AstrotalkUK

Not for profit website/blog on astronomy, space and my writing

ISRO under lockdown

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Free online webinar from the British Interplanetary Society. 18:00 BST Friday 18th June 2021

Mission Control Centre

How has the Indian Space Program fared through the Covid-19 lockdown? In this hour long webinar including Q&A, I will offer a personal and tentative view of how India’s space activity has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. In the webinar I will look at how ISRO:

  • has supported the Covid-19 national medical emergency
  • space missions have impacted operationally
  • strategic plans have been delayed by the pandemic
  • especially the impact on the ambitious human spaceflight program – Gaganyaan

The webinar is free but you need to register here https://www.crowdcast.io/e/isro-under-lock-down- . It will be recorded and links to the recording will be available to all who register.

I recorded an interview with two senior ISRO representatives during IAC2019 in Washington. It is a fairly good indicator of ISRO’s plans for some of its key missions then (October 2019) prior to the the Covid-19 outbreak 6 months later.

Mars – some resources

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Now that Perseverance has arrived safely, we can look forward to some exciting images and scientific data in the coming weeks. Some links worth keeping an eye on include.

NASA Perseverance
Perseverance Instruments  
Mars Helicopter Objectives
Nasa.eyes.gov
Chronology of Mars Exploration
RAW unprocessed images here
Mars Weather Report

Latest images from NASA Perseverance

Perseverance Descent and Landing
NASA Perseverance imagery

Some interesting pictures from Mars. First a video of Curiosity observing Deimos passing in front of the Sun.

Some pictures of Meteorites, Sunset and Earth as seen from Mars

Episode 93: Exploring the surface of Titan

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Prof. John Zarnecki

In the early hours of Christmas day 2004, a small probe called Huygens separated from larger spacecraft Cassini. Three weeks later on 14 January it descended through Titan’s atmosphere to make the most distant soft landing in the solar system to date. Huygens transmitted data during its 136 minute descent through the thick atmosphere and a further 130m minutes from the surface until Cassini disappeared below the horizon.

Prof. John Zarnecki was the principal investigator for the UK based team that built the instruments that first made contact on the surface of Titan, Saturn and the solar system’s largest Moon.

In this conversation, recorded in December 2020, prof. Zarnecki recalls the how the mission came about, the science Huygens revealed at the time and today, a decade and a half later. Cassini-Hugens was a joint mission between NASA and ESA. He also shares his views on the value of international collaboration in space.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 59:42 — 48.4MB) | Embed

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A video of this interview is available on Youtube.

Space and iconic scientists from history – Online Zoom series starting Jan 2021

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So 2020 is behind us but we do have some distance to travel down the tunnel before we see the light. I reckon March should do it.  Until then why not join me on a weekly Zoom session about the latest (a) developments in space and (b)  scientific contributions from people in history.

I will be running online sessions via Zoom starting next week. They are organised by the Workers’ Educational Association and are free or £57.60 depending on your personal status for each of the two 9-week “courses” (as the WEA calls them).  Both are online via Zoom. I usually run them as Zoom meetings with lots of discussion and interaction rather than as a webinar. 

C3844979 – Explorers of the Cosmos 
9:30 to 11:30 on Wednesdays from 20/01/2021 to 17/03/2021

Our modern understanding of the universe is the end product of centuries of scientific discoveries by many individuals around the world. Whilst most have been forgotten in history, some stand out like shining stars. What was their profound scientific contribution? Why were they able to make breakthrough when they did?

  1. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543)
  2. Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) 
  3. Isaac Newton (1643–1727)
  4. Henrietta Swann Leavitt (1868–1921)
  5. Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
  6. Edwin Hubble (1899–1953)
  7. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-1995)
  8. Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) 
  9. Jocelyn Bell (1943 – )

C3845094 Astronomy -The New Space Age

17:00 to 19:00  on Thursdays from 21/01/2021 to 28/03/2021

What value does space technology and exploration have for us as individuals, communities and countries? The series of talks has been developed and enlarged from the first successful run in 2020. Topics include:

  1. From the Space Race to the New Space Age. How has human space exploration evolved since the launch of Sputnik in 1957?
  2. Services from space. All those satellites in space, what impact do they have on the quality of lives of people on Earth? 
  3. The Private Space sector. It has been emerging for many years. Has it finally arrived?
  4. Managing the Space Environment.  Can the international community apply the lessons of climate change on Earth to the space environment around Earth and beyond?
  5. Rocket Science. A summary of rocket propulsion. How it all started and how it’s done now.
  6. Militarisation of space. Humans on Earth have always fought on land, sea and air. Is war in space inevitable?
  7. Humans in Space.  In this decade, will humans walk on the Moon again? Will this decade finally deliver the promise of space tourism?
  8. Exploration of the Solar System. Spacecraft have now visited all the 8 planets of the solar system, along with comets and asteroids. What have we learnt?
  9. The Search for Life. It’s been going on for more than half a century. How is it going?