ISRO Chandrayaan-1 mission, have provided evidence for the existence of water.
    • In 2009, the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument aboard Chandrayaan-1 found water molecules in the Polar Regions.

    What is different in the new discovery?

    • This time, it is confirmed H20 molecules, discovered in Clavius Crater in the Moon’s southern hemisphere.
    • And it is the first time water has been detected on the sunlit side, showing it is not restricted to the shadowy regions.
    • SOFIA, which is a modified Boeing 747SP jetliner that flies at altitudes up to 45,000 feet, has an infrared camera that picked up the wavelength unique to water molecules.
    • The data showed water in concentrations of 100-412 parts per million trapped in 1 cubic metre of soil.

    How could the water have formed?

    • Space rocks carrying small amounts of water could have bombarded the Moon.
    • Alternatively, the Sun’s solar wind could have carried hydrogen, which then reacted with minerals in the lunar soil to create hydroxyl, which later transformed into water.
    • The sunlit surface retaining the water presents a puzzle since the Moon does not have a thick atmosphere.
    • One possibility is that the water gets trapped into tiny bead-like structures that were created in the soil by impacts from space rocks.
    • Alternatively, the water could be hidden between grains of lunar soil and sheltered from the sunlight, NASA said.

    So, how widespread is water on the Moon?

    • On the sunlit side, it is not yet known whether the water SOFIA found is easily accessible.
    • On the other hand, the hidden, shadowy pockets on the lunar surface called “cold traps” are spread across a combined 40,000 sq km, the other study has reported.
    • The cold traps have gone without sunlight for potentially billions of years. If they do contain ice, it means water is going to be more accessible than previously assumed.

    What next?

    • SOFIA will look for water in additional sunlit locations to learn more about how the water is produced, stored, and moved across the Moon.
    • Meanwhile, NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) will carry out a mission to create the first water resource maps of the Moon.