NASA astronaut Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station on Oct. 7, 2015. Sharing with his social media followers, Kelly wrote, “The daily morning dose of #aurora to help wake you up. #GoodMorning from @Space_Station! #YearInSpace”
Image Credit: NASA
Source….www.nasa.gov
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A $US150-billion contraption floating 270 miles above Earth is one of the most impressive achievements of humankind.
It’s called the International Space Station (ISS), and a rotating astronaut crew has occupied it since 2000. The work of those astronauts has yielded some incredible scientific insights.
Astronaut is not a profession where you get to go home at the end of the day though. One ticket from Earth to the ISS costs about $US70 million, so normally each crew lives and works on the station for a six-month shift.
Right now NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are in the middle of a year-long shift aboard the ISS. They will be the first humans to spend a consecutive year living in space.
But what is it like to actually live on the ISS?
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That includes everything from dirty wash water, water from astronauts’ breath, and yes, even urine is recycled. It’s all sent through this high-tech water filter on board.
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One wrong move and an astronaut could just float off into the vacuum of space (like George Clooney in ‘Gravity’). They also have to watch for leaks in the spacesuits that protect them from the bitterly cold temperatures and radiation in space.
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London’s Heathrow Airport is one of the busiest hubs in the world and serves as a major connecting point for traffic between Asia and Africa with North America.
As Britain’s main international airport, Heathrow has been working hard to upgrade its facilities. In recent years, the airport has opened two brand new terminal buildings and have conducted significant renovations to others.
However, the greatest constraint on the airport has been it’s lack of runways. Although more than 72 million passengers pass through Heathrow every year, the facility still operates using just two runways.
However, if Heathrow’s latest expansion plans are approved, things are about to change for airport.
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Heathrow development came just in time for the arrival of the jet set! Along with celebrities such as The Beatles and …
Flickr/Tony Hisgett
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source….BENJAMIN ZHANG in http://www.businessinsider .com.au
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Airports are exciting places of activity, but at times they also can be overwhelming for some fliers.
Mumbai airport is possibly the first in the country to employ animals that would help ease travellers’ anxieties about returning to the skies. Earlier, therapy dogs were used to comfort special children and traumatised adults at US airports after the 9/11 attacks.
Their mission is to put a smile on every passenger’s face they interact with.
Of course, not everyone is a dog lover. Some people would feel less stressed at an airport if they could cuddle with a cat.
But, let’s admit it, passengers will now have a PAWSitive experience at the Mumbai airport! 🐾
News Source: Hindustan Times
Source….Shuvro Ghoshal …www.storypick.com
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| The Icon A-5 is a whole new aviation concept. It is designed to be a personal airplane aimed at the domestic leisure market – and people don’t need to be experienced pilots to fly it. The A-5 intends to simplify the flying process so much that anyone can pick up the skills necessary to fly the plane quickly and easily, and it has a whole stack of sophisticated safety features to help it achieve this goal. The aircraft has been in development since 2008 and is moving towards general release, having passed through the first of the necessary regulatory checks. Let’s have a look at this incredible concept and see a video of the A-5 in action.
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After months of intense training and a white-knuckled trip through the ozone layer at nine times the speed of a rifle bullet, you can bet that NASA astronauts need to bank some rest.
Space sailors log really long hours throughout their days on tasks that require intense concentration, which is why NASA schedules precisely 8.5 hours of sleep per 24 on deck.
The International Space Station (ISS) orbits the Earth at 17,150 miles per hour, clocking one lap around our planet every hour and a half. Doing the math, this means 16 sunsets every 24 hours — a new day every 90 minutes.
Fascinating, yes, but this unrelenting motion can create colossal jet lag and wreak havoc on an astronaut’s internal body clock.
Hence, Mission Control’s strict bedtime schedule and windows-shut policy.
(Though according to one report, snoozing astronauts still see streaks and bursts of bright color caused by high-energy cosmic rays bursting harmlessly onto their retinas.)
To establish to a regular schedule in zero gravity, Mission Control keeps our diurnal astronauts on Greenwich Mean Time.
The crew members are provided sleep pods that look like padded broom closets. They have custom sleeping sacks fastened to a wall or the ceiling, lest they float about the cabin.
According to retired astronaut Marsha Ivins, who spent 42 days in space on five different missions, their sleeping bag has armholes that allow you to reach outside the bag to zip it up. You then settle yourself in by tightening the attached Velcro straps. If you don’t tuck your appendages into the bag, they’ll drift out in front of you.
