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Senin, 22 Juli 2019

India's Chandrayaan2 successfully blasts off for moon mission on second try - The Washington Post

NEW DELHI — Varunavi Sreejith, 13, gaped at the screen in front of her, inching to the edge of her seat as the clock ticked down to 2:43 p.m. When Chandrayaan-2, India’s second lunar mission, took off, she jumped up, clapping, a bright smile lighting up her face.

“I am very proud and relieved,” Varunavi said. A student at JBM Global, one of India’s only high schools offering a curriculum dedicated to space exploration, she had stayed back after school to watch the live-streamed launch in the auditorium.

She wasn’t alone. Hundreds of thousands of Indians across the country went online to watch the nation’s most ambitious space mission to date. On Facebook, the live launch had over 650,000 viewers. Over 7,500 people registered to travel to Satish Dhawan Space Center off the country’s southeastern coast to witness it in person.

After a “technical snag” aborted the first launch attempt a week ago, the Indian space agency known as ISRO successfully sent Chandrayaan-2 on its journey to the moon Monday afternoon in a testament to the country’s burgeoning capabilities in space. Its lander will attempt to descend onto the moon in the first week of September to collect information on topography and look for water.

The agency had “bounced back with flying colors,” said K. Sivan, the chief of ISRO, after the launch. “It is the beginning of a historical journey for India.”

Experts say the successful second attempt so soon after the aborted launch highlights ISRO’s confidence in its technological capabilities, which have not been hamstrung by its paltry $1.8 billion budget. In comparison, NASA received $21.5 billion in funds this year.

Chaitanya Giri, a fellow at the space and ocean studies program at Gateway House, a Mumbai-based think tank, said, “We are in the big leagues now.” He added that the rapt public attention is a sign that India’s space exploration program should now grow quickly.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a tweet, “The launch of Chandrayaan-2 illustrates the prowess of our scientists and the determination of [1.3 billion] Indians to scale new frontiers of science.”

With Chandrayaan-2, India is attempting a soft landing on the moon — a feat only accomplished by three other countries: the United States, Russia and China. It also hopes to be the first to land in the uncharted south pole region. In its first moon outing with Chandrayaan-1, India had been instrumental in the discovery of water molecules on its surface.

India’s low-cost, homegrown technology that has powered its space program is a source of national pride and inspiration.

[New Delhi, we have a problem: India calls off lunar mission an hour before launch]

JBM Global, a top school in a Delhi suburb, has instituted astronomy and space studies classes for all age-groups. “The response from the students is tremendous,” said Uma Negi, a teacher from educational company Space India, which conducts classes at the school. “Showing them the launch encourages their curiosity.”

Earlier in the day, Negi showed the students models of Chandrayaan-2, which they attempted to replicate. Varunavi, who had been disappointed by the aborted launch, spoke excitedly about the possible discoveries of the new mission.

“Space is a large unknown area so we [India] have the chance to make a mark,” she said.

While ISRO spokesman Vivek Singh refused to divulge details about the problem that delayed the launch, he said, “in space science, even if there is a small observation, you cannot overlook that.”

At a modest price tag of $141 million, Chandrayaan-2 is made up of an orbiter, a lander and a rover. It was sent into space by the country’s most powerful launcher, known as Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III, whose complete design and fabrication has been done within the country. The orbiter will observe the lunar surface and communicate with the lander, Vikram, named after ISRO’s founder.

The rover, Pragyan, which means wisdom in Sanskrit, is a six-wheeled robotic vehicle powered by solar energy.

The launch comes at the heels of the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11, when man first landed on the moon. India has also announced its intention of sending a manned space mission by 2022.

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Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/we-have-liftoff-india-launches-moon-mission-on-second-attempt/2019/07/22/8a1cb69c-aa34-11e9-8733-48c87235f396_story.html

2019-07-22 12:33:45Z
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Iran claims it arrested 17 citizens accused of spying for US - Washington Examiner

Iran claimed Monday it had arrested 17 Iranian citizens, alleging they had spied on behalf of the U.S., and some of them have already been executed.

An official who said he was the director of counterespionage in the Intelligence Ministry said at a news conference in Tehran that the arrested Iranians had been trained by the CIA, but provided few details to defend the allegations.

The official would not give his name or say how many of those arrested had been executed.

Iran made similar announcements in April and June.

The claims come during a standoff between Tehran and Washington following President Trump’s decision to pull out of the nuclear deal and impose sanctions on Iran. Iran responded to the U.S. actions by threatening to prevent tankers from passing through the Strait of Hormuz. It also shot down a U.S. naval surveillance drone.

Tensions further escalated last week when the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized a British-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz.

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2019-07-22 11:50:00Z
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Iran claims it has arrested 17 members of a CIA spy ring - CBS This Morning

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2019-07-22 11:27:48Z
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India Launches Mission To The Moon In Bid To Land At The Lunar South Pole - Forbes

The GSLV rocket took to the skies beautifully earlier today.

