space

World”s Longest Flight On Biggest Plane ….

NatarajanLeave a comment

A380 pushing the limits

QANTAS is making aviation history today as the world’s largest passenger aircraft, the superjumbo A380, starts flying the world’s longest route — a non-stop trip lasting nearly 16 hours.

Well, it’s 14 hours 50 minutes to get from Sydney to Dallas/Fort Worth, but a longer 15 hours 30 minutes to return.

Passengers travelling on the route are now privy to the glam and size of the increasingly popular A380 with Qantas operating six direct return services per week.

Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce says the move reflect the airline’s history of endurance, setting records and connecting Australians to the world.

“Today, Qantas is leading the way again with the introduction of the world’s largest passenger aircraft on the world’s longest route, Sydney to Dallas/Fort Worth, with a flying time of almost 16 hours,” Mr Joyce said this morning at a media conference at Sydney Airport.

So what’s the attraction of arriving in the boot/scooting cowboy-laden city?

“Since starting on the route in 2011 the feedback from our corporate customers, especially those in the resources, technology and agricultural sectors, tells us they like flying into the Dallas hub because it gets them closer to their final destination in the US and offers great onward connections.

“The Dallas/Fort Worth service offers direct access right into the heart of the US with over 50 connections to all US major cities all within four hours, including Orlando, Boston and Houston.”

Qantas recently announced increased services to the US, and will now offer 41 services per week to North America. About half of these services are operated by A380 aircraft and the other half by B747s with A380-style interiors.

Alan Joyce at the meeting event today.

Alan Joyce at the meeting event today. Source: NewsComAu

Mr Joyce said introducing A380 services between Sydney and Dallas/Fort Worth, which is the only direct flight from Australia to inland United States, would provide enhance the customer experience and boost capacity.

“We know our customers will value the comfort of the A380 on this route,” he said. “It’s also a vote of confidence in Qantas’s business going forward.

“Not only will the A380 increase seats on the route by more than 10 per cent each week, it will also provide us with greater fuel efficiency and the range to operate the return service direct back to Sydney.

Dallas, here we come.

Dallas, here we come. Source: News Limited

“Our customers also now have the choice of four cabins to both Los Angeles and Dallas/Fort Worth as we introduce our Marc Newson designed First Class Suites on the Dallas/Fort Worth route for the first time.”

The new A380 service will also create further opportunities for both tourism and TRADE between Australia and the US.

“Dallas/Fort Worth is home to our partner American Airlines, and it’s the perfect hub for both business and leisure travellers heading in either direction across the Pacific.”

Mr Joyce said the fall in the Australian dollar actually has a positive impact on its international business.

“Sure there is always an impact in fuel prices but luckily we have seen a decrease in fuel prices of late regardless.”

 

The world’s longest flights in distance include The Sydney — Dallas/Fort Worth leg at 13,804km followed by Delta’s Johannesburg to Atlanta at 13,582km and Emirates Dubai — Los Angeles at 13,420km.

In 1989, Qantas operated the world’s longest non-stop delivery flight, when it flew a Boeing B747-400 from London to Sydney in 21 hours. Meanwhile Qantas holds the record for the longest regular commercial flight time-wise, set in 1944 from Perth to Sri Lanka.

The new flight replaces the current Boeing 747-400ER aircraft used on the route. The A380 will step up to a daily service over the 2014-2015 summer holiday season, from December 9 2014 to January 20 2015.

DFW airport is upgrading one terminal with three extra aerobridges to load passengers on the double-decker jet, while Qantas’ partner Emirates is set to begin A380 flights between DFW and Dubai from October 1.

Qantas’ existing flights between Melbourne, Dubai and London will be retimed to make room for these extra A380 services.

“This schedule change unlocks more A380 flying time that we can use on the Dallas route, and now offers four times the number of onward connections to Europe because of the new arrival time of the Melbourne flight into Dubai,” adds Qantas CEO Alan Joyce.

Qantas says the current mix of Boeing 747 and Airbus A380 flights from Sydney to Hong Kong will also face “adjustments”, although the airline hasn’t yet revealed whether the A380 will disappear from Asia entirely.

