ISRO’s Mars Orbiter: Olympus Mons, Tharsis Bulge and Valles Marineris trio of volcanoes

Olympus Mons, Tharsis Bulge trio of volcanoes, and Valles Marineris from ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission. 

Note the clouds and south polar ice cap. 

Credit: ISRO

India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) has delivered another sweet treat – a stunning view of our Solar System's largest volcano and the largest canyon.

Just days ago, MOM captured a new global image of the Red Planet dominated by Olympus Mons and Valles Marineris, which is the largest known volcano and the largest known canyon in the Solar System, respectively.

Situated right in between lies a vast volcanic plateau holding a trio of huge volcanoes comprising the Tharsis Bulge: Arsia Mons, Pavonis Mons, and Ascraeus Mons. All three are shield volcanoes.

To give an idea of its enormity, Olympus Mons stands about three times taller than Mount Everest and is about the size of Arizona.

Olympus Mons is located in Mars' western hemisphere and measures 624 kilometers (374 miles) in diameter, 25 km (16 mi) high, and is rimmed by a 6 km (4 mi) high scarp.

Valles Marineris is often called the "Grand Canyon of Mars." It spans about as wide as the entire United States.

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), India's space agency which designed and developed the orbiter released the image on Oct. 17, barely two days ahead of the planet's and spacecrafts' extremely close encounter with comet Siding Spring.

Olympus Mons from Mars orbit compared to the state of Arizona. 

Credit: NASA

By the way, a relieved ISRO tweeted MOM's survival of her close shave with the once-in-a-lifetime cometary passage with gusto, soon after the swingby:
"Phew! Experience of a lifetime. Watched the #MarsComet #SidingSpring whizzing past the planet. I'm in my orbit, safe and sound."

The new global image was taken by the tri-color camera as MOM swooped around the Red Planet in a highly elliptical orbit whose nearest point to Mars (periapsis) is at 421.7 km and farthest point (apoapsis) at 76,993.6 km, according to ISRO.

To date ISRO has released four global images of the Red Planet, including a 3-D view.

Olympus Mons, the Tharsis Bulge, and Valles Marineris are near the equator.

Valles Marineris stretches over 4,000 km (2,500 mi) across the Red Planet, is as much as 600 km wide, and measures as much as 7 kilometers (4 mi) deep.

Global Mosaic of Mars Centered on Valles Marineris from NASA’s Viking 1 orbiter. 

Credit: NASA

Here's a comparison view of the region taken by NASA's Viking 1 orbiter in the 1970s.

MOM is India's first deep space voyager to explore beyond the confines of her home planet's influence and successfully arrived at the Red Planet only one month ago after the "history creating" orbital insertion maneuver on Sept. 23/24 following a ten month journey.

The $73 million MOM mission is expected to last at least six months.

ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission captures spectacular portrait of the Red Planet and swirling dust storms with the on-board Mars Color Camera from an altitude of 74,500 km on Sept. 28, 2014. 

Credit: ISRO

MOM's success follows closely on the heels of NASA's MAVEN orbiter which also successfully achieved orbit barely two days earlier on Sept. 21 and could last 10 years or more.

With MOM's arrival, India became the newest member of an elite club of only four entities that have launched probes that successfully investigated Mars, following the Soviet Union, the United States, and the European Space Agency (ESA).

ISRO Launch India's Third Navigation Satellite IRNSS 1C

The IRNSS constellation with the daily lemniscate projection of the 4 GSO spacecraft onto Earth 

Credit: ISRO

India's third navigation satellite IRNSS 1C was launched on October 16 from Sriharikota spaceport in coastal Andhra Pradesh, space agency ISRO announced.

"Congrats to the scientists at ISRO for the successful launch of navigation satellite IRNSS 1C. It is a matter of immense pride and joy," the Prime Minister said in a statement.

"The 1,425kg navigation satellite (IRNSS-1C) launched October 16 at 1.32am IST onboard a polar rocket (PSLV-C26) from Satish Dhawan space centre at Sriharikota," said an Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) statement. Sriharikota is about 100km northeast of Chennai.

