My Science School

Compared to Earth, the Sun is enormous! It contains 99.86% of all of the mass of the entire Solar System. The Sun is 864,400 miles (1,391,000 kilometers) across. This is about 109 times the diameter of Earth. The Sun weighs about 333,000 times as much as Earth. It is so large that about 1,300,000 planet Earths can fit inside of it. Earth is about the size of an average sunspot!

It's possible that the sun is even larger than previously thought. Xavier Jubier, an engineer and solar eclipse researcher, creates detailed models of solar and lunar eclipses to determine precisely where the moon's shadow would fall during the solar eclipse. But when he matched actual photos and historical observations with the models, he found precise eclipse shapes only made sense if he scaled up the sun's radius by a few hundred kilometers.

Even missions like NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and measurements of the inner planets across the face of the sun don't refine the star's radius as precisely as desired.

Credit : Space.com

Picture Credit : Google

Dr Swati Mohan was the first to confirm that the rover had successfully touched down on the Martian surface after surviving a particularly tricky plunge through the atmosphere of the Red Planet.

“Touchdown confirmed! Perseverance safely on the surface of Mars, ready to begin seeking signs of past life,” flight controller Swati Mohan announced as US made the historic landing on Mars, prompting her colleagues at Nasa fist-bump and break into celebrations.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Perseverance rover successfully touched down on the surface of Mars after surviving a blazing seven-minute plunge through the Martian atmosphere.

Swati Mohan has been associated with the Perseverance Mars mission since its inception and has been working on the project for over seven years. She has also worked on Nasa’s Cassini mission to the Saturn.

As the world watched Perseverance make a dramatic and difficult landing on the Martian surface, Swati Mohan steered through the operations in her calm and composed self. The bindi-clad Swati Mohan communicated and coordinating between the GN&C subsystem and others teams of the milestone project.

Credit : India Today

Picture Credit : Google

Sunita Williams is an Indian American astronaut and US Navy officer, who formerly held the record for the most space walks (7) and the most space walk time for a woman at 50 hrs and 40 minutes.

She was also assigned to the International Space Station as a member of Expeditions 14 & 15. In 2012 she served as the flight engineer of Expedition 32 and then Commander of Expedition. In 2007, she ran the first marathon by a person orbit. She finished the Boston Marathon in 4 hours and 24 minutes.

She was born in Ohio and graduated from US Naval Academy with a bachelors degree in Physical Science. Sunita obtained her Master’s degree in Engineering Management from Florida Institute of Technology.
She lives in Texas with her husband.

Credit : National Indo-American Museum 

Picture Credit : Google

Kalpana Chawla spent her whole life chasing her dreams of being an astronaut. In 1997, she made history as the first woman of Indian origin to go to Space. Kalpana Chawla created opportunities, shattered glass ceilings, and spearheaded groundbreaking research for NASA.

It’s the 1960s, and it’s uncommon for women and girls in Karnal, India to receive an education. But from her earliest years, Kalpana Chawla shows an obsession with flying and space. Her mother advocates for her to go to school, and she excels.

The youngest of four children, Kalpana is an all-star student, committed to academics–science particular–above all else. She finishes high school then studies aeronautics at Punjab Engineering college. When she can’t advance any further in India’s education system, she emigrates to the US, knowing she’ll stop at nothing to become an astronaut.

It’s 1981, Kalpana is 20 years old and new to America. She earns her Master’s Degree in Texas, then her Doctorate in Colorado, and by the time she’s 26, she’s recruited to NASA as a research scientist.  3 years later, Kalpana naturalizes as a US citizen so she can apply to the NASA Astronaut Corps.

While training in the rigorous space mission program, Kalpana remains committed to education and creating opportunities. Kalpana starts a program providing two students from her former school in India with a visit to NASA each year. Meanwhile, her research is published in technical journals and increasingly cited in conference publications. Kalpana becomes increasingly vital to the aeronautical field and by the time she’s 32 years old, Kalpana has completed her training and is selected for her first flight.

