Tiangong-1 was the first space lab built by China and launched in late September, 2011 to help the nation master the technologies needed to construct and operate a crewed space station. China aims to have such a station up by 2020.
The first Chinese orbital docking occurred between Tiangong-1 and an unpiloted Shenzhou spacecraft on 2nd Nov, 2011. Two crewed missions later visited Tiangong-1. Shenzhou9 and Shenzhou 10 which launched in June 2012 and June 2013.
The European Space Agency has issued a new re-entry forecast for China's Tiangong-1 Space Lab. Th space lab weighing 8.5 tons is now expected to fall into Earth's atmosphere between 24th March, 2018 and 19th April, 2018. The ESA officials say it is a rough estimate. Re-entry will take place anywhere between 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south ( eg. Spain, France, Portugal, Greece etc) latitude. Areas outside these latitudes can be excluded. The precise location and time of fall cannot be predicted by ESA..
We all know that "Blue Moon" has nothing to do with the color of the Moon. A "Blue Moon" is some infrequent phenomenon which involves the appearance of an additional full moon within a given period. The period is something like two full moons appearing within a month's time.
Normally there is a gap of 29.5 days between two full moons so it is very unusual for two ful moons to fit into a 3o or 31 day-long month ( means February will never have a blue moon). So a blue moon is a second full moon appearing within a single calendar month. This is the meaning of a blue moon. So a blue moon does not have associate blue color but a blue moon is a full moon which appears within the same calendar.
The next monthly Blue Moon will be on 31st March, 2018. The previous one was the Super Blue Moon on 31st January, 2018.
Origin of the term "Blue Moon".
The phrase "Once in a blue moon" has been around for more than 450 years according to Philip Hiscock, a folklorist at the Memorial University of NewFoundland. In a 2012 article in Sky&Telescope magazine, he explained that the earliest use of the term was much like saying the moon is made of green cheese - It indicated some thing absurd. "He would argue that the moon is blue" was similar to saying "He would argue that black is white".
Scientists at the Carnegie Institute for Science has discovered a new and distant dwarf planet beyond Pluto in our solar system recently in third week of March, 2014. The planet is named as 2012 VP113. The scientists believe that the existence of this planet indicates that there may be another actual planet there which may be ten times bigger than the Earth.
The dwarf planet seems to be around 450 Kms. wide and orbits roughly 12.4 billion kilometers away from the Sun. This distance is roughly 83 Astronomical Units away from Sun. One astronomical unit or AU is 155.838 million Kilometers.
If the size of the dwarf planet is confirmed, it could be qualified as a dwarf planet in the same category of Pluto. The researchers said that the discovery proves the existence of the inner Oort cloud, which is a region of icy bodies that lies far beyond the orbit of Nepture,. The planet is currently named as 2012VP113 as announced on 26th March, 2014.
The size of 2012 VP113 is half the size of Sedna discovered earlier. Dwarf planets such as 2012 VP113 and Sedna, which travels as far as 949
AUs away from the sun on its 11,400-year orbit, form a placid "inner"
Oort Cloud distinct from the outer one, the study suggests. Comets that
plunge into the inner solar system are thought to be dispatched from the
outer Oort Cloud by gravitational nudges from stars passing near our
solar system.
We all know that China has landed a moon rover - Jade Rabbit on the surface of the Moon on 14th December, 2013. The rover has already sent its first pictures at that time.
But unfortunately the China's Jade Rabbit is experiencing some troubles. The rover is experiencing a mechanical control abnormality. The rover is experiencing the problems due to moon's complicated lunar surface environment. We all know that the rover has landed on Moon as a part of China's Chang'e -3 Mission which is the first soft landing on Moon since 1976. The rover was expected to operate for around 3 months. China has recently announced that Jade Rabbit also known as Yutu has successfully explored the Moon surface with its mechanical arm.
The malfunction emerged before the rover entered its scheduled dormancy period on 25th Jan, 201
4. The scientists are trying to repair the rover. The rover was due to become dormant for 14 days during the lunar night when there will be no sunlight available to power the solar panels. As you alll know that the lunar cycle consists of 28 Earth days. For those 14 days the Moon is illuminated by the Sun which is called as Lunar Day and for the other 14 days the Moon is in shadow which is called Lunar Night. During the Lunar day, the rover is free to move around for those 14 days as the solar panels are powered by sun light. But during the lunar night, the temperatures reach below -170 degrees celcius and the rover enters into a state of hibernation. In this mode, a radio isotope heater unit ( which is a few grams of radio active plutonium) keeps the core systems warm enough so that they do not freeze to death.
But a mechanical control abnormality caused by the complicated lunar surface environment is preventing the rover from hibernating. China has several successful manned space flights but the malfunctioning rover presents the first public mishap in China's ambitious space programme.
It is expected that the Jade Rabbit will not function in future and this is the end of its life.
The ISS or the International Space Station is the largest international scientific project ever conceived. The ISS was built by USA, Russia, Japan, Canada and 11 European countries. The ISS is powered by solar panels which generate 110 Kilo watts of power once completed.
