AstrotalkUK

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

Mars Beckons India – Mars mission set for November launch

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Mars Beckons India Book Review

Title: Mars Beckons India. The story of India’s Mission to Mars
Publisher: Vigyan Pasar
Author: Srinivas Laxman
ISBN: 9788174802255
Hardback: 71 pages

Disclosure: The author of this book, Srinivas Laxman reviewed my book “Yuri Gagarin in Manchester and London” on his blog in 2011. 

The dramatic announcement by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in August 2012 to launch a mission to Mars surprised everyone. It went further. In order to catch the next Mars launch window ISRO committed to a launch in November 2013. Miss that and they will have to wait for at least two years for the next one.  This is an extra-ordinarily bold undertaking for a space agency with the experience of only a single mission beyond Earth orbit under its belt.

In this book the author, a Times of India journalist, Srinivas Laxman interviews some of the key ISRO personnel to get mission details first hand. There is not a great deal of detail in the book.  Given the record breaking timescale, just over a year from announcement to launch, much of the detail is work in progress. The subtitle “The story of India’s Mission to Mars” is a little ambitious given that the mission has yet to begin. In the preface the author describes the book as a “public outreach exercise” which is much more appropriate objective. The book is well produced containing a generous number colour images. Some are disappointingly small and not all sit well within the narrative where they appear.

Although far from comprehensive, this is probably the most detailed information source authorised by ISRO in the public domain at the present. It was published early 2013. Mission details are still emerging. The 500kg spacecraft called Mangalyaan in the media but not formally by ISRO nor in this book, was made by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, will be launched aboard a PSLV-XL launcher  (the same one used for the  Chandrayaan-1 mission to the Moon in 2008) in November 2013. Following six ever increasing elliptical orbits of Earth,  Mangalyaan will leave Earth on 26th November and enter Martian orbit of 500km by 80,000km on 21st  September 2014.

This mission, unlike Chandrayaan-1 does not have an element of international collaboration. All five instruments (Methane Sensor, Thermal Infra-red Imaging Spectrometer, Mars Colour Camera, Lyman Alpha Photometer and the Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser) are of Indian origin.

Also included in the book is some background to Mars missions in the past and an introduction to some of the key ISRO personnel too.  This is an ideal book for anyone new to the subject, especially students who are looking for a primer on the India’s first Mars mission. Currently it is only available in hardback. Particularly for the student community, the publisher should consider releasing an e-book version.

The book, published only in India is available online  from Bookadda  at RS175.

Episode 61: Reg Turnill on Wernher von Braun

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Reg Turnill wit von Braun
Reg Turnill with Wernher von Braun 1977

Like so many in the “space community” I was saddened to hear of the passing of Reg Turnill. He was  the BBC’s aerospace correspondent but is  best known  for covering the American Space program  throughout the 60s and 70s that he documents so well in his book Moonlandings: An eye witness account.

He was the BBC’s representative in Moscow at Gagarin’s post flight press conference and told me in episode 41 of his experience when I went to meet him in January 2011.

Reg captures the ambiguity of the brilliant Wernher von Braun who he got to know so well that he called him a friend and yet believed that he was a war criminal and should have been hanged.

In this 30 minute podcast , the first a six minutes is  telephone conversation recorded on 3rd November 2011 followed by extracts from his talk at the UK Space Conference 5th July 2011 “The von Braun that I knew”. Reg shares three of his audio interviews with von Braun, the audio quality of the 2nd and 3rd is better than the first.

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Yuri Gagarin in London and Manchester – Errata

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This book was published over a year ago.  I thought it would be useful to share with you some of the corrections and comments I have received. Naturally, if you are aware of others please drop me a line.

* * *

P7:  Korloev died in 1966 not in 1967 as stated  on p17. Thanks Dave Shayler

P41:  “On his own visit to Cuba in 1965, Leonov met Hemingway and personally told him that this novel had been a favourite of Gagarin’s”  This is Leonov’s account from his jointly authored book  Scott, D. & A. Leonov: Two Sides of the Moon, 2004, p39. But it cannot be so – Hemingway died in 1961. Thanks Michael Cassutt

P85: The picture of the cenotaph in Manchester is not the cenotaph in Manchester but he one in London.  Apparently the picture form 1961 had been erroneously labeled back then. It has since been corrected by Ria Novosti.  Thanks Francis French (see post from Facebook replicated below)

P101:  I imply Dr Alexander Martynov is a cosmonaut. That is not so. He is a space scientist and frequently tours alongside other cosmonauts. Thanks Francis French

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Tale of two cenotaphs  Originally posted on Facebook 26th September 2012

During his day trip to Manchester, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin stopped by to lay a wreath at the cenotaph in St Peters Square which just a couple of hundred meters from the Town Hall, his final stop in Manchester. Or that is what I thought and said so on page 85 in my book “Yuri Gagarin in London and Manchester”.

During my research all my conversations with Mancunians who saw or met Gagarin in 1961 – no one could recall his stop at the cenotaph. But that did not matter, I had a photo from Rainovosti clearly capturing that moment in a labelled and dated picture.

During his recent trip “back home” to Manchester, Francis French stopped by at the cenotaph at St Peters Square. He compared the actual cenotaph with that in the picture and concluded that the one depicted in the picture was not the cenotaph in Manchester.

As I describe on page 116, in between his meeting with the Prime Minister and visiting the air ministry on Whitehall, Gagarin stopped by the cenotaph which was very much on his route. I have looked at images of the cenotaph in London and it appears that the one depicted in the picture (and my book) is the cenotaph in London.

I contacted Rianovosti and they have already amended the description http://visualrian.ru/en/site/gallery/#899166. I will do likewise in the ebook version of my book. Thanks to Francis “Sherlock” French, the story of Gagarin’s visit to the UK is now a little more accurate.

 

Episode 60: Square Kilometre Array

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Artists impression – from http://www.skatelescope.org/

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is a global science and engineering project to build a revolutionary new radio telescope with extraordinary scientific ambitions.

With funding from ten nations the building of the SKA will start in 2016 and be fully operational in 2024. It will tackle some of the profoundest questions of cosmology associated with organic molecules, gravitational waves,  pulsars orbiting black holes and light from the earliest stars that illuminated the universe. To do this the SKA will require super computers,  innovative new power stations and high speed communication links  that currently do not exist.

This interview with Professor Michael Kramer was recorded in March 2012 at the National Astronomy Meeting in the University Manchester two months prior to the announcement that the Square Kilometre Array will be built in South Africa along with  Australia & New Zealand.

Professor Kramer from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany that manages the 100m Effelsberg Radio Telescope  is  a former associate director at Jodrell Bank and still professor  there, talks about the technical, political and economic concerns associated with the SKA project.

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