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield offers this video tour of his very own sleep sack aboard the ISS. After showing off his astro-PJs you can watch him zip up and close the doors to his pod.
That’s a whole other issue. Though not everyone wants or needs one, Ivins says she did, to help her neck relax. She actually attached her head to a block of foam.
“You put the back of your head on [the ‘pillow’],” she says, “and then you Velcro the front of your head to it.”
Actually there was one reported case of … drifting.
According to a British reporter, one Russian crew member apparently preferred to do without a sleep pod or sleeping bag. His fellow crewmembers, still awake after he turned in, saw him float by — presumably in the midst of sweet dreams. They watched him “bouncing off the walls, his course set by the air currents that gently pushed and pulled him.”
No. As hard as they try to get comfy, most astronauts don’t get enough rest. Many are routinely sleep deficient, logging just six hours of sleep every 24 hours.
However, some astronauts speculate that these short sleep sessions may be the result of the body’s feeling less fatigued in a microgravity environment. Less fatigue may equal less sleep need.
According to dream studies conducted aboard the Russian space shuttle Mir, astronauts experience significantly diminished REM sleep in space compared to us Earthlings. They are therefore continually monitored for any and all ill effects.
“Efforts are planned to understand more fully the spaceflight environment and the role that other factors may play in reducing or promoting sleep,” said Lauren Leveton, PhD, senior research scientist in NASA’s Behavioral Health and Performance Division.
During the 30-year space shuttle program, which ended in 2011, it was a NASA tradition to have wake-up calls during the shuttle missions. Each “morning” at the scheduled wake-up time, ground operations broadcast a song into the space shuttle cabin. A wide range of musical styles were played, including rock, pop, western and classical.
Each song was selected for a particular astronaut. Sometimes the astronauts requested the tune; other times their families selected a song with special meaning.
Unfortunately, the wake-up service is not available on the ISS. There, the crew must use a regular alarm clock.
Source….www.businessinsider.com.au
Natarajan
The aviation industry is always looking for new ways to get more people into their planes and judging by a new patent filing, Airbus is proposing a pretty radical idea.
The manufacturer of the world’s largest commercial jet, the A380, just filed a patent in Europe for a number of wacky looking seating configurations on its aircraft, creating the potential to jam even more people into planes.
In the patent filing, the company says “in modern means of transport, in particular in aircraft, it is very important from an economic point of view to make optimum use of the available space. Passenger cabins are therefore fitted with as many rows of passenger seats as possible, which are positioned with as little space between them as possible.”
Amongst the range of new configurations is a business class cabin with a mezzanine level.
Passengers on the upper level would have to climb steps to reach their seats. Seats in this configuration would recline flat, allowing passengers to enjoy an airborne version of being in a bunkbed.
Another design shows two passengers seated on a mezzanine, face to face, something which business travellers looking to get work done might find particularly helpful!
The patents may be designed to save space but Airbus was also keen to stress that the new seats will provide a “high level of comfort for the passengers using the seat arrangement.”
It also said that the seat configurations could be used on trains and buses. One bonus that might come from such cramped conditions is that air fares could get cheaper.
But no matter how unpleasant these planes might look, it seems unlikely that the designs will ever come into use.
Airbus is well known for filing hundreds of patents per year in order to protect its intellectual property and ensure that competitors like Boeing cannot get the upper hand.
Recent patents filed by the company include a jet that could travel across the Atlantic in only one hour.
Source….Will Martin….www.businessinsider.com.au
Natarajan
A team of students from Indian Institute of Science bagged a coveted award at the Student Design Competition conducted by American Helicopter Society International. This is what the students had designed.
This August, four students from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, won the ‘Best New Entry – Graduate’ award at the Student Design Competition conducted annually by the American Helicopter Society International.
The eco-friendly aspect of the challenge was that the helicopter should function at a noise level lower than a prescribed limit, with minimal carbon footprint. Team Lakshya, of aerospace engineering department of IISc, came up with two solutions:
Both the vehicles partly derive power from their blades, thus reducing carbon footprint as compared to helicopters which are fully powered by fossil fuels.
The technology behind using energy from blade vibrations has been developed by the Non Linear Multifunctional Composites Analysis and Design (NMCAD) laboratory of the department of aerospace engineering in IISc. The institute is in the process of getting the technology patented. The team behind the development of this technology was crowned ultimate champion at the 4th edition of UNESCO-Airbus biennial innovation challenge, “Fly Your Ideas (FYI)” at Hamburg, Germany, in June this year.
