Kolkata:

ISRO chief S Somnath on Sunday said that the Aditya L I solar mission of the premier space research agency is continuously sending data about the Sun.

S Somnath, who was speaking to reporters here after being conferred a special award by jewellery major P C Chandra Group, said several instruments of the spacecraft are working continuously to feed data on many aspects.

“We are looking into the sun in a continuous manner – UV magnetic charges observation, corona graph observation, X-ray observation and other things,” he said.

India’s first solar mission craft, the Aditya-L1 spacecraft was launched on September 2, 2023.

“As we are keeping this satellite for five years, the observation will be analysed as a long-term measure. It is not like your instant news that something has been reported about the sun today, something else will happen tomorrow, things will happen every day,” he explained.

All observations will happen now but the results will be known later, he said.

“Eclipse happens as the sun is blocked by the moon. It is not like that anything happens within the sun during an eclipse. But obviously, our mission is also collecting data about the sun before, during and after an eclipse, Somnath said, while answering a question on whether the mission will throw light on the solar eclipse.

Speaking about collaborations with other space agencies, he said ISRO is building a joint satellite NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar).

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ISRO chief S. Somnath on April 21 said that the Aditya L1 solar mission of the premier space research agency is continuously sending data about the Sun.
| Photo Credit: ANI

ISRO chief S. Somnath on April 21 said that the Aditya L1 solar mission of the premier space research agency is continuously sending data about the Sun.

Mr. Somnath, who was speaking to reporters here after being conferred a special award by jewellery major P.C. Chandra Group, said several instruments of the spacecraft are working continuously to feed data on many aspects.

“We are looking into the sun in a continuous manner – UV magnetic charges observation, corona graph observation, X-ray observation and other things,” he said.

India’s first solar mission craft, Aditya-L1 spacecraft was launched on September 2, 2023.

“As we are keeping this satellite for five years, the observation will be analysed as a long-term measure. It is not like your instant news that something has been reported about the sun today, something else will happen tomorrow, things will happen every day,” he explained.

All observations will happen now but the results will be known later, he said.

“Eclipse happens as the sun is blocked by the moon. It is not like that anything happens within the sun during an eclipse. But obviously, our mission is also collecting data about the sun before, during and after an eclipse, Mr. Somnath said, while answering a question on whether the mission will throw light on the solar eclipse.

Speaking about collaborations with other space agencies, he said ISRO is building a joint satellite NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar).

Chennai:

Indian Space Research Organisation chairman S Somnath on Saturday said that the crew module, separated from the Gaganyaan mission’s test vehicle, has been successfully recovered from the Bay of Bengal.

“The crew module has been fully recovered from the sea (Bay of Bengal) and it has been brought to Chennai port. There has been no anomaly. All data looks very good. A series of missions-20 tests have to be done. Today’s test was for the crew escape system,” S Somnath said.

ISRO successfully conducted the first test flight of the ‘TV-D1’ (Test Vehicle Development Flight 1) in the Gaganyaan Mission from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota after it was aborted at 8:45 am today due to a problem in the engine ignition.

ISRO Chief Somanath informed that the purpose of this mission was to demonstrate the crew escape system in the mission was achieved.

“I am very happy to announce the successful accomplishment of the TV-D1 mission. The purpose of this mission was to demonstrate the crew escape system for the Gaganyaan program through a test vehicle demonstration in which the vehicle went up to a Mach number, which is slightly above the speed of sound, and initiated an abort condition for the crew escape system to function,” he said.

The mission objectives of the TV-D1 launch were flight demonstration and evaluation of Test Vehicle subsystems; flight demonstration and evaluation of Crew Escape System including various separation systems; crew module characteristics; and deceleration system demonstration at higher altitudes and its recovery.

The Test Vehicle is a single-stage liquid rocket developed for this abort mission. The payloads consist of the Crew Module (CM) and Crew Escape Systems (CES) with their fast-acting solid motors, along with CM fairing (CMF) and Interface Adapters.

This flight simulated the abort condition during the ascent trajectory, corresponding to a Mach number of 1.2 encountered in the Gaganyaan mission. This mission represents a significant milestone in India’s effort to demonstrate that it is possible to send humans into space.

The Gaganyaan project envisages a demonstration of human spaceflight capability by launching a crew of three members into an orbit of 400 km for a 3-day mission and bringing them safely back to earth by landing in Indian waters.

This programme will make India the fourth nation to launch a manned spaceflight mission after the US, Russia and China.