The satellite, which was scheduled for launch Oct 10 but the launch put off by a week due to a glitch in the telemetry system, is part of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) that will have a constellation of seven satellites to provide accurate positioning service for terrestrial, aerial and maritime navigation in 1,500 km area in the Indian peninsula.

The second navigation satellite (IRNSS-1B) was launched April 4 this year from the spaceport.

The Indian system will be similar to the US Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia's Glonass and Europe's Galileo constellation of navigation satellites.

India Seeking Outside Collaboration on High-throughput Satellite

“We are looking for international cooperation in this area,” ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan said. 

Credit: Photo courtesy of Indian government

The Indian government wants a high-throughput satellite generating at least 100 gigabits-per-second in orbit within five years and is seeking international partners in its development, ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan said.

If pursued, the project would mark a rare opportunity for foreign suppliers to crack India’s mainly closed satellite telecommunications market, which in any case has shown signs of opening in the past year.

“We are looking for international cooperation in this area,” ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan said in an address to the 65th International Astronautical Congress in Toronto (IAC 2014).

ISRO, with collaboration from domestic companies, builds its own satellites and operates them for its own account, and then acts as India’s telecommunications regulator with respect to pricing and market access by non-Indian satellite fleet operators.

International collaboration on Satellite Communications Systems is a normal part of the Space Industry and provides the most cost effective solution for countries.

Rapid technological advancements and the provision of advanced communications would be readily supported and used to great advantage by India's technologically astute corporations.

For India, the question will be whether to adopt a satellite broadband model such as in the United States, where Hughes Network Systems and ViaSat Inc. own their own satellites, build consumer broadband terminals and sell the service; or to purchase competing technologies.

Maryland-based Hughes Communications, owned by EchoStar Corp., Colorado, has long targeted India as a market ripe for consumer broadband.

The Hughes Comms' SPACEWAY 3 satellite, built by Boeing Satellite Systems International, Inc., was successfully launched on August 14, 2007 by Arianespace and is in its permanent geosynchronous orbital slot of 95° West longitude. 

Credit: Hughes Comms

Hughes has recently purchased Ka-band capacity on a satellite being built for fleet operator Eutelsat of Paris for a consumer broadband project in Brazil.

NISAR: NASA and ISRO Collaboration on Mars Exploration

This stunning view of Mars from India's Mangalyaan spacecraft was released on Sept. 29, 2014, less than a week after the orbiter arrived at the planet.

Credit: ISRO

India's recent Mars success appears to have turned some heads.

NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will investigate ways to collaborate on future missions to Mars, officials said Tuesday (Sept. 30).

The announcement comes just one week after India put its first-ever Mars probe in orbit around the Red Planet, becoming just the fourth entity, after the United States, the Soviet Union and the European Space Agency, to do so.

NASA and ISRO also signed an agreement Tuesday that lays out their respective roles on the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission, which is scheduled to launch to Earth orbit in 2020 to study the consequences of climate change on a fine scale.

"The signing of these two documents reflects the strong commitment NASA and ISRO have to advancing science and improving life on Earth," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement. "This partnership will yield tangible benefits to both our countries and the world."



Bolden and ISRO chairman K. Radhakrishnan signed the two agreements Tuesday at the International Astronautical Congress meeting in Toronto.

The Mars document sets up a NASA-ISRO Mars working group, which will meet once a year to identify and plan out joint activities, which could at some point include a cooperative mission to the Red Planet, NASA officials said.

An artist's concept of the planned NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), satellite in orbit, showing the large deployable mesh antenna, solar panels and radar electronics attached to the spacecraft. 

The mission is a partnership between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization. 

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Also up for discussion, they added, will be possible ways to coordinate the science activities of India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) probe and NASA's MAVEN spacecraft (short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution), which arrived at the Red Planet on Sept. 21, just a week before MOM did.

The NISAR mission will employ two different radar frequencies, known as L-band and S-band, to measure and study small surface changes around the globe, officials said.

The new agreement specifies that NASA will provide NISAR's L-band system, a data-communication subsystem and some other gear; ISRO will be responsible for the body of the spacecraft, the S-band system, the rocket and launch services, NASA officials said.

