Bharat Rakshak

vipulmb wrote:

Amber G. wrote:Thanks for Emily's Blog on Phobos ...

Phobos - Picture taken by MoM (From www dot the hindu)
http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dyna ... 54977f.jpg

(Just saying per the story above .. Phobos was nearing Mars at a rate of 1.8 m every hundred years and at that rate, it may crash into the red planet in 50 million years or so ...

That picture was taken by Viking-1 orbiter, not by MoM.

Phobos 1 operated nominally until an expected communications session on September 2, 1988 failed to occur. The failure of controllers to regain contact with the spacecraft was traced to an error in the software uploaded on August 29/August 30, which had deactivated the attitude thrusters. By losing its lock on the Sun, the spacecraft could no longer properly orient its solar arrays, thus depleting its batteries.

Software instructions to turn off the probe's attitude control, normally a fatal operation, were part of a routine used when testing the spacecraft on the ground. Normally this routine would be removed before launch. However, the software was coded in PROMs, and so removing the test code would have required removing and replacing the entire computer. Because of time pressure from the impending launch, engineers decided to leave the command sequence in, though it should never be used. However, a single-character error in constructing an upload sequence resulted in the command executing, with subsequent loss of the spacecraft

SaiK wrote: BTW, that brings an interesting mission thought! why not next send a permanent phobos docking mission? don't need any fuel except long lasting battery designs. perhaps modularized so that it spits out the old battery pack, and a new battery pack can dock in!

SSSalvi wrote:^^^
NO, It will be 50.3456 years .. You will see and then have to agree with me.

Hailing from Madras, I could not get adjusted to.. Bombay and wanted to get back to the south. This was when.. being posted in Thumba.

The Nike Apache Rocket had been flown to Trivandrum and the Vapour Cloud payload had reached. Being hazardous items, the transportation of these from the US was in itself a pioneering effort and many a tale could be written on this.


The orange vapour trail was visible from all over Kerala and parts of Tamil Nadu. This created great excitement. Since the public had never seen such a sight before, it also gave rise to some hilarious newspaper reports.

In fact, the Kerala legislative assembly, which was in session, then apparently adjourned temporarily to have a good view of the bright vapour trail in the western sky!

When one of my colleagues pressed the siren switch, a thundering noise was heard and the rocket zoomed up....We learnt that day, how important it was to isolate the ground leads of the firing circuits from the general ground.

To our dismay, we found that the ignitor did not work in a vacuum, while it was fine under normal pressure. The ignitor design was modified and then it started functioning well in actual flights.

We also worked out a regular system of compensation for fishermen who claimed that their nets had been damaged by rocket debris.

The range was quite large in area and the only means of transport within the range was by bicycle. Those like Kalam who could not cycle had to hitch rides with others.

.... Professor Satish Dhawan...was until then in Bangalore as a professor in the Indian Institute of Science and also its Director... was responsible for moving the ISRO headquarters to Bangalore.

... Mangalyan is one of the most visible achievements of ISRO. But the reliability of its rockets and satellites and the ability to conceive, implement and complete on time its major tasks in a transparent and confident manner is its major achievement.

SaiK wrote:yeah! I should have thought about it docking requires extra fuel. moorkh me! if it can do that, it becomes another phobos!

Victor wrote:

SaiK wrote:yeah! I should have thought about it docking requires extra fuel. moorkh me! if it can do that, it becomes another phobos!

Not moorkh at all. The Russian-Chinese Phobos-Grunt was supposed to "dock" (land) on Phobos to collect samples, return them to Earth and study Mars' atmosphere and climate long term. This is now being thought of as a preliminary step to landing men on Mars. It is easier to land on Phobos and a manned station there could operate robots on Mars to assemble shelters and stores (oxygen, food, water, tech supplies, heavy equipment) with better control and precision than from Earth in preparation for a manned landing on Mars itself. Since it takes almost a year to get to Mars, a landing craft would need to be re-supplied for the return journey. Phobos could prove to be a very useful way-station to Mars by becoming a permanent "orbiter" for Mars landing craft.

prasannasimha wrote:^ Shows OLympus Mons the highest mountain in the Solar System

juvva wrote:They were planning to release the captured images of the comet this afternoon.
...........waiting.........

Siding Spring causes explosion in Mars atmosphere
This is pretty spectacular if you watch the video. The flash
covers the whole disc of Mars.

http://www.examiner.com/article/comet-s ... mars-video