Fun flying facts:

• The Qantas A380 carries 323,000 litres of fuel, equivalent to eight backyard swimming pools.

• The Qantas A380 is fitted with a First, Business, Premium Economy and Economy cabin offering 484 seats, (14 First, 64 Business, 35 Premium Economy and 371 Economy).

• Qantas is the larger purchaser of Australian wines.

• The A380 delivers up to 10 per cent improvement in fuel efficiency and carbon emissions per revenue tonne kilometre, than most of today’s largest passenger jets.

• Qantas began flying to Dallas Fort Worth in May 2011 and is the only carrier to operate direct services from Australia to Dallas/Fort Worth.

The writer is flying as a guest of Qantas.Follow Melissa’s (mis)adventures to Texas on Instagram and Twitter @melissahoyer.   

Source:::: MELISSA HOYER  in news.com.au

Natarajan

Image of the Day…Curiosity Rover Drilling Mars Mountain…

NatarajanLeave a comment

Curiosity rover drill pulls first taste from Mars mountain

The mission’s emphasis has changed from drive, drive, drive to systematic layer-by-layer investigation. “Curiosity flew hundreds of millions of miles to do this.”

This image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the first sample-collection hole drilled in Mount Sharp, the layered mountain that is the science destination of the rover's extended mission. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has collected its first taste of the layered mountain whose scientific allure drew the mission to choose this part of Mars as a landing site.

Late Wednesday, September 24, the rover’s hammering drill chewed about 2.6 inches (6.7 centimeters) deep into a basal-layer outcrop on Mount Sharp and collected a powdered-rock sample. Data and images received early Thursday at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, confirmed success of this operation. The powder collected by the drilling is temporarily held within the sample-handling mechanism on the rover’s arm.

This southeastward-looking vista from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the

After landing on Mars in August 2012 but before beginning the drive toward Mount Sharp, Curiosity spent much of the mission’s first year productively studying in the Yellowknife Bay area, an area much closer to the landing site, but in the opposite direction.

From Yellowknife Bay to the base of Mount Sharp, Curiosity drove more than 5 miles (8 kilometers) in about 15 months, with pauses at a few science waypoints. The emphasis in mission operations has now changed from drive, drive, drive to systematic layer-by-layer investigation.

Jennifer Trosper of JPL is Curiosity Deputy Project Manager. She saud:

We’re putting on the brakes to study this amazing mountain.Curiosity flew hundreds of millions of miles to do this.

By investigating the shapes and chemical ingredients in the rock features, the team hopes to gain information about the possible composition of fluids at this Martian location long ago. Ashwin Vasavada of JPL is Curiosity Deputy Project Scientist. Vasavada said:

This drilling target is at the lowest part of the base layer of the mountain, and from here we plan to examine the higher, younger layers exposed in the nearby hills. This first look at rocks we believe to underlie Mount Sharp is exciting because it will begin to form a picture of the environment at the time the mountain formed, and what led to its growth.

Read more from NASA

 

SOURCE::::Earth sky news

Natarajan

Image of the Day… ” Young Moon Is Back in the Sky ….” !!!

NatarajanLeave a comment

Young moon returns to the evening sky

Moon was rising and setting with the sun in the past few days. Now it’s far enough from the sun’s glare to be visible in the evening sky, shortly after sunset.

Young moon - a waxing crescent in the west after sunset - captured by Spencer Mann in Davis, California on September 25, 2014.

The young moon is back in the evening sky. We received several photos of it from last night (September 25), and expect to see more photos as the sun sets across the world today. So far the only North American photo we’ve seen came from Spencer Mann in Davis, California. From his location on the western edge of the continent, he managed to catch last night’syoung moon. He wrote:

My aunt Kathy Friebertshauser and I camped out on a country road, waiting to see the waxing crescent. We weren’t disappointed – it was very faint, but clearly visible among the dark clouds, rose-tinged sky, and coastal mountains. It was definitely a scene worth waiting for!