NASA and ISRO have a history of working together. Under an agreement signed in 2008, for example, NASA provided two science payloads for India's Chandrayaan-1 moon mission, which spotted signs of water ice near the lunar north pole after launching in 2008.

India's Mangalyaan spacecraft shows active dust storms on Mars

This spectacular view of Mars from India's Mangalyaan spacecraft shows active dust storms in the Red Planet's northern hemisphere. 

This photo was released on Sept. 29, 2014, less than a week after the Indian Mars orbiter arrived at the planet. 

Credit: Indian Space Research Organisation

India's first spacecraft to visit Mars has beamed home its greatest photo of the Red Planet yet, a view that reveals the planet from pole to pole.

The new photo of Mars from India's Mangalyaan probe was unveiled today (Sept. 29) by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

It shows Mars as a red globe in space, with the planet's southern ice cap clearly visible, while a huge dust storm blankets part of the northern region.

"Something's brewing here!" ISRO officials wrote in a Twitter post for the Mars orbiter.

ISRO Mangalyaan spacecraft

The Mangalyaan spacecraft used its Mars Colour Camera to capture the amazing photo from a distance of 46,292 miles (74,500 kilometers) above the Red Planet on Sunday (Sept. 28), according to an ISRO photo description.

It is the third and best view of Mars from Mangalyaan since the spacecraft arrived in orbit around the planet last week.

The Mars Colour Camera is one of five different instruments riding aboard Mangalyaan to study Mars from orbit.

Mangalyaan (the name is Sanskrit for "Mars Craft") is the centerpiece of India's $74 million Mars Orbiter Mission, which launched toward the Red Planet in November 2013 and arrived in orbit on Sept. 24 of this year.

ISRO MoM: MOM eyes the limb of Mars

ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission captures the limb of Mars with the Mars Colour Camera from an altitude of 8449 km soon after achieving orbit on Sept. 23/24, 2014 . 

Credit: ISRO

India's maiden interplanetary voyager, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) has transmitted a breathtaking new image eyeing the limb of Mars and its atmosphere against the blackness of space.

The beautiful Martian image is only MOM's second since successfully braking into orbit during the 'history creating' insertion maneuver days ago on Sept. 23/24.

The MOM orbiter was designed and developed by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO),

India's space agency, which released the image on Sept 25, about a day after MOM arrived.

The limb image was taken using MOM's Mars Colour Camera (MCC) from an altitude of 8449 kilometers and shows more of an 'Orange Planet' rather than a 'Red Planet.'

"A shot of Martian atmosphere. I'm getting better at it. No pressure," tweeted ISRO at MOM's newly established twitter account after entering orbit.

The image has a spatial resolution of 439 meters and is centered around Lat: 20.01N and Lon:31.54E.

MOM's goal is to study Mars atmosphere , surface environments, morphology, and mineralogy with a 15 kg (33 lb) suite of five indigenously built science instruments.

It will also sniff for methane, a potential marker for biological activity.

"The view is nice up here," ISRO tweeted.

India Mars Orbiter: Red Planet triumph, but at home red tape binds space firms

As India celebrated becoming the first Asian nation to reach Mars, S.M. Vaidya, head of business at conglomerate Godrej’s aerospace division that made the spacecraft’s engine and thruster components, sounded surprisingly downbeat.

The mission was, indeed, a major achievement, he said, and one of which the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) should be proud.

But a single trip to Mars was not enough to sustain a promising yet relatively small industry, he added, and ISRO should be doing more to foster it.

“Unless they fly more, they will not buy more from us,” Vaidya told Reuters, shortly after news broke on Wednesday that Mangalyaan, Hindi for “Mars craft”, had entered into orbit around the Red Planet about 10 months after launching.

“How many Mars missions are you going to have?”

India’s successful mission, completed on a shoestring budget of $74 million, has boosted its prestige in the global space race and, back on Earth, raised the profile of Indian companies involved in the project.

But Godrej and some other firms are frustrated at what they say is the slow execution of projects and lack of government support, which are hampering India’s efforts to compete with China and Russia as a cheaper option for launching satellites.