Kalpana Chawla goes to space in December 1997, the first Indian-born woman to do so. While on a 15-day mission, orbiting the earth 252 times, Kalpana records videos documenting her work. She describes, “every once in a while, city lights peep through the clouds. It’s very much like a storybook.”

Upon return to Earth, Kalpana is one of seven people selected for another mission: the STS-107 on the Columbia Space Shuttle. they launch in early 2003, and Kalpana and the crew conduct 80 experiments over 16 days. After a successful mission, the shuttle returns to Earth on a February morning, set to land at the Kennedy Space Center. But just moments before landing in Texas, the shuttle malfunctions and breaks apart. All seven crew members–Kalpana Chawla, William McCool, Laurel Clark, David Brown, Ilan Ramon (the first Israeli astronaut), Michael P. Anderson, and Rick Husband–are tragically killed in the accident. Kalpana is 41 years old.

Over the course of Kalpana Chawla’s two missions, she logged 30 days, 14 hours, and 54 minutes in space. After her death, Kalpana Chawla was award the Congressional Medal of Honor for her history-shaping contributions to the field of aeronautics. Today, there are university buildings, scholarship funds, and even a NASA supercomputer named after her.

Credit : Inside Out Tours

Picture Credit : Google

Rakesh Sharma, Indian military pilot and cosmonaut, the first Indian citizen in space.

In 1970 Sharma joined the Indian Air Force as a pilot. He flew 21 combat missions in a MiG-21 in the Bangladesh war of 1971. In 1982 he was selected as a cosmonaut for a joint Soviet-Indian spaceflight. On April 3, 1984, he flew on board Soyuz T-11 with two Soviet cosmonauts, commander Yury Malyshev and flight engineer Gennady Strekalov, to the space station Salyut 7. There Sharma performed experiments that included photography of India from space and exercises to study the effects of yoga on the body during weightlessness. The mission lasted nearly eight days, and Sharma and his crewmates landed in Kazakhstan on April 11. In 1987 he joined the Indian company Hindustan Aeronautics as its chief test pilot. He left Hindustan Aeronautics in 2001 and became chairman of the board of Automated Workflow, a process-management company based in Bangalore (Bengaluru).

One of the most memorable experiences of the first India reaching space in 1984 was Sharma’s conversation with then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who asked how India looked from up there. To this, Sharma replied, "Saare Jahaan Se Achcha" before adding that the most beautiful moments from space were sunrises and sunsets. Further, apart from being the first Indian to stay in space, Sharma is also the first Indian to receive the honour of the ‘Hero of Soviet Union’ award. He also received Ashok Chakra along with his Russian co astronauts.

Credit : Britannica 

Picture Credit : Google

Sirisha Bandla, a 34-year-old aeronautical engineer, is set to become the third Indian-origin woman to head to space when she flies as part of Virgin Galactic's first fully crewed flight test on Sunday.

Bandla, who was born in Guntur district in Andhra Pradesh and brought up in Houston, Texas, will join Sir Richard Branson, the company's billionaire founder, and five others on board Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo Unity to make a journey to the edge of space from New Mexico.

Bandla, a Purdue University alumna, will be evaluating the human-tended research experience, using an experiment from the University of Florida that requires several handheld fixation tubes that will be activated at various points in the flight profile, a statement on the Galactic website said.

 Bandla started in her role as the Vice President of Government Affairs and Research Operations at Virgin Galactic in January 2021, the university said in a statement.

Bandla grew up in Houston, near NASA's Johnson Space Center, and always wanted to become an astronaut. But poor eyesight meant she could not meet the requirements to become a pilot or an astronaut, derailing her high-school plan to go the Air Force-to-NASA route, she said in the statement.

Credit : The Economic Times 

Picture Credit : Google

NASA astronaut Mae C. Jemison was the first African-American woman in space. She flew into space on space shuttle Endeavour in September 1992. On her first flight, she was the science mission specialist on STS-47 Spacelab-J. Jemison was a co-investigator on the bone cell research experiment flown on the mission and she spent eight days in space.

When Jemison finally flew into space on September 12, 1992, with six other astronauts aboard the Endeavour on mission STS47, she became the first African American woman in space.