Denis Crute in Parkes Australia had a better view of the moon than we do in North America. At this time of year (spring in the Southern Hemisphere), it’s possible to catch objects in the western twilight above the sunset, not to one side of the sunset as we now see it during our northern autumn. Here’s Denis’ photo, taken a few hours after Spencer caught his, as night fell in Australia on September 26.

Denis Crute had a better view of the moon from Parkes, Australia. Here it is on the Australian evening of September 26. Thank you, Denis!

Will you see the moon near Mercury on the evening of September 26? Maybe.

This little moon will be waxing in the evening sky over the next couple of weeks. It’s waxing toward a full moon eclipse, visible in North America, on the night of October 7-8.

 

SOURCE::::Earth sky news

Natarajan

Image of the Day…Pic. That Spoke 1000 Words !!!

NatarajanLeave a comment

India’s Mars mission: Picture that spoke 1,000 words

Indian staff from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) celebrate after the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft (MoM) successfully entered the Mars orbit

Related Stories

When the crowded command control room of India’s Mars mission exploded into applause after it successfully put a satellite into orbit around the Red Planet, photographer Manjunath Kiran of the AFP news agency clicked this remarkable image of scientists congratulating each other.

Wednesday’s picture arrived with a rather anodyne caption saying “staff from the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) celebrate after the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft (Mom) successfully entered the Mars orbit”.

But in reality, the picture was about much more than that – a bunch of smiling Indian women resplendent in gorgeous saris greeting each other as their male colleagues look on admiringly at mission control in Bangalore.

“The women were leading the applause when the good news arrived. They were celebrating more than men. Who said men are from Mars and women are from Venus?” says senior science journalist Pallava Bagla, who was present in the control room.

The picture – which brightened up my manic morning writing up the Mars mission story – went viral and became the event’s image of the day.

People in their thousands tweeted that they loved it. One said “when was the last time you saw women scientists celebrate a space mission?”; another that the women showed “we don’t need to wear labcoats”. Others said the scientists in saris had “redefined mission control” and called them “true role models”.

The chatter even veered into the contentious Indian debate about tradition and modernity.

Look at our rocket scientists, said one tweet, when women working in call centres think that wearing jeans “makes them modern and scientific”. Somebody wondered why “no matter how much women succeed/achieve, the focus ultimately is on what they are wearing?” That, another respondent tweeted, is “because we have newspapers telling us that smart career women don’t wear saris only western business suits!”.

Although we do not know for sure whether all the women in this picture are engineers or scientists, they all probably work with India’s space agency. Some 20% of Isro’s 14,246 employees are women and their numbers are growing.

Nandini Harinath, 44, a physicist and a mother of two, was the deputy operations director of the Mars mission – in other words, she was the person “operating” the spacecraft between Earth and Mars. “It’s easier to bring up children than to control the Mars orbiter,” she told the NDTV news channel. Minal Sampath and her team built three instruments for the spacecraft and she wants to become “the first woman director of a space centre”.

A woman leads one of the agency’s main strategic programmes. Another female engineer was in charge of wheeling out the 15-storey-high 320,000kg (320 tonne) Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV) from the vehicle assembly building to the launch pad. Tessy Thomas, a scientist from India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), is thought to be one of the very few women working on strategic nuclear ballistic missiles in the world. Three women led a team which launched a communication satellite three years ago.

What next? Will a woman head India’s space agency one day? (All seven chairmen of Isro so far have been men.) And, as Pallava Bagla writes, Isro reckons that the first astronaut from India “could well be a woman”. When that happens, Indian women will be over the moon.

SOURCE:::: Soutik BiswasDelhi correspondent IN BBC.COM

Natarajan

” ஒரு தேசத்தின் பெரும் பாய்ச்சல்…” !!!