ISRO did not reply to questions for this article.

The Mangalyaan was built in 15 months with two-thirds of its parts manufactured by domestic firms such as Godrej & Boyce and India’s largest engineering company, Larsen & Toubro.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said he wants to expand India’s 50-year-old space program. The government has increased funding for space research by 50 percent to almost $1 billion this financial year.

But the program is still small, and the small number of launches limits the growth potential of private companies that supply them.

Between 2007 and 2012, ISRO accomplished about half of its planned 60 missions, government data showed. The government cited “development complexity” as the reason for the delay in some missions.

Add caption

Between 2012 and 2017 the target is 58 missions.

The agency has completed 17 missions so far, and ISRO did not say why the number remained low.

Some company executives and experts do not see that changing any time soon, with the absence of heavy rocket launchers, too few launch facilities and bureaucratic delays hampering growth.

Read the full article here

Namira Salim, Pakistan explorer commends ISRO on Mars Orbiter success

Namira Salim, a Pakistani explorer expected to become her country's first person in space congratulated India on Thursday on reaching Mars on its maiden attempt.

India won the Asian space race to the Red Planet on Wednesday when its unmanned Mangalyaan successfully entered the Red Planet's orbit after a 10-month journey on a budget of just $74 million.

Despite having a space program since 1961 Pakistan has not yet launched a satellite into orbit.

But Namira Salim, the first Pakistani explorer to reach both poles said India's achievement had made the region proud.

"The success of the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), Mangalyaan, is a giant leap for South Asia," said Salim, who has booked a ticket on UK hedonist Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic space project planned for 2015.

"I commend the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and all its scientists and researchers for not only achieving this astronomical feat, but also for achieving it in the most cost-effective manner."

Pakistan has not yet officially congratulated India. The neighbours have fought three wars, two of them over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Relations between the two countries have taken a turn for the worse after Pakistan's top envoy met Kashmiri separatist leaders in August, with India responding by calling off talks between the countries' foreign secretaries.

ISRO MoM: First images of Mars transmitted - Update

One of the first images taken by the ISRO Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft, released on September 25, 2014, shows the surface of Mars seen from a height of 7,300m.

Credit: ISRO

India's spacecraft has beamed back its first photos of Mars, showing its crater-marked surface, as the country glowed with pride Thursday after winning Asia's race to the Red Planet.

ISRO Scientists present a print of MoM's first image of Mars to India's PM Narendra Modi.

Credit: ISRO, Hindustan Times

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) uploaded one of the photos onto its Facebook page, showing an orange surface and dark holes, taken from a height of 7.3 kilometres (4.5 miles).

ISRO also posted the photo on Twitter, with the caption "The view is nice up here."

A senior ISRO official told reporters several photos have been successfully received, while a spokesman for the government agency said the spacecraft was working well.

India became the first Asian country to reach Mars on Wednesday when its unmanned Mangalyaan spacecraft entered the orbit after a 10-month journey on a shoestring budget.

The mission, which is designed to search for evidence of life on the planet, is a huge source of national pride for India as it competes with Asian rivals for success in space.

India's first Mars orbiter Mangalyaan captured this photo of the Martian atmosphere just after arriving at Mars on Sept. 24, 2014 Indian Standard Time. 

The Indian Space Research Organisation released the image on Sept. 25.

Credit: Indian Space Research Organisation

India beat rival neighbour China, whose first attempt flopped in 2011 despite the Asian superpower pouring billions of dollars into its programme.

At just $74 million, India's mission cost is less than the estimated $100 million budget of the sci-fi blockbuster "Gravity".

It also represents just a fraction of the cost of NASA's $671 million MAVEN spacecraft, which successfully began orbiting the fourth planet from the sun on Sunday.

The true test of success will come from the quality, value and extent of the scientific data collected by both spacecraft and their ability to advance our understanding of Mars and our Solar System.

An Indian Space Research Organisation official uses a scale model of the Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft to explain how parts of the orbiter works, at the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network in Bangalore on September 15, 2014

Credit: ISRO

India now joins an elite club of the United States, Russia and Europe who can boast of reaching Mars.