ISRO/YouTube

India has successfully launched its second-ever mission to the Moon, and hopes with it to join a handful of countries that have landed on the lunar surface.

At 5.13am Eastern Time today, July 22 (2.43 P.M. local time), India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission launch on top of the country’s most powerful rocket, the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.

"My dear friends, today is a historical day for space and science and technology in India," Dr. Kailasavadivoo Sivan, chair of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), said following the launch. "I'm extremely happy to announce that GSLV mark 3 successfully injected Chandrayaan-2 into the defined orbit."

Chandrayaan-2 is not scheduled to arrive at the Moon until late August, reaching its destination by increasingly raising its orbit as it continually loops around Earth. The Apollo missions, by comparison, flew straight to the Moon in three days, using the more powerful Saturn V rocket.

India’s mission is uncrewed, but it will attempt a landing on the lunar surface at the Moon’s south pole. The mission consists of an orbiter, a lander called Vikram, and a rover called Pragyan (which means ‘wisdom’ in Sanskrit). If successful, India will become only the fourth nation to land on the Moon after the Soviet Union, US, and China. More recently, an Israeli mission called Beresheet crashed on the lunar surface in an attempted landing in April 2019.

The launch of Chandrayaan-2 had originally been scheduled for July 15, but was delayed by a week due to a leak on the rocket. The mission is the successor to the Chandrayaan-1 mission, which launched in 2008 and, while it did not land on the surface, performed a detailed hunt for lunar water.

The wait for this mission to launch has been a long time coming. Having originally been planned as a joint mission with Russia in 2011, India will now be hoping their solo mission – costing in the realm of $140 million – will perform some fascinating since on the surface of the Moon.

Chandrayaan-2’s orbiter, lander, and rover weigh a combined 2,780 kilograms, although the rover at 27 kilograms makes up only a small part of that. The orbiter is designed to operate for a year, while the rover and lander are designed to last 14 days (one lunar day) on the surface of the Moon. They will be equipped with cameras to send images back to Earth, along with various instruments.

The mission is scheduled to enter orbit 30 days after launching, with the lander’s four-day descent to the surface (carrying the rover with it) beginning in early September. It will then use its landing legs to touch down at the Moon’s south pole on September 6 or 7 – the closest visit by a mission to this region.

Visiting the south pole is important because it’s thought there could be permanently shadowed craters here with vast deposits of water-ice. Such resources could be useful for future human missions to the Moon.

The Vikram lander will use solar panels to keep itself running. It has three experiments, which will measure the tentative atmosphere of the Moon, as well as perform seismic experiments on the Moon.

The Pragyan rover, meanwhile, will roll down a ramp from the lander onto the surface and will travel up to half a kilometer throughout its mission, moving at about one centimeter per second. It will use an instrument to try and measure the composition of the surface, as well as returning images back to the lander to be transmitted back to Earth.

Aside from proving it can land on the lunar surface, India’s key goals for the mission are to study the composition of the Moon and look for signs of water-ice. Use radar the mission will attempt to create a 3D map of the surface at the south pole, and provide hints of where water-ice may be hiding under the surface.

With NASA seeking to return to the Moon with its Artemis project, and other nations also eyeing up a return to the lunar surface, the success of India’s mission could be part of a bigger picture that is seeing the Moon become a focus of exploration once again. Now for the team, it will be weeks of hard work to ensure that they successfully reach the surface of the Moon, slightly more than 50 years since humans landed there for the first time.

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanocallaghan/2019/07/22/india-launches-mission-to-the-moon-in-bid-to-land-at-the-lunar-south-pole/

2019-07-22 11:22:06Z
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Iran CIA arrests: Iran claims it's nabbed 17 spies working for CIA and sentenced some to death today -- live updates - CBS News

Tehran, Iran -- Iran said Monday it has arrested 17 Iranian nationals allegedly recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency to spy on the country's nuclear and military sites, and that some have already been sentenced to death. The arrests took place in the Iranian calendar year ending in March 2019 and those taken into custody worked on "sensitive sites" in the country's military and nuclear facilities, an Iranian intelligence official told a news conference in Tehran.

He didn't say how many of them got the death sentence or when the sentences were handed down.

Iranian state television published images Monday it said showed the CIA officers who were in contact with the alleged spies, the Reuters news agency reports.

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Chandrayaan-2: Success in India's second attempt at launching Moon mission - CNN

The country's latest lunar mission, Chandrayaan-2, which means "moon vehicle" in Sanskrit, took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh state at 2:43 p.m., Monday local time (5:13 am ET).

