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Subject: Space Technology

  • Hope:  UAE’s first mission to Mars

    The launch of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) first mission to Mars has been delayed by two days due to bad weather conditions which were scheduled to take off from its launch site, Tanegashima Space Center, in Japan.

    Try this question from CSP 2014:

    Q.Which of the following pair is/are correctly matched?

    Spacecraft Purpose
    1. Cassini-Huygens Orbiting the Venus and transmitting data to the Earth
    2. Messenger Mapping and investigating the Mercury
    3. Voyager 1 and 2 Exploring the outer solar system

    Select the correct answer using the code given below.

    a) 1 only

    b) 2 and 3 only

    c) 1 and 3 only

    d) 1, 2 and 3

    Hope Mission

    • The Emirates Mars Mission called “Hope” was announced in 2015 with the aim of creating mankind’s first integrated model of the Red planet’s atmosphere.
    • Hope weighs over 1500 kg and will carry scientific instruments mounted on one side of the spacecraft, including the Emirates exploration Imager (EXI), which is a high-resolution camera among others.
    • The spacecraft will orbit Mars to study the Martian atmosphere and its interaction with outer space and solar winds.
    • Hope will collect data on Martian climate dynamics, which should help scientists understand why Mars’ atmosphere is decaying into space.

    Objectives of the mission

    • Once it launches, Hope will orbit Mars for around 200 days, after which it will enter the Red planet’s orbit by 2021, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the founding of UAE.
    • The mission is being executed by the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, UAE’s space agency.
    • It will help answer key questions about the global Martian atmosphere and the loss of hydrogen and oxygen gases into space over the span of one Martian year.

    Back2Basics: Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM)

    • The MOM also called Mangalyaan is a space probe orbiting Mars since 24 September 2014. It was launched on 5 November 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
    • It aims at studying the Martian surface and mineral composition as well as scans its atmosphere for methane (an indicator of life on Mars).
    • It is India’s first interplanetary mission and it made it the fourth space agency to reach Mars, after Roscosmos, NASA, and the European Space Agency.
    • It made India the first Asian nation to reach Martian orbit and the first nation in the world to do so on its maiden attempt.
    • It was initially meant to last six months, but subsequently, ISRO had said it had enough fuel for it to last “many years.”

  • Kuaizhou-11 Rocket

    China’s 19th launch of 2020, the Kuaizhou-11 rocket, failed in its mission.

    Try this question from CSP 2014:

    Q.Which of the following pair is/are correctly matched?

    Spacecraft Purpose
    1. Cassini-Huygens Orbiting the Venus and transmitting data to the Earth
    2. Messenger Mapping and investigating the Mercury
    3. Voyager 1 and 2 Exploring the outer solar system

    Select the correct answer using the code given below.

    a) 1 only

    b) 2 and 3 only

    c) 1 and 3 only

    d) 1, 2 and 3

    The Kuaizhou-11

    • Kuaizhou, meaning “fast ship” in Chinese, was operated by the commercial launch firm Expace and was originally scheduled for 2018 after being developed three years earlier.
    • Also known as KZ-11, it had a lift-off mass of 70.8 tonnes, and was designed to launch low-Earth and Sun-synchronous orbit satellites.
    • It was carrying two satellites — the first being a remote sensing satellite that would provide data to clients on a commercial basis for forecasting and managing geological disasters.
    • It would also provide the information required for natural resource exploration. The second was part of a series of satellites for low-Earth orbit navigation.
    • Both satellites were built by Changguang Satellite Co. Ltd., a commercial entity born out of the state-owned firms.

  • Rare Comet ‘C/2020 F3 Neowise’

    The C/2020 F3 comet also dubbed NEOWISE will be visible with the naked eye for around 20 minutes every day for 20 days across India.

    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 are Comets?

    • Comets or “dirty snowballs” are mostly made of dust, rocks and ice, the remnants from the time the solar system was formed over 4.6 billion years ago.
    • The word comet comes from the Latin word “Cometa” which means “long-haired” and the earliest known record of a comet sighting was made by an astrologer in 1059 BC.
    • Comets can range in their width from a few miles to tens of miles wide.
    • While there are millions of comets orbiting the sun, there are more than 3,650 known comets as of now, according to NASA.

    How do they illuminate?