More than half of all missions to the planet have ended in failure.

This photo of Earth was the first photo from India's Mars Orbiter Mission and captured on Nov. 19, 2013. It shows India and the surrounding region from Earth orbit.

Credit: ISRO

The mission's success received front-page coverage in Indian newspapers on Thursday, with the Hindustan Times declaring "MARTIAN RACE WON" and the Times of India saying "India enters super exclusive Mars club."

Indians, from government ministers to office workers and cricketers poured onto Twitter to show their national pride, while school students celebrated by eating traditional Indian sweets.

ISRO: India's Mars Orbiter successfully inserted into orbit around MARS

TV Screens show Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeting Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientists and other officials after the success of Mars Orbiter Mission at their Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network complex in Bangalore, India, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2014. 

India triumphed in its first interplanetary mission, placing a satellite into orbit around Mars on Wednesday morning and catapulting the country into an elite club of deep-space explorers. 

Credit: AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi

India triumphed in its first interplanetary mission, placing a satellite into orbit around Mars on Wednesday morning and catapulting the country into an elite club of deep-space explorers.

Scientists broke into wild cheers as the orbiter's engines completed 24 minutes of burn time to maneuver the spacecraft into its designated place around the red planet.

"We have gone beyond the boundaries of human enterprise and innovation," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, standing alongside scientists with the Indian Space and Research Organisation (ISRO) at the command center in the southern tech hub of Bangalore.

"We have navigated our craft through a route known to very few," Modi said, congratulating the scientists and "all my fellow Indians on this historic occasion."

Scientists described the final stages of the Mars Orbiter Mission, affectionately nicknamed MOM, as flawless.

The success marks a milestone for the space program in demonstrating that it can conduct complex missions and act as a global launch pad for commercial, navigational and research satellites.

It's also a major feat for the developing country of 1.2 billion people, most of whom are poor.

At the same time, India has a robust scientific and technical educational system that has produced millions of software programmers, engineers and doctors, propelling many into the middle class.

Getting a spaceship successfully into orbit around Mars is no easy task. More than half the world's previous attempts, 23 out of 41 missions, have failed, including the Beagle-2 from the UK and Nozomi by Japan in 1999.

Indian Space Research Organization scientists and other officials cheer as they celebrate the success of Mars Orbiter Mission at their Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network complex in Bangalore, India, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2014. 

Credit: AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi

The United States had its first success with a 1964 flyby by a spacecraft called Mariner 4, returning 21 images of the surface of the planet.

The former Soviet Union MARS-3 reached the planet in 1971, and the European Space Agency Mars Express in 2003, still operating successfully around Mars.

The U.S. space agency NASA congratulated India in a Twitter message welcoming MOM to studying the red planet.

On Sunday, NASA achieved its own success in placing its Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission (Maven), in position.

The U.S. has two more satellites circling the planet at the moment, as well as two rovers rolling across the rocky Martian surface.

The ESA's Mars Express, launched over a decade ago, is still operating as well.

India was particularly proud that MOM was developed with homegrown technology and for a bargain price of about $75 million, a cost that Modi quipped was lower than many Hollywood film budgets.

By comparison, NASA's much larger Maven mission cost nearly 10 times as much at $671 million.

The real test of these missions will come when the scientific data is gathered and returned for examination.

In this Sept. 11, 2013, file photo, Indian engineers work on the Mars orbiter spacecraft at the satellite center of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in Bangalore, India.

Credit: AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi, File

Indian scientists "designed the trajectory aspects and the interplanetary aspects," said Vipparthi Adimurthy of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, who headed the team that crafted the first feasibility studies on whether India could reach Mars.

Dr Adimurthy

"Today not only has a dream come true, but we have created history for India, for ISRO, and for the world," he said.

The 1,350-kilogram (nearly 3,000-pound) orbiter will now circle the planet for at least six months, with five solar-powered instruments gathering scientific data that may shed light on Martian weather systems as well as what happened to the water that is believed to have existed once on Mars in large quantities.