NatarajanLeave a comment

நிலவில் கால்வைத்தவுடன் நீல் ஆம்ஸ்ட்ராங் சொன்ன வாசகங்கள் இவை: ‘‘ஒரு மனிதனைப் பொறுத்தவரை சிறிய காலடிதான் இது. ஆனால், மனித குலத்தைப் பொறுத்தவரை பெரும் பாய்ச்சல்.” இந்தியாவின் மங்கள்யான் செவ்வாயை எட்டிப்பிடித்திருக்கும் தருணத்திலும் ஆம்ஸ்ட்ராங்கின் வாசகங்கள் மிகவும் பொருத்தமாக இருக்கின்றன. ஆம், நம் தேசத்தைப் பொறுத்தவரை பெரும் பாய்ச்சல்தான் இது.

இந்தியாவிலேயே தயாரான கருவிகள், பொருட்கள் போன்றவற்றைக் கொண்டு உருவாக்கப்பட்ட தொழில்நுட்பத்தின் சாதனை இது. மிக முக்கியமாக, இந்திய அறிவால் உருவான தொழில்நுட்பத்தின் பெரும் சாதனை என்றுதான் சொல்ல வேண்டும். இரண்டாம் உலகப் போருக்குப் பிறகு, சோவியத் ஒன்றியமும் அமெரிக்காவும் விண்வெளிப் போட்டியில் தீவிரமாக ஈடுபட்டதன் விளைவாக, நவீன வானியல் யுகம் அதிநவீன வானியல் யுகத்துக்கு வித்திட்டது. இந்தியாவுக்கோ, சுதந்திரம் அடைந்த பின் எல்லாவற்றையும் முதலிலிருந்து ஆரம்பிக்க வேண்டிய சூழல். எனவே, வளர்ந்த நாடுகள் ஏற்கெனவே ஓடிக்கொண்டிருந்த இந்த ஓட்டப் பந்தயத்தில் இந்தியா சற்றுத் தாமதமாகக் கலந்துகொண்டது.

எனினும், இன்று மங்கள்யான் வெற்றியின் மூலம் இந்தியா வானியல் பந்தயத்தின் முதல் இடங்களில் வந்துகொண்டிருப்பதைப் பார்க்கும்போது, அசாதாரணமான சாதனை இது என்றே சொல்லத் தோன்றுகிறது. உலகின் எந்த நாடும் முதல் முயற்சியிலேயே இதைச் சாதித்ததில்லை என்பது இந்தச் சாதனையை மேலும் உயர்த்தியிருக்கிறது. இதைச் சாத்தியமாக்கியிருக்கும் இஸ்ரோ விஞ்ஞானிகளுக்கும் அவர்களின் முன்னோடிகளுக்கும், மங்கள்யான் திட்டத்துக்கு ஒத்துழைப்பு நல்கிய ஆட்சியாளர்கள், அதிகாரிகள் அனைவருக்கும் வாழ்த்துக்களையும் நன்றியையும் இந்தத் தருணத்தில் நாம் உரித்தாக்குகிறோம்!

எந்த தேசத்துக்கும் இளைத்ததல்ல இந்தியா என்ற உண்மையை உரக்கச் சொல்லியிருக்கும் மங்கள்யான் வெற்றியை அனைவரும் கொண்டாடுவோம்!

புகைப்படங்கள் – தி இந்து ஆவணக் காப்பகம்

Topics:

சமூகம்|பதிவுகள்|பொது|

    தொகுப்பு: சாரி
    ஆசை
    ச. சிவசுப்பிரமணியன்
    வெ. சந்திரமோகன்   in THE HINDU…TAMIL
    Natarajan

MARS MAVEN OF NASA….

NatarajanLeave a comment

Mars MAVEN spacecraft’s first observations

MAVEN is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the tenuous upper atmosphere of Mars. It entered orbit around Mars on September 21, 2014.

MAVEN is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the tenuous upper atmosphere of Mars. It entered orbit around Mars on September 22, 2014. This composite image represents the first observations returned from the craft. Image via NASA

NASA said yesterday (September 24, 2014) that MAVEN – aka the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft – has now obtained its first observations of the extended upper atmosphere surrounding our neighboring planet Mars.