    • Comets do not have the light of their own and what humans are able to see from Earth is the reflection of the sun’s light off the comet as well as the energy released by the gas molecules after it is absorbed from the sun.
    • The visibility cannot be precisely predicted since a lot depends on the way the “outbursts” of gas and dust play out determining how much of a “good show” the comet will put out for observers.
    • As they orbit closer to the sun, they heat up and release debris of dust and gases that form into a “glowing head” that can often be larger than a planet.

    Why do they get close to the sun?

    • Comets may be occasionally pushed into orbits closer to the sun and the Earth’s neighbourhood due to forces of gravity of other planets.
    • The appearance of some comets, like those that take less than 200 years to orbit around the sun is predictable since they have passed by before.
    • These may be referred to as short-period comets and can be found in the Kuiper belt, where many comets orbit the sun in the realm of Pluto, occasionally getting pushed into orbits that bring them closer to the sun.
    • One of the most famous short-period comets is called Halley’s Comet that reappears every 76 years. Halley’s will be sighted next in 2062.
    • Comets in this cloud can take as long as 30 million years to complete one rotation around the sun.

    Significance of the comets

    • NASA tracks all Near Earth Objects (NEOs) that includes comets and asteroids using telescopes placed all around the Earth, as part of its NEO Observation Program.
    • Comets hold important clues about the formation of the solar system and it is possible that comets brought water and other organic compounds, which are the building blocks of life to Earth.

    Back2Basics

  • Carbon enrichment of the Universe

    A recent study has provided new insights on the origins of the carbon in our galaxy.

    Try this question from CSP 2016:

    Q.Consider the following:

    1. Photosynthesis
    2. Respiration
    3. Decay of organic matter
    4. Volcanic action

    Which of the above add carbon dioxide to the carbon cycle on earth?

    (a) 1 and 4 only

    (b) 2 and 3 only

    (c) 2, 3 and 4 only

    (d) 1, 2, 3 and 4

    Why study Carbon?

    • Carbon is essential for life: It is the simple building block of all the complex organic molecules that organisms need.
    • It is known that all the carbon in the Milky Way came from dying stars that ejected the element into their surroundings.
    • What has remained debated, however, is what kind of stars made the major contribution.
    • The study shows the analysis of white dwarfs — the dense remnants of a star after its death.

    How does carbon come from stars?

    • Most stars — except the most massive ones — are doomed to turn into white dwarfs.
    • When the massive ones die, they go with a spectacular bang known as the supernova.
    • Both low-mass and massive stars eject their ashes into the surroundings before they end their lives.
    • And these ashes contain many different chemical elements, including carbon.

    How is it synthesized?

    • Both in low-mass stars and in massive stars carbon is synthesized in their deep and hot interiors through the triple-alpha reaction that is the fusion of three helium nuclei.
    • In low-mass stars, the newly synthesized carbon is transported to the surface [from the interiors] via gigantic bubbles of gas and from there injected into the cosmos through stellar winds.
    • Massive stars enrich the interstellar medium with carbon mostly before the supernova explosion, when they also experience powerful stellar winds.

    Findings of the news research

    • It was earlier debated that whether the carbon in the Milky Way originated from low-mass stars before they became white dwarfs or from the winds of massive stars before they exploded as supernovae.
    • The new research suggests that white dwarfs may shed more light on carbon’s origin in the Milky Way.
    • The researchers measured the masses of the white dwarfs, derived their masses at birth, and from there calculated the “initial-final mass relation”.
    • The IFMR is a key astrophysical measure that integrates information of the entire life cycles of stars.
    • They found that the relationship bucked a trend — that the more massive the star at birth, the more massive the white dwarf left at its death.
    • So far, stars born roughly 1.5 billion years ago in our galaxy were thought to have produced white dwarfs about 60-65% the mass of our Sun.

    What explains this?

    • From an analysis of the initial-final mass relation around the little kink, the researchers drew their conclusions about the size range for the stars that contributed carbon to the Milky Way.
    • Stars more massive than 2 solar masses, too, contributed to the galactic enrichment of carbon.
    • Stars less massive than 1.65 solar masses did not. In other words 1.65-Msun [1.65 times the mass of the Sun] represents the minimum mass for a star to spread its carbon-rich ashes upon death.

  • Lithium Nucleosynthesis in Stars

    A forty-year-old puzzle regarding the production of lithium in stars has been solved by Indian researchers.

    Try this question from CSP 2013:

    Q.Consider the following phenomena:

    1. Size of the sun at dusk
    2. Colour of the sun at dawn
    3. Moon being visible at dawn
    4. Twinkle of stars in the sky
    5. Polestar being visible in the sky

    Which of the above are optical illusions?