The launch was originally scheduled for July 15, but was abruptly called off just 56 minutes before lift-off due to a "technical snag." India is now on the way to becoming the fourth country -- in addition to United States, China and the former Soviet Union -- to make a soft-landing on the lunar surface.

The Chandrayaan-2, which weighs 3.8 tons and carries 13 payloads, has three elements -- lunar orbiter, lander and rover, all developed by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).

It will travel for two months, before positioning itself in a circular orbit 62 miles (100km) above the moon's surface. From there, the lander -- named Vikram after the pioneer of the Indian space program Vikram Sarabhai -- will separate from the main vessel and gently land on the moon's surface near its South Pole.

A robotic rover named Pragyan (meaning "wisdom") will then deploy and spend one lunar day, or 14 Earth days, collecting mineral and chemical samples from the moon's surface for remote scientific analysis.

Over the next year, the orbiter will map the lunar surface and study the outer atmosphere of the moon.

Kailasavadivoo Sivan, ISRO chairman, said in June that the last 15 minutes of the landing "are going to be the most terrifying moments for us."

As well as coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, the launch comes as other space agencies revisit the idea of sending humans to the moon and beyond -- NASA has touted a bold plan to return American astronauts to the moon by 2024.

India's space ambitions

This mission is significant for India -- the country wants to become a major space player and put Indian astronauts in space by 2022.

"India wants to show, especially since Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi came into office, that India is a major power, and that India has to be treated as a major Indo-Pacific power," said Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, head of the nuclear and space policy initiative at the Observer Research Foundation.

Chandrayaan-1, India's maiden lunar mission, discovered water molecules on the surface of the moon. As part of that mission, an impact probe crashed into the moon's south polar region in a controlled landing.

India's attempted soft-landing is a far greater technical challenge than the controlled crash of Chandrayaan-1.

The two Chandrayaan missions are a precursor to Chandrayaan-3, which is scheduled to make a return mission to the moon in 2023-2024.

In 2014, India became the first Asian nation to reach the Red Planet, when it put the Mangalyaan probe into orbit around Mars. The Mars Orbiter Mission famously cost $74 million -- less than the $100 million than Hollywood spent making space thriller "Gravity."

In 2017, India launched a record 104 satellites in one mission while operating a low-cost budget. Earlier this year, Prime Minister Modi announced that India had shot down one of its own satellites, in what it claimed was an anti-satellite test, making it one of four countries to have achieved that feat.

Modi said that operation, called Mission Shakti -- which stands for "power" in Hindi -- would defend the country's interests in space. The Foreign Ministry said that India had "no intention of entering into an arms race in outer space."

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientists work on the orbiter vehicle of 'Chandrayaan-2' in Bangalore.

The nation is also positioning itself as the launch pad for the world's commercial satellites -- it has launched 297 foreign satellites for 33 countries, according to the government's space agency.

ISRO chairman Sivan also announced in June that India was planning to set up an independent space station by 2030. Currently, the only space station available for expedition crews is the International Space Station (ISS) a joint project, which several countries participate in.

India's space agency has also proposed sending an orbiter to Venus by 2023.

Some say India's ambitious goals are unrealistic.

"ISRO also has a capacity deficit, limited human and financial resources, so how will those be allocated between the space station and the astronauts program?" asked Rajagopalan. "Some of these things are driven towards nationalistic sentiments, pride and prestige but some are not going to be achievable."

Asia space race

There is competing competition for space-related power and prestige in Asia -- with China, India and Japan all outlining bold space exploration plans.

China, India's great regional rival for superpower status, is the most rapidly accelerating space power and, under President Xi Jinping's leadership, has invested billions in building up its space program.

In January, China made history by becoming the first nation to land a rover on the far side of the moon and a planned mission next year is due to land on the moon, collect samples and return to Earth.

Preliminary plans are also underway for a manned lunar mission in the 2030s. If successful, China would become only the second country, after the US, to put a citizen on the moon.

Beijing is also spending big on the Tiangong program, a precursor to a permanent space station it plans to finish construction on by around 2022.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/22/asia/india-space-ambitions-moon-launch-intl-hnk/index.html

2019-07-22 09:52:00Z
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Iran CIA arrests: Iran claims it's nabbed 17 spies working for CIA and sentenced some to death today -- live updates - CBS News

Tehran, Iran -- Iran said Monday it has arrested 17 Iranian nationals allegedly recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency to spy on the country's nuclear and military sites, and that some have already been sentenced to death. The arrests took place over the past few months and those taken into custody worked on "sensitive sites" in the country's military and nuclear facilities, an Iranian intelligence official told a news conference in Tehran.

He didn't say how many of them got the death sentence or when the sentences were handed down. Iranian state television published images Monday it said showed the CIA officers who were in contact with the alleged spies, the Reuters news agency reports.

The CIA, State Department and White House didn't offer any immediate comment in response to CBS News inquiries.