MAVEN is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the tenuous upper atmosphere of Mars. Its Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument obtained these false-color images eight hours after the successful completion of Mars orbit insertion by the spacecraft at 10:24 p.m. EDT Sunday, September 21, after a 10-month journey.

The image shows the planet from an altitude of 36,500 km in three ultraviolet wavelength bands. Blue shows the ultraviolet light from the sun scattered from atomic hydrogen gas in an extended cloud that goes to thousands of kilometers above the planet’s surface. Green shows a different wavelength of ultraviolet light that is primarily sunlight reflected off of atomic oxygen, showing the smaller oxygen cloud. Red shows ultraviolet sunlight reflected from the planet’s surface; the bright spot in the lower right is light reflected either from polar ice or clouds.

The oxygen gas is held close to the planet by Mars’ gravity, while lighter hydrogen gas is present to higher altitudes and extends past the edges of the image. These gases derive from the breakdown of water and carbon dioxide in Mars’ atmosphere. Over the course of its one-Earth-year primary science mission, MAVEN observations like these will be used to determine the loss rate of hydrogen and oxygen from the Martian atmosphere. These observations will allow us to determine the amount of water that has escaped from the planet over time.

Bottom line: First observations from the Mars MAVEN spacecraft, which is dedicated to exploring Mars’ tenuous upper atmosphere.

Via NASA

SOURCE:::: earth sky news

Natarajan

மங்கள்யான் அனுப்பிய முதல் புகைப்படம்… !!!

NatarajanLeave a comment

செவ்வாய் கிரகத்தை ஆராய அனுப்பப்பட்ட மங்கள்யான் விண்கலம் எடுத்த முதல் புகைப்படத்தை இஸ்ரோ வெளியிட்டுள்ளது.

இஸ்ரோவின் செவ்வாய் கிரக ஆராய்ச்சி மிஷனின் அதிகாரப்பூர்வ ஃபேஸ்புக் பக்கத்தில் ( ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission) முதல் புகைப்படம் வெளியிடப்பட்டுள்ளது.

மங்கள்யான் விண்கலம், அதில் பொருத்தப்பட்ட வண்ணப் புகைப்பட கேமராவை பயன்படுத்தி எடுக்கப்பட்ட 10 புகைப்படங்களை வியாழக்கிழமை காலை அனுப்பியுள்ளது. செவ்வாய்கிரகத்தின் மேற்பரப்பை படம் எடுத்துள்ளது.

இந்தப் புகைப்படங்கள் முதலில் பிரதமர் பார்வைக்கு அனுப்பிவைக்கப்பட்டன. அதனைத் தொடர்ந்து இஸ்ரோவின் மார்ஸ் மிஷன் ஃபேஸ்புக் பக்கத்தில் பகிர்ந்து கொள்ளப்பட்டுள்ளது.

புதன்கிழமை காலை மங்கள்யான் விண்கலம் செவ்வாய் சுற்றுவட்டப் பாதையில் வெற்றிகரமாக நிலைநிறுத்தப்பட்டது. விண்கலம், சுற்றுவட்டப் பாதையில் நிலைநிறுத்தப்பட்ட சில மணி நேரங்களில் விண்கலத்தில் இருந்தவற்றில் 5 உபகரணங்கள் இயக்கப்பட்டன.

அதில் ஒன்று வண்ணப் புகைப்பட கேமராவாகும். அந்த கேமரா செயல்படத் தொடங்கி, 10 புகைப்படங்களை அனுப்பியுள்ளது. மற்ற இயந்திரங்களும், ஒன்றன்பின் ஒன்றாக செயல்படத் துவங்கும் என இஸ்ரோ விஞ்ஞானிகள் தெரிவித்துள்ளனர்.

Source::::the hindu..tamil
Natarajan

5 Surprising Things That Cost More Than India’s Historic Mission To Mars !!!

NatarajanLeave a comment

India just became Asia’s first interplanetary power. The country’s Mangalyaan satellite successfully made it into orbit around Mars on Wednesday after a roughly 10-month journey. The mission comes at an astonishingly low cost of $74 million, or nearly one-tenth of the price of NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft that entered the red planet’s orbit Sunday night.