    (a) 1, 2 and 3

    (b) 3, 4 and 5

    (c) 1, 2 and 4

    (d) 2, 3 and 5

    Lithium nucleosynthesis in Stars

    • Stars, as per known mechanisms of evolution, actually destroy lithium as they evolve into red giants.
    • Planets were known to have more lithium than their stars — as is the case with the Earth-Sun pair.
    • However, leading to a contradiction, some stars were found that were lithium-rich.
    • The new work by an Indian researcher shows that when stars grow beyond their Red Giant stage into what is known as the Red Clump stage, they produce lithium.
    • This is known as a Helium Flash and this is what enriches them with lithium.

    Studying lithium-rich stars

    • About 40 years ago, a few large stars were spotted that were lithium-rich.
    • This was followed by further discoveries of lithium-rich stars, and that posed a puzzle — if stars do not produce lithium, how do some stars develop to become lithium-rich.
    • The planet engulfment theory was quite popular. For example, Earth-like planets may increase the star’s lithium content when they plunge into [their] star’s atmosphere when the latter become Red Giants.

    Findings of the Indian research

    • Indian researchers have been working on this puzzle for nearly 20 years to devise a method of measuring lithium content using low-resolution spectra in a large number of stars.
    • The study demonstrated that lithium abundance enhancement among low mass giant stars is common.
    • Until now, it was believed that only about 1% of giants are lithium-rich.
    • Secondly, the team has shown that as the star evolves beyond the Red Giant stage, and before it reaches the Red Clump stage, there is a helium flash which produces an abundance of lithium.

    Back2Basics: Lithium

    • Lithium is a chemical element with the symbol Li and atomic number 3. It is a soft, silvery-white alkali metal. Under standard conditions, it is the lightest metal and the lightest solid element.
    • S light element commonly used today in communication device technology, it has an interesting story.
    • It was first produced in the Big Bang, around 13.7 billion years ago when the universe came into being, along with other elements.
    • While the abundance of other elements grew millions of times, the present abundance of lithium in the universe is only four times the original [Big Bang] value. It is actually destroyed in the stars.
    • The Sun, for instance, has about a factor of 100 lower amount of lithium than the Earth.

  • IN-SPACe: Future forerunner for India’s space economy

    • The government approved the creation of Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) to ensure greater private participation in India’s space activities.
    • This decision is described as historic being part of an important set of reforms to open up the space sector and make space-based applications and services more widely accessible to everyone.

    Practice question for mains:

    Q. What is IN-SPACe? Discuss how it would benefit ISRO and contribute to India’s space economy.

    What is IN-SPACe?

    • IN-SPACe is supposed to be a facilitator, and also a regulator.
    • It will act as an interface between ISRO and private parties and assess how best to utilise India’s space resources and increase space-based activities.
    • IN-SPACe is the second space organisation created by the government in the last two years.
    • In the 2019 Budget, the government had announced the setting up of a New Space India Limited (NSIL), a public sector company that would serve as a marketing arm of ISRO.

    Confusion over NSIL and ANTRIX

    • NSIL’s main purpose is to market the technologies developed by ISRO and bring it more clients that need space-based services.
    • That role, incidentally, was already being performed by Antrix Corporation, another PSU working under the Department of Space, and which still exists.
    • It is still not very clear why there was a need for another organisation with overlapping function.
    • The government now had clarified the role of NSIL that it would have a demand-driven approach rather than the current supply-driven strategy.
    • Essentially, what that means is that instead of just marketing what ISRO has to offer, NSIL would listen to the needs of the clients and ask ISRO to fulfil those.

    Then, why was IN-SPACe needed?

    (1) ISRO and its limited resources

    • It is not that there is no private industry involvement in India’s space sector.
    • In fact, a large part of the manufacturing and fabrication of rockets and satellites now happens in the private sector. There is increasing participation of research institutions as well.
    • Indian industry, however, is unable to compete, because till now its role has been mainly that of suppliers of components and sub-systems.
    • Indian industries do not have the resources or the technology to undertake independent space projects of the kind that US companies such as SpaceX have been doing or provide space-based services.

    (2) India and the global space economy

    • Indian industry had a barely three per cent share in a rapidly growing global space economy which was already worth at least $360 billion.
    • Only two per cent of this market was for rocket and satellite launch services, which require fairly large infrastructure and heavy investment.
    • The remaining 95 per cent related to satellite-based services, and ground-based systems.

