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India’s first-ever mission to Mars launched into space today (Nov. 5), beginning the country’s first interplanetary mission to explore the solar system. With a thunderous roar, India’s Mars Orbiter Mission rocketed into space at 4:08 a.m. EST (0908 GMT) from the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, where the local time will be 2:38 p.m. in the afternoon. An ISRO Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle launched the probe on its 300-day trek into orbit around the Red Planet. “The journey has only just begun,” said ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan after the successful launch. Less than an hour after liftoff, Radhakrishnan reported that India’s Mars probe successfully entered a staging orbit around Earth. Mars Orbiter Mission director Kunhi Krishnan describing the launch as a start to a “grand and glorious” mission. If all goes well, India’s first Mars orbiter — called Mangalyaan (Hindi for “Mars Craft”) — will arrive at the Red Planet… Read More

Washington: Skywatchers in parts of Africa, Europe and the United States will witness a rare ‘hybrid’ solar eclipse on Sunday- an unusual eclipse in which the Moon blocks the Sun – either fully or partially, depending on the location. The event is also known as the annual solar eclipse. Interestingly, this will be the second solar eclipse falling in 2013 and fifth eclipse overall. A hybrid eclipse usually starts and ends as an annular eclipse but appears as a total eclipse in the middle. However, today’s eclipse is rare as it starts as an annular eclipse and ends as a total eclipse.  The greatest part of the eclipse will take place at 1237 GMT over the Atlantic Ocean, some 330 kilometers (205 miles) southwest of Liberia, according to a NASA website that tracks eclipses. The west African nation of Gabon will get peak viewing of the total eclipse as it sweeps over a path nearly… Read More

Chennai: The countdown for the India’s ambitious Rs 430-crore Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) began Sunday 6.08 am at Sriharikota rocket port in Andhra Pradesh, a space agency official said. The countdown to the flight of Indian rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C25) will be for 56.30 hours which is expected to blast off at 2.38 pm. Tuesday, said an Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) official who did not wish to be named. On Saturday, all the pre-countdown activities were carried out after ISRO’s Launch Authorisation Board (LAB) gave it the green signal for the rocket’s flight Nov 1 from Sriharikota, around 80 km from here. According to ISRO, the MOM objectives are twofold — technological and scientific. The technological objectives include design and realisation of Mars orbiter with a capability to survive and perform Earth bound manoeuvres, cruise phase of 300 days, Mars orbit insertion/capture, and on-orbit phase around Mars. It will also enable deep… Read More

India is preparing to send a robotic spacecraft into orbit around Mars – a first for the country. The BBC’s Asia Business Reportspoke to K Radhakrishnan, chair of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) – the country’s space agency – about his hopes for the mission. Q: What is the objective of India’s Mars mission? A: Essentially in this Mars mission, which we are planning, the prime objective is to demonstrate India’s capability to capture the Martian orbit and then to conduct a few meaningful scientific experiments. Q: And what are you hoping to find? A: See, essentially when we talk about Mars and exploration of Mars, you look at life as one of those goals. So (we look for) the presence of methane in the Martian environment and see whether this methane, if it is there, has a biological origin or a geological origin. We also would like to study the Martian atmosphere and… Read More

The firm plans to establish a human settlement on Martian soil in 2023, by offering passengers a one-way ticket. Mars One will send “a small craft that will demonstrate the technologies we need for our human colony” and is inviting partners to join the mission. Bas Lansdorp revealed details of the test mission at the International Space Commerce 2013 Summit, in London. The first step is to test whether conditions for sustaining humans can be created, by sending experimental systems on a lander. “If you have a reason to get something to Mars, get in touch with me,” Lansdorp told the conference. “It could be a country that wants to do an experiment on Martian soil. “I know the UK space agency has been interested in getting to Mars in the past. They could put something on our lander and get a payload there. “We also have consumer firms that are interested in becoming ‘the… Read More

WASHINGTON: Researchers have developed a new device that turns human motion into power for electronic devices such as cell phones, cameras and tablets. The mobile generator ‘Genneo’ can charge a device with any type of movement so a user could purposefully shake it or just leave it in a pant pocket while taking a hike. “Genneo has created a revolutionary line of products that capture energy from walking, shaking or moving in other ways and turn it into charge for your phone and other portable electronics,” according to the product description on Kickstarter. “These products are easy to carry and they capture energy as you move normally, storing that energy in their on-board battery,” it said. The device includes a micro USB port and comes with a pre-charging cable with a standard USB connection on the other side; that cable allows you to plug in one end into Genneo and the other end into your… Read More