During her eight days in space, Jemison conducted experiments on weightlessness and motion sickness on the crew and herself. In all, she spent more than 190 hours in space before returning to Earth on September 20, 1992. Following her historic flight, Jemison noted that society should recognize how much both women and members of other minority groups can contribute if given the opportunity.

In recognition of her accomplishments, Jemison received a number of accolades, including several honorary doctorates, the 1988 Essence Science and Technology Award, the Ebony Black Achievement Award in 1992 and a Montgomery Fellowship from Dartmouth College in 1993. She was also named Gamma Sigma Gamma Woman of the Year in 1990. In 1992, the Mae C. Jemison Academy, an alternative public school in Detroit, Michigan, was named after her.

Jemison has been a member of several prominent organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Chemical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and she served on the board of directors of the World Sickle Cell Foundation from 1990 to 1992. She has also served as an advisory committee member of the American Express Geography Competition and an honorary board member of the Center for the Prevention of Childhood Malnutrition.

After leaving the astronaut corps in March 1993, Jemison accepted a teaching fellowship at Dartmouth. She also established the Jemison Group, a company that seeks to research, develop and market advanced technologies.

Credit : The Monroe News 

Picture Credit : Google

The James Webb Space Telescope was conceived as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope more than 30 years ago. With special instruments such as the giant hexagonal mirror, this powerful observatory will explore the early phases of cosmic history, looking back in time to only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.

What is the project all about?

Astronomers began debating the telescope that should succeed Hubble Space Telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation.

James Webb Telescope's construction began in 2004. But the launch had been pushed back several times, initially pencilled for 2007, then 2018.mainly because of the complexities associated with development The observatory is the result of an immense international collaboration, and integrates Canadian and European instruments. More than 10.000 people worked on the project with the budget eventually snowballing to around $10 billion. The mission is set to last for five to 10 years.

What are its missions?

Webb has two primary scientific missions, which together will account for more than 50% of its observation time.

• First, explore the early phases of cosmic history, looking back in time to only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. Astronomers want to see how the very first stars and galaxies formed, and how they evolve over time.
• Its second major goal is the discovery of exoplanets, meaning planets outside the solar system. It will also investigate the potential for life on those worlds by studying their atmospheres.

What are the unique features of the telescope?

The telescope's centrepiece is its enormous primary mirror, a concave structure 21.5 feet wide and made up of 18 smaller hexagonal mirrors. They're made from beryllium coated with gold, optimised for reflecting infrared light from the far reaches of the universe.

The observatory also has four scientific instruments, which together fulfil two main purposes: imaging cosmic objects, and spectroscopy - breaking down light into separate wavelengths to study the physical and chemical properties of cosmic matter. The mirror and instruments are protected by a five-layer sunshield, which is shaped like a kite. Sunshield has been designed to unfurl to the size of a tennis court.

Its membranes are composed of kapton, a material known for its high heat resistance and stability under a wide temperature range both vital, since the Sun-facing side of the shield will get as hot as 230 degrees F, while the other side will reach lows of -394 degrees F. The telescope also has a "spacecraft bus" containing its subsystems for electrical power, propulsion, communications, orientation, heating and data handling; all told, Webb weighs around as much as a school bus.

Why is the telescope transported in a folded position?

Because the telescope is too large to fit into a rocket's nose cone in its operational configuration, it has to be transported folded, origami style. Unfurling is a complex and challenging task, the most daunting deployment NASA has ever attempted.

The unfurling of the sunshield, hitherto folded like an accordion, begins on the sixth day, well after having passed the Moon. Its thin membranes will be guided by a complex mechanism involving 400 pulleys and 1,312 feet of cable.

During the second it will be the turn of the mirror to open. Once in its final configuration, the instruments will need to cool and be calibrated, and the mirrors precisely adjusted.

After six months the telescope will be ready to go.

How does it work?

The telescope will be placed in orbit about a million miles from Earth, roughly four times the distance of our planet from the Moon. Unlike Hubble, the current premier space telescope that revolves around the planet Webb will orbit the Sun.

It will remain directly behind Earth, from the point of view of the Sun, allowing it to remain on our planet's night side. Webb's sunshield will always be between the mirror and Sun.