    (3) Catering to domestic demands

    • The demand for space-based applications and services is growing even within India, and ISRO is unable to cater to this.
    • The need for satellite data, imageries and space technology now cuts across sectors, from weather to agriculture to transport to urban development and more.
    • If ISRO is to provide everything, it would have to be expanded 10 times the current level to meet all the demand that is arising.

    (4) Promoting other private players

    • Right now, all launches from India happen on ISRO rockets, the different versions of PSLV and GSLV.
    • There were a few companies that were in the process of developing their own launch vehicles, the rockets like ISRO’s PSLV that carry the satellites and other payloads into space.
    • Now ISRO could provide all its facilities to private players whose projects had been approved by IN-SPACe.

    How ISRO gains from all these?

    • There are two main reasons why enhanced private involvement in the space sector seems important.
    • One is commercial, and the other strategic. And ISRO seems unable to satisfy this need on its own.
    • Of course, there is a need for greater dissemination of space technologies, better utilization of space resources, and increased requirement of space-based services.
    • The private industry will also free up ISRO to concentrate on science, research and development, interplanetary exploration and strategic launches.
    • Right now too much of ISRO’s resources are consumed by routine activities that delay its more strategic objectives.

    A win-win situation for all

    • ISRO, like NASA, is essentially a scientific organisation whose main objective is the exploration of space and carrying out scientific missions.
    • There are a number of ambitious space missions lined up in the coming years, including a mission to observe the Sun, a mission to the Moon, a human spaceflight, and then, possibly, a human landing on the Moon.
    • And it is not that private players will wean away from the revenues that ISRO gets through commercial launches.
    • The space-based economy is expected to “explode” in the next few years, even in India, and there would be more than enough for all.
    • In addition, ISRO can earn some money by making its facilities and data available to private players.

  • Detection of Fluorine in hot Extreme Helium (EHe) Stars

    A study by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) has detected the presence of singly ionized fluorine for the first time in the atmospheres of hot Extreme Helium Stars.

    UPSC may ask a simple statement-based question considering the following points:

    If there is the presence of hydrogen, their abundance in universe and how it is different from neutron stars etc.

    What are EHe stars?

    • An extreme helium star or EHe is a low-mass supergiant that is almost devoid of hydrogen, the most common chemical element of the universe.
    • There are 21 of them detected so far in our galaxy.
    • The origin and evolution of these Hydrogen deficient objects have been shrouded in mystery.
    • Their severe chemical peculiarities challenge the theory of well-accepted stellar evolution as the observed chemical composition of these stars do not match with that predicted for low mass evolved stars.

    Why is the study significant?

    • Clues to the evolution of extreme helium stars require accurate determinations of their chemical composition, and the peculiarities, if any, become very important.
    • Fluorine plays a very crucial role in this regard to determine the actual evolutionary sequence of these hydrogen deficient objects.
    • The scientists explored the relationship of hot EHes with the cooler EHes, based on their fluorine abundance and spotted it in the former, thus establishing an evolutionary connection across a wide range of effective temperature.
    • This makes a strong case that the main form of these objects involves a merger of a carbon-oxygen (CO) and a Helium (He) white dwarf.
    • The detection of enhanced fluorine abundances in the atmospheres of hot EHes solves a decade-old mystery about their formation.

  • NASA’s Gateway Lunar Orbiting Outpost

    NASA recently finalised the contract for the initial crew module of the agency’s Gateway lunar orbiting outpost.

    Note the following things about the Lunar Gateway:

    1. Parent Agency and other agencies involved

    2. Missions and celestial bodies to be studied

    3. Difference between Gateway and ISS

    What is NASA’s Gateway Lunar Orbit Outpost?

    • Essentially, the Gateway is a small spaceship that will orbit the Moon, meant for astronaut missions to the Moon and later, for expeditions to Mars.
    • While the project is led by NASA, the Gateway is meant to be developed, serviced, and utilized in collaboration with commercial and international partners: Canada (CSA), Europe (ESA), and Japan (JAXA).
    • The spaceship will have living quarters, laboratories for science and research and docking ports for visiting spacecraft.
    • Once docked to the Gateway, astronauts will be able to stay there for three months at a time, conduct science experiments and take trips to the surface of the Moon.