The International Space Station marked its 10th anniversary of
continuous human occupation on Nov. 2, 2010. Since Expedition 1, which
launched Oct. 31, 2000, and docked Nov. 2, the space station has been
visited by 204 individuals.
At the time of the anniversary, the station’s odometer read more
than 1.5 billion statute miles (the equivalent of eight round trips to
the Sun), over the course of 57,361 orbits around the Earth. Here are some of the important facts and figures about the International Space Station.
The ISS is not only an orbiting laboratory, but it is also a space port for many international spacecrafts. As of June, 2013, there have been:
- 37 Space Shuttle launches to the ISS
- 89 Russian Launches
- 3 Japanese HTV's
- 3 European ATVs
- 1 test flight and 2 operational flights by SpacX's Dragon
ATV is nothing but the Automated Transfer Vehicle is an expendable, pressurized unmanned resupply spacecraft developed by the European Space Agency (ESA). ATVs are designed to supply the International Space Station (ISS) with propellant, water, air, payloads, and experiments. ATVs can also reboost the station into a higher orbit.
Totally 174 space walks have been conducted in support of the ISS assembly totaling about 1,100 hours or nearly 45 days. The Internatinal Space Station including its solar arrays, spans an area of a Foot Ball field and weights 924,739 pounds. The livable room size of the space station at present is more than a six-bedroom house and it has two bath rooms, a gymnasium and a 360 degree bay window. Additional launches will continue to update these facts and figures.
Facts about ISS
- Length of the Module : 167.3 feet ( 51 meters)
- The ISS measures 357 feet end-to-end. That’s equivalent to the length
of a football field including the end zones
- Length of Solar array : 239.4 feet (73 meters)
- Habitable volume : 13,696 cubic feet ( 388 cubic meters)
- Total power generated : 84 Kilo watts ( 8 solar arrays)
- Pressurized Volume : 32,333 cubic fet ( 916 cubic meters)
- Lines of Computer Code: approximately 2.3 million
- Surface area of Solar arrays of ISS is equal to US Senate Chamber 3 times over
- ISS is larger than a 6-bed room house
- Solar array wing span is 240 feet which is more than Boeing 777 ( 212 feet)
- Till now more than 115 space flights were conducted on 5 different types of Launch vehicles over the course of ISS construction
- ISS is 4 times as large as Russian Space Station Mir and 5 times as large as US Skylab
- The weight of ISS is almost 1 million pounds ( 925,000 pounds). This is equal to more than 320 auto mobiles.
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3.3 million lines of software code on the ground support 1.8 million lines of flight software code.
- The electrical power system has 8 miles of wires connecting the system
- 1.5 million lines of flight software code runs on 44 computers in the ISS's US segment alone communicating via 100 data networks transferring 400,000 signals ( e.g. pressure, or temperature measurements etc.)
- Main U.S. control computers have 1.5 gigabytes of total main hard
drive storage in the U.S. segment compared to modern PCs, which have
~500 gigabyte hard drives.
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The entire 55-foot robot arm assembly is capable of lifting 220,000 pounds, which is the weight of a space shuttle orbiter.
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The 75 to 90 kilowatts of power for the ISS is supplied by an acre of solar panels.
- Over the next 20 years, there will be 260 ISS spacewalks. There have only been 174 spacewalks in NASA history.
China has launched its first ever extra terrestrial landing craft into the orbit en route for the moon. Chang'e 3 mission operated by China National Space Administration incorporates a robotic lander and a rover. Chang'e 3 was successfully launched on 2nd December, 2013 at 01:30 AM local time from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the Sichuan province of China. The time of launch is 17:30 GMT on 1st Dec., 2013.
This is the second phase of Chinese lunar exploration program. This is the first lunar land rover and is the first spacecraft in 37 years to make a soft landing on the Moon since the Russia's Luna 24 Mission in 1976. Chang'e is named after the goddess of Moon as per Chinese mythology and is a follow up of Chang'e 1 and Chang'e 2 lunar orbiters. The lunar rover is called Yutu or Jade Rabbit, a name selected in an online poll that comes from a Chinese myth about a white rabbit that lives on the Moon.
The Chang'e lunar probe including the Yutu or Jade Rabbit buggy, blasted off on board an enhanced Long March-3B rocket. The State Television showed a live broadcast of the rocket lifting off.
If every thing goes well, the rover will conduct geological surveys and search for natural resources. This is the China's first spacecraft to make a soft landing beyond Earth, and will be touching down on the Moon in Mid-December, 2013.
The China's first moon orbiter was launched in 2007 - Chang'e 1 which took images of the Moon's surface and analyzed the distribution of elements. Chinese scientists have discussed about the possibility of sending humans to the Moon some time around 2020.
The Jade Rabbit rover or Yutu will spend three months exploring the surface of Moon. Here is a photograph of the Jade Rabbit Rover.
The launch video of Chang'e 3 Moon Mission of China can be seen below.