While astronauts have been sent to repair Hubble, no humans have ever travelled as far as Webb's planned orbit.

What makes the telescope different from Hubble?

The great promise of Webb lies in its infrared capacity.

Unlike the ultraviolet and visible light Hubble mostly operates in the longer wavelengths of infrared penetrate dust more easily, allowing the early universe shrouded in clouds to come more clearly into view.

Infrared also lets scientists go further back in time because of a phenomenon called redshifting. Light from objects farther away is stretched as the universe expands, towards the infrared end of the spectrum.

Picture Credit : Google

The International Space Station (ISS) is a multi-nation construction project that is the largest single structure humans ever put into space. Its main construction was completed between 1998 and 2011, although the station continually evolves to include new missions and experiments. It has been continuously occupied since Nov. 2, 2000.

The ISS is not owned by one single nation and is a “co-operative programme” between Europe, the United States, Russia, Canada and Japan, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). 

As of April 2021, 244 individuals from 19 countries have visited the International Space Station. Top participating countries include the United States (153 people) and Russia (50 people). Astronaut time and research time on the space station is allocated to space agencies according to how much money or resources (such as modules or robotics) that they contribute. The ISS includes contributions from 15 nations. NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia) and the European Space Agency are the major partners of the space station who contribute most of the funding; the other partners are the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

Current plans call for the space station to be operated through at least 2024, with the partners discussing a possible extension until 2028. Afterwards, plans for the space station are not clearly laid out. It could be deorbited, or recycled for future space stations in orbit.

Crews aboard the ISS are assisted by mission control centers in Houston and Moscow and a payload control center in Huntsville, Ala. Other international mission control centers support the space station from Japan, Canada and Europe. The ISS can also be controlled from mission control centers in Houston or Moscow. 

Credit : Space.com

Picture Credit : Google

European Space Agency (ESA), French Agence Spatiale Européenne (ASE), European space and space-technology research organization founded in 1975 from the merger of the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) and the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO), both established in 1964. ESA has 22 Member States. Members include Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Slovenia is an associate member. Cooperative agreements have been signed by various countries, including Canada (1981), which participate in some ESA projects. Headquarters of the agency are in Paris.

Representatives of ESA’s member nations form the agency’s policy-making council. A science program committee established by convention deals with matters related to the mandatory science program; other such bodies may be formed by the council to assist in decision making. The chief executive and legal representative of ESA is the director general, assisted by an inspector general and the directors of various departments.

The principal components of the organization are (1) the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), located in Noordwijk, Netherlands, which houses the satellite project teams and testing facilities and is the agency’s main space science and technological research centre, (2) the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), located in Darmstadt, Germany, which is concerned with satellite control, monitoring, and data retrieval, (3) the European Space Research Institute (ESRIN), located in Frascati, Italy, which supports the ESA Information Retrieval Service and the Earthnet program, the system by which remote sensing images are retrieved and distributed, (4) the European Astronaut Centre (EAC), located in Cologne, Germany, which is a training centre, and (5) the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), located in Villafranca del Castillo, Madrid, Spain, which holds scientific operations centres as well as archives. ESA also operates the Guiana Space Centre (CSG), a launch base in French Guiana.

Credit : Britannica 

Picture Credit : Google

SpaceX was formed by entrepreneur Elon Musk in the hopes of revolutionizing the aerospace industry and making affordable spaceflight a reality. The company entered the arena with the Falcon 1 rocket, a two-stage liquid-fueled craft designed to send small satellites into orbit. The Falcon 1 was vastly cheaper to build and operate than its competitors, a field largely populated by spacecraft built by publicly owned and government-funded companies such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Part of the rocket’s cost-effectiveness was made possible by the SpaceX-developed Merlin engine, a cheaper alternative to those used by other companies. SpaceX also focused on making reusable rockets (other launch vehicles are generally made for one-time use).