    Features of the Gateway

    • One of the most unique features of the Gateway is that it can be moved to other orbits around the Moon to conduct more research.
    • The Gateway will act as an airport, where spacecraft bound for the lunar surface of Mars can refuel or replace parts and resupply things like food and oxygen, allowing astronauts to take multiple trips to the Lunar surface and exploration of new locations across the Moon.

    How is it different from ISS?

    • Astronauts will use the Gateway at least once per year and not stay around the year as they do on the International Space Station (ISS).
    • Compared to the ISS, the Gateway is much smaller (the size of a studio apartment), while the ISS is about the size of a six-bedroom house.

  • Near-Earth Object (NEO) 163348

    NASA announced that a giant asteroid is expected to pass Earth at a safe distance, today.

    Do you remember Osiris-Rex spacecraft of NASA? It is the only spacecraft to touch an asteroid called ‘Bennu’. NASA has brought back comet dust and solar wind particles before, but never asteroid samples.

    This makes it a landmark feat and thus a hotspot for UPSC prelims.

    What are NEOs?

    • NASA defines NEOs as comets and asteroids nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits which allows them to enter the Earth’s neighbourhood.
    • These objects are composed mostly of water ice with embedded dust particles.
    • NEOs occasionally approach close to the Earth as they orbit the Sun.
    • NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Study (CNEOS) determines the times and distances of these objects as and when their approach to the Earth is close.

    Significances of NEOs

    • The scientific interest in comets and asteroids is largely due to their status as relatively unchanged remnant debris from the solar system formation process over 4.6 billion years ago.
    • Therefore, these NEOs offer scientists clues about the chemical mixture from the planets formed.
    • Significantly, among all the causes that will eventually cause the extinction of life on Earth, an asteroid hit is widely acknowledged as one of the likeliest.
    • Over the years, scientists have suggested different ways to ward off such a hit, such as blowing up the asteroid before it reaches Earth, or deflecting it off its Earth-bound course by hitting it with a spacecraft.

    About 163348 (2002 NN4)

    • A Near-Earth Object (NEO), the asteroid is called 163348 (2002 NN4) and is classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA).
    • Asteroids with a minimum orbit intersection distance (MOID) of about 0.05 (AU is the distance between the Earth and the Sun and is roughly 150 million km) or less are considered PHAs.
    • This distance is about 7,480,000 km or less and an absolute magnitude (H) of 22 (smaller than about 150 m or 500 feet in diameter).

  • Radio lights from Sun’s Corona

    A group of India scientists have recently discovered tiny flashes of radio light emanating from all over the Sun, which they say could help in explaining the long-pending coronal heating problem.

    Possible prelim question:

    The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) Telescope recently seen in news is a landmark in observing: Gravitational Waves/Black Holes/Sun’s Corona/ etc..

    What is Sun’s Corona?

    • The corona is the outermost part of the Sun’s atmosphere. It is the aura of plasma that surrounds the Sun and other stars.
    • The Sun’s corona extends millions of kilometres into outer space and is most easily seen during a total solar eclipse, but it is also observable with a coronagraph.
    • Spectroscopy measurements indicate strong ionization in the corona and a plasma temperature in excess of 1000000 Kelvin much hotter than the surface of the Sun.

    Radio lights observed

    • These radio lights or signals result from beams of electrons accelerated in the aftermath of a magnetic explosion on the Sun.
    • While the magnetic explosions are not yet observable, these weak radio flashes are ‘smoking guns’ or the evidence for the same.
    • Hence it brought the researchers closer to explaining the coronal heating problem.

    Their significance

    • These observations are the strongest evidence till date that the tiny magnetic explosions originally referred to as ‘nanoflares’ by eminent American solar astrophysicist Eugene Parker.
    • It is the possible phenomena that could be heating up the corona (the aura of plasma that surrounds the sun and other stars).

    The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA)

    • The phenomenon of coronal heating has been known for the last 70 years, the availability of cutting edge data from the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) radio telescope proved to be a game-changer.
    • The MWA is a low-frequency radio telescope, located at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in Western Australia.
    • The MWA has been developed by an international collaboration, including partners from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, India, Canada and the United States.

    Solving the mystery

    • The strength of the magnetic fields varies a lot from one place on the surface of the Sun to another, by more than a factor of 1,000.
    • But the corona is hot everywhere. So, this heating process has to work all over the corona, even in regions of weak magnetic fields.
    • Until now, the process of how this magnetic energy is deposited in the corona had remained a mystery.