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New Delhi:

    
ISRO today successfully launched its unmanned test flight for its first human spaceflight mission – ‘Gaganyaan’ – in the second attempt after the lift-off was briefly put on hold.

“The lift off was put on hold initially after ground computer detected non conformance. We could identify it and correct it very quickly,” said ISRO chief S Somnath.

The ISRO Chief said that the purpose of the mission was to demonstrate the crew escape system. “The vehicle went slightly above the speed of sound, before it initiated the crew escape system,” he said.

“The escape system took the crew module away from the vehicle and subsequent operations including the touch-down at the sea have been very well accomplished,” he added.

“We will come back with more data and analysis after recovery of the crew modules from the sea,” Mr Somnath said.

Mission Director S Sivakumar said that all systems “performed well” during the test flight launch.

“This is like a never before attempt. It is like a bouquet of three experiments put together. We have now seen the characteristics of all three systems with what we wanted to test through this experiment or this mission. The test vehicle, the crew escape system, the crew module everything, we have perfectly demonstrated in the first attempt,” he said.

The ambitious space mission Gaganyaan is a significant milestone in the effort to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s target of setting up an Indian Space Station by 2035 and launch Indian astronaut to the Moon by 2040.

Kochi:

ISRO chairman S Somnath on Thursday said Chandrayaan-3’s rover Pragyan has fallen asleep on the lunar surface, but chances of it waking up from its slumber cannot be ruled out.

He said the space agency is well aware of the risk involved if the rover and the lander Vikram fell asleep on the moon’s surface.

The objective of Chandrayaan-3 mission was soft landing, and the subsequent experiments for the next 14 days and all the required data have been collected, he noted.

S Somnath was speaking at the Manorama News Conclave 2023 here organised by the Malayala Manorama group.

“Now it is sleeping peacefully there…Let it sleep well..Let us not disturb it…When it wants to get up on its own, it will…that’s what I want to say about it right now,” he said.

Asked whether ISRO still hopes that the rover would come back to life, the Chairman replied, “there is reason to be hopeful.” Citing reasons for his “hope”, S Somnath said a lander and a rover were involved in the mission. As the lander was a huge structure, it could not be tested completely.

But when the rover was tested at minus 200 degrees celsius, it was found to be working at that lower temperature, he said.

But, after the 42-day-long mission, the radiation it was exposed to and the shakes it might have suffered during the landing may cause the Pragyan to have some difficulty recovering. “So, it is tough to predict,” S Somnath added.

However, the ISRO chief made it clear that the objective of the Chandrayaan-3 mission was accomplished.

The ISRO is trying to explore the scientific data collected through the mission, he said, adding that the massive data was stored in the space agency’s scientific data centre.

With the Chandrayaan-3 mission, India scripted history on August 23 becoming the first country to touch down near the lunar south pole; and the fourth in the world to achieve soft-landing on the lunar surface after the US, the former Soviet Union and China.

The national space agency headquartered here had put the lander and rover into sleep mode, on September 4 and 2, respectively, before the sun set on the moon, hoping for their awakening at the next sunrise around September 22.

The lander and the rover are designed to operate for one lunar daylight period (about 14 earth days).

The ISRO said on September 22 — after a new lunar day began — efforts have been made to establish communication with solar-powered Vikram lander and Pragyan rover to ascertain their wake-up condition. As of now, no signals have been received from them. Efforts to establish contact will continue, it had said then.

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Chennai:

ISRO has lined up a series of exploration missions including to Mars, Venus and to the Moon again, apart from the maiden human spaceflight programme, Chairman S Somanath said on Sunday.

The space agency also has drawn up plans to launch missions for studying climate and weather conditions of the Earth, the space agency chief said, speaking to reporters.

Besides, ISRO is also working on regular scientific missions including communication, remote sensing satellites, S Somanath, who is also the Secretary of the Department of Space, said in Chennai.

Speaking about the Gaganyaan programme, he said the maiden TV-D1 test flight is scheduled for October 21.

Elaborating about the upcoming missions undertaken by the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency, he said, “We have exploration missions. We have plans to go to Mars, Venus, again sometime to the Moon. We also have programmes to look at the climate and weather of Earth.” Stressing that the scientists at ISRO would be focused on taking up regular missions like launching satellites for communications and remote sensing, he said scientific missions are also in the pipeline to look at issues like aeronomy, thermal imaging, and climate change impact assessment.

“So many things are there and we are very busy doing all of this,” he said.