In March 2006 SpaceX made its first Falcon 1 launch, which began successfully but ended prematurely because of a fuel leak and fire. By this time, however, the company had already earned millions of dollars in launching orders, many of them from the U.S. government. In August of that year SpaceX was a winner of a NASA competition for funds to build and demonstrate spacecraft that could potentially service the ISS after the decommissioning of the space shuttle. Falcon 1 launches that failed to attain Earth orbit followed in March 2007 and August 2008, but in September 2008 SpaceX became the first privately owned company to send a liquid-fueled rocket into orbit. Three months later it won a NASA contract for servicing the ISS that was worth more than $1 billion.

In 2010 SpaceX first launched its Falcon 9, a bigger craft so named for its use of nine engines, and the following year it broke ground on a launch site for the Falcon Heavy, a craft the company hoped would be the first to break the $1,000-per-pound-to-orbit cost barrier and that might one day be used to transport astronauts into deep space. In December 2010 the company reached another milestone, becoming the first commercial company to release a spacecraft—the Dragon capsule—into orbit and successfully return it to Earth. Dragon again made history on May 25, 2012, when it became the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the ISS, to which it successfully delivered cargo. In August that year, SpaceX announced that it had won a contract from NASA to develop a successor to the space shuttle that would transport astronauts into space.

Credit : Britannica 

Picture Credit : Google

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is the pioneer space exploration agency of the Government of India, headquartered at Bengaluru. ISRO was formed in 1969 with a vision to develop and harness space technology in national development, while pursuing planetary exploration and space science research. ISRO replaced its predecessor, INCOSPAR (Indian National Committee for Space Research), established in 1962 by India’s first Prime Minister Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru and scientist Vikram Sarabhai, considered amongst the founding fathers of Indian space program.

ISRO, by successfully demonstrating its unique and cost-effective technologies, has gained place among the elite space agencies in the world over the years. The first Indian satellite, Aryabhata, was built by the ISRO and launched with the help of the Soviet Union on April 19, 1975. The year 1980 marked the launch of Rohini, which was the first satellite to be successfully placed in the orbit by SLV-3, an Indian made launch vehicle. Subsequently with more efforts, two other rockets were developed by ISRO: the PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) for placing satellites into polar orbits and the GSLV (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle) for placing satellites into geostationary orbits. Both the rockets have successfully launched several earth observation and communication satellites for India as well as other countries.

Indigenous satellite navigation systems like IRNSS and GAGAN have also been deployed. In January 2014, ISRO used an indigenously built cryogenic engine for a GSLV-D5 launch of the GSAT-14 satellite making it one of the only six countries in the world to develop a cryogenic technology. Most recent and remarkable space probes of ISRO include Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter, Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan-1) and ASTROSAT space observatory. The success of the Mars Orbiter Mission made India only the fourth country in the world to reach the Martian orbit.

Credit : The Economic Times

Picture Credit : Google

Jeff Bezos is an internet entrepreneur and the founder of Blue Origin, a private spaceflight company. The company is known for its work on New Shepard — a reusable suborbital space rocket that includes a crew capsule for future paying passengers. 

Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket is counting down for its first crewed flight on July 20, when it will launch Bezos and three others into space. 

In 2000, shortly after Bezos was named Time's Person of the Year for his work with Amazon, he turned his attention to space. He founded Blue Origin, which would develop a vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing rocket ship that could pop passengers into suborbital space.

Bezos kept his plans under wraps for years, Space.com previously reported. Most of the company's information came out through mandatory disclosures to the Federal Aviation Administration and NASA as Bezos sought regulatory approvals and funding.

It wasn't until the late 2000s when Blue Origin had a detailed website and promotional materials available on it, in stark contrast to other billionaire-run spaceflight companies, such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic.

In 2011, Blue Origin faced a major setback, when a vehicle was destroyed during a test. Bezos revealed the failure a week after the fact in a short blog post on Blue Origin's website, explaining that a flight instability affected the angle of attack and ultimately caused the vehicle to crash.

In October 2012, Blue Origin revealed it had conducted a successful rocket escape test, which is a key milestone in rating the spacecraft safe for humans to ride. Although the system is supposed to work on the suborbital spacecraft, the company also plans to use the technology for its orbital flights.

Credit : Space.com

Picture Credit : Google