American Helicopter Society organizes the Student Design Competition in association with other major helicopter companies, and this was the 32nd edition of the competition.
“The AHS International annual Student Design Competition challenges students to design a vertical lift aircraft that meets specified requirements, provides a practical exercise for engineering students at colleges and universities around the world and promotes student interest in vertical flight technology,” says that society’s website.
Every year, the organizers choose an open design problem and students have to submit their entries. The jury has academic and well as industry experts.
“It is indeed a proud moment and a wonderful experience to be recognised by the world’s most renowned vertical flight society,” said Rajnish Mallick, a doctoral graduate from IISc, who led Team Lakshya, to The Hindu.
Source…. Tanaya Singh….www.thebetterindia.com
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This mission will study astronomical phenomena, puts India in select group of nations
Astrosat is compared to NASA’s Hubble telescope. Photograph: ISRO
The Indian Space Research Organisation on Monday successfully launched the Astrosat satellite. Through this launch, India has joined a select group of countries that have their own space observatory satellite.
Here are five things you need to know about Astrosat.
But experts say it is not right to call Astrosat India’s Hubble, as the NASA version is 10 times heavier than Astrosat and is said to cost $2.5 billion, while India’s satellite costs around Rs 180 crore.
Source….www.rediff.com
Natarajan
ISRO has successfully launched India’s first dedicated multi wavelength space observatory – ASTROSAT, which is meant to observe distant celestial objects and to gain a more detailed understanding of our universe.
Right after celebrating the completion of Mangalyaan’s first year in the Martian orbit, the Indian Space Research Organization has set yet another milestone today. ISRO got its name etched in the scientific history of the India with the launch of the country’s first dedicated multi wavelength space observatory – ASTROSAT.
And the final launch took place at 10 am today from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. –
ASTROSAT is an astronomy observatory, a place from where India can study different cosmological phenomena. It is meant to observe distant celestial objects and to gain a more detailed understanding of our universe.
The 1,513-kg satellite, estimated to have cost around Rs. 180 crore, was launched by PSLV-C30 into a 650 km orbit inclined at an angle of 6 degree to the equator. This is the 31st flight of India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), and six small satellites of three foreign countries have also been launched along with ASTROSAT. It is for the first time that the PSLV launcher, which has lifted 45 small and mid-sized foreign satellites till date, is carrying four US Nano satellites. The other satellites are from Canada and Indonesia.
The spacecraft control centre at Mission Operations Complex (MOX) of ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Bangalore will manage the satellite during its mission life.
While most of ISRO’s spacecraft are for specific applications such as communication, Earth observation and navigation, this is one among the few scientific satellites launched by the country. According to the official release by ISRO, missions of ASTROSAT include the following:
ASTROSAT in clean room before its integration with PSLV-C30 –
They will gather data for the better understanding of various astrophysical processes occurring in our universe, and will send it to the ground station at MOX. This data will then be processed and distributed by the Indian Space Science Data Centre (ISSDC). While most scientific satellites can observe a narrow range of wavelength band, ASTROSAT will observe universe in the optical, ultraviolet, low and high energy X-ray regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. All major astronomy institutions and some universities in India will also participate in these observations.
The types and functions of the payloads as described by ISRO are as follows:
The Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT, capable of observing the sky in the Visible, Near Ultraviolet and Far Ultraviolet regions of the electromagnetic spectrum
Large Area X-ray Proportional Counter (LAXPC, is designed for study the variations in the emission of X-rays from sources like X-ray binaries, Active Galactic Nuclei and other cosmic sources.
Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT) is designed for studying how the X-ray spectrum of 0.3-8 keV range coming from distant celestial bodies varies with time.
Cadmium Zinc Telluride Imager (CZTI), functioning in the X-ray region, extends the capability of the satellite to sense X-rays of high energy in 10-100 keV range.
Scanning Sky Monitor(SSM),is intended to scan the sky for long term monitoring of bright X-ray sources in binary stars, and for the detection and location of sources that become bright in X-rays for a short duration of time.
CONGRATULATIONS @isro! PSLV-C30 successfully launches #ASTROSAT into the orbit. pic.twitter.com/3PlK5BLZWR
— Doordarshan National (@DDNational) September 28, 2015
Source……..Tanaya Singh…www.the better india .com
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