To a query about whether scientists were able to receive any kind of response from the Vikram lander of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, which successfully made a soft-landing on the surface of the Moon on August 23, he said Vikram had done its job very well during the lunar day (equivalent of 14 Earth days) at which time it was programmed to perform its functions.

“It is happily sleeping on the Moon. It has done its job very well. Maybe if it wishes to wake up, let it wake up. Until then, we will wait,” he said. ISRO made efforts to re-establish communication with rover Pragyan and lander Vikram after they were put into sleep mode in September following the onset of night on the Moon.

“No signals have been received from them. Efforts to establish contact will continue,” ISRO had said.

After the historic landing on August 23, lander Vikram and rover Pragyan performed different tasks on the lunar surface, including detecting the presence of sulphur and recording relative temperature.

About ISRO’s maiden mission to study the Sun, Mr Somanath said the spacecraft is ‘very healthy’ and is on a 110-day long journey to the Lagrange point L1 and is expected to reach the intended destination by “middle of January.” “It is a long journey. It is almost 110 days of journey and it has covered some distance now. We corrected a little bit of its trajectory, because early correction is important to reach the L1 point. After tracking, we find it is going in the right direction towards the L1 point,” he said.

Observing that the rocket is on a ‘complex travel’, Mr Somanath said, “It takes almost another 70-75 days further to reach. By the middle of January, it will reach there. After that, we will make some corrections to make it enter into the Halo orbit at the L1 point.” “After that instruments will be switched on and it will start doing the scientific data streaming. Currently, everything is very healthy on Aditya L1,” he said.

Aditya-L1 was launched on September 2, and it is the first Indian space-based observatory that will study the Sun from a halo orbit around the first Sun-Earth Lagrangian point (L1), which is located roughly 1.5 million km from the Earth.

Earlier, S Somanath visited the residence of renowned agricultural scientist M S Swaminathan, who passed away on September 28. He met the family members of the eminent plant geneticist known as the driving force behind India’s ‘Green Revolution’, here in the city.

“I am here today just to pay my tributes and my affection to his (M S Swaminathan’s) contribution… Whoever works in whichever field whether it is space, agriculture or sustainability and many other domains, we all find a place to work together,” he said.

“Thank you so much for the opportunity. His (MS Swaminathan’s) legacy will continue to inspire more young people in the country to work in science and technology.” S Somanath said.

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Kochi, Kerala:

S Somanath, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Saturday said that the country’s space agency is facing more than 100 cyber-attacks daily.

S Somanath, while speaking on the concluding session of the 16th edition of the c0c0n, a two-day international cyber conference in Kerala’s Kochi, further said that the possibility of cyber-attacks is much higher in rocket technology which uses ultra-modern software and chip-based hardware.

“The organisation is equipped with a robust cybersecurity network to face such attacks,” he said.

Notably, the conference was organised by the Kerala Police and Information Security Research Association here.

The ISRO chief further said that apart from the software, ISRO is also going ahead with various tests focusing on the safety of the hardware chips inside the rockets.

“Earlier, the way of monitoring one satellite has changed to a way of software monitoring many satellites at a time. This indicates the growth of this sector. During COVID, it was possible to launch from a remote location which shows the triumph of technology,” he added.

He further said that there are different types of satellites that branch out for navigation, maintenance, etc.

“And apart from these, satellites which help the daily life of common people are also present. All these are controlled by different types of software. Cyber security is very important to protect all of these,’ Mr Somanath added.

He said advanced technology is a boon and a threat at the same time.

“We can face the challenges posed by cyber criminals using technology like artificial intelligence with the same technology. There should be research and hard work towards this end,” he said.

Meanwhile, Kerala Revenue Minister P Rajeev, who inaugurated the concluding session of the conference said that the state is a role model for cyber security governance as the state government is capable of providing adequate security to the cyber arena.

“The state government is capable of providing adequate security to the cyber arena. The government is also providing necessary support to this sector by establishing the Digital University in the state. Kerala is a state where the internet is ensured through K-Fone in every house,” the minister said.

He further said that the c0c0n is a role model for the Indian cyber security sector, which is making the necessary innovations for cyber security.

“C0c0n is capable of creating cyber security experts among the next generation,” P Rajeev added.

Hibi Eden MP presided over the function in which Mayor M Anilkumar was the chief guest. Actor Mamta Mohandas, Intelligence ADGP Manoj Abraham IPS and ISRA president Manu Zacharia also addressed the event.

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