Indian Space Research Organization chief K. Radhakrishnan even called the Mars Orbiter Mission “the cheapest interplanetary mission ever to be undertaken by the world.”

Just how cheap? This graph shows a handful of surprising things that cost more than India’s Mars mission.

India Mars

Business Insider

  • The most expensive apartment ever sold in London had a price tag of $237 million. You could get three of India’s satellites for that cost, and with a better view.
  • The new F-35 fighter jet costs a jaw-dropping $160 million a pop.
  • “Gravity” starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock cost about $100 million. That’s about one-third more than the cost of the successful Mars mission.
  • The Airbus A380 would set you back more than $400 million. You could get more than five Mangalyaan satellites for that price.

 

SOURCE:::: Mike Bird  in Business Insider India.com

NATARAJAN

Mangalyaan Reaches MARS On FIRST Attempt…

NatarajanLeave a comment

 

India put a satellite into Mars orbit early Wednesday, the only nation to have done so on a maiden voyage and the first in Asia to reach the red planet.

As the country’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi looked on, space scientists at mission control in Bangalore, India’s tech capital, announced that the Mangalyaan orbiter had entered Mars orbit after a 10-month voyage from Earth.

Mangalyaan, Hindi for Mars craft, cost $74 million to send into space, making it by far the cheapest of recent missions to Mars. The U.S. spent $671 million getting its Maven satellite to Mars orbit, where it arrived late Sunday.

Mr. Modi boasted in June that India had spent less than Hollywood had on producing the film “Gravity” to reach the red planet. On Wednesday, Mr. Modi, wearing a bright red jacket, hugged  Koppillil Radhakrishnan chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, before addressing ISRO scientists in Hindi and English. “History has been created today, we have dared to reach out into the unknown and have achieved the near impossible,” Mr. Modi said.  ”I congratulate all ISRO scientists as well as all my fellow Indians on this historic occasion.”

“We have gone beyond the boundaries of human enterprise and imagination. We have navigated our spacecraft through a route known to very few,” the prime minister added.

A father and son looked at a scale model of India’s Mars Orbiter spacecraft at the Nehru Planetarium as a special preview on the Mars Orbiter Mission, in Bangalore on Sept. 23, 2014.
Manjunath Kiran/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

India now joins a small club of nations — the U.S., Russia and those in the European Space Agency – to have mastered interplanetary travel, giving it bragging rights over Asian rivals China and Japan whose attempts to get to Mars failed.

“Domestically this will boost the morale of the people that India has gained tremendous economic and technical development and is on the way pretty fast to becoming a developed country,” said Ram Jakhu, a professor at the Institute of Air and Space Law at McGill University in Canada. “Externally, India will have its head held high to say that it is capable of such a complex task.”

More In Mars

The mission, which took just four years from feasibility study to arrival at Mars orbit, will now study the surface of the planet to establish the presence of methane, among other tasks using the five instruments in its 15-kilogram payload.

The primary aim of the mission was to see if India had the technological capability to get to Mars. Now that it’s done so, the next step will be to complete a moon landing before possibly attempting manned missions, Mr. Radhakrishnan of ISRO told India’s NDTV on Tuesday.

Critics of the mission have questioned whether India, where 40% of children are malnourished, should have a space program at all. But advocates argue that development in space in turn drives innovation on Earth.

“India’s space program has a socio-economic basis for purposes like remote sensing and medical advancement. From that perspective, none of the money has gone in an extravagant way where it isn’t used for the benefit of the common man,” said Ajey Lele, author of “Mission Mars: India’s Quest for the Red Planet.”

To hold costs down, India relied on technologies it has used before and saved on fuel by using a smaller rocket to put its spacecraft into Earth orbit first to gain enough momentum to slingshot it toward Mars. India spends $1.2 billion a year on its space program: a dollar for every member of its population. On Wednesday, for many Indians cheering their country’s achievement, that looked like a bargain.

SOURCE:::: http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/09/24/indias-mangalyaan-enters-mars-orbit/

Natarajanb