The 15 kgs payloads on the Mars Orbiter Mission include:

Lyman Alpha Photometer (LAP), an absorption cell photometer that measures relative abundance of deuterium and hydrogen from Lyman-alpha emission in the Martian upper atmosphere.

Methane Sensor for Mars (MSM), designed to measure methane in the Martian atmosphere with PPB accuracy and map its sources.

Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA), a quadruple mass spectrometer capable of analysing the neutral composition in the range of 1 to 300 amu with unit mass resolution.

Mars Colour Camera (MCC), a tri-colour camera that gives images and information about the surface features and composition of Martian surface.

Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (TIS) to measure the thermal emissions and, because it is not using visible light, this instrument can be operated both during th day and night.

Temperature and emissivity are two basic physical parameters estimated from thermal emission measurement.

ISRO MOM: India's spacecraft 'on target' to reach Mars

India's Mars Orbiter Spacecraft took off from Sriharikota in November 2013 

Credit: ISRO

An Indian spacecraft is on course to reach Mars, an official said Monday, following a 666-million-kilometre voyage that could see New Delhi's low-cost space programme win Asia's race to the Red Planet.

The 350-tonne rocket carrying an unmanned probe is set to enter Mars's orbit next week after 10 months in space.

It is India's first mission to the planet to search for evidence of life.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) official Koteswara Rao said the rocket has travelled almost 666 million kilometres (413 million miles) since its launch from the southern spaceport of Sriharikota last November.

"India will be the first country in the world to insert a spacecraft into the Martian orbit in a maiden attempt if the operation succeeds," ISRO scientific secretary V. Koteswara Rao told reporters.

"And also the first Asian country to reach the Red Planet's sphere," Rao said.

Rao said the rocket's engines will be "woken up" to allow for a "course correction" on Sunday before its arrival on September 24.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)

ISRO scientists will also slow down the craft now travelling at 22.2 kilometres per second to 2.14 metres per second to allow for a smoother entry into the planet's orbit.

The cost of the project, at 4.5 billion rupees ($70 million), is a fraction of the $671 million NASA spacecraft that also launched last year and is expected to arrive within days of the Indian craft.

India has never before attempted inter-planetary travel. More than half of all missions to Mars have ended in failure, including China's in 2011 and Japan's in 2003.

Only the United States, Russia and the European Space Agency have been successful.

The Mars Orbiter Mission was revealed only 15 months ago by the previous prime minister.

The timing and place of the announcement, in an Independence Day speech, led to speculation India was seeking to make a point to China, despite denials from ISRO.

The gold-coloured probe, the size of a small car, will aim to detect methane in the Martian atmosphere, which could provide evidence of some sort of life form on the fourth planet from the sun.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has hailed the country's low-cost technology, saying a domestically-made rocket that launched four foreign satellites into orbit in June had cost less to make than the Hollywood film "Gravity".

But the programme has also faced critics who say a country that struggles to feed its people adequately should not be splurging on space travel.

Indian ISRO PLSV rocket launches 5 satellites: Three minute delay to avoid space debris

The Monday morning blast off of an Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) PSLV rocket carrying five foreign satellites was delayed by three minutes to avoid a collision with space debris, the space agency said.

Despite the necessary delay, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle's (PSLV) carrying the five foreign satellites blasted off from the Indian Space Research Organization’s launch pad at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh in southern India at 09:52 a.m. local time.

With this launch, India has successfully put into orbit five foreign satellites from four different countries.

The rocket's main payload was the 714-kg French EADS Astrium Earth Observation satellite SPOT-7.

The other satellites are:

• 14-kg AISAT-1 of Germany (already transmitting signals from orbit); 
• NLS7.1 (CAN-X4) and NLS7.2 (CAN-X5) from Canada's University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies' Space Flight Laboratory each weighing 15 kg (CanX-4 and CanX-5 form a dual nanosatellite formation flying a demonstration mission); and 
• 7-kg, 1U Cubesat VELOX-1 of Singapore.

The five satellites were launched under commercial arrangements that Antrix Corporation has entered into with the respective foreign agencies.

ISRO: India Launches Its 2nd Navigation Satellite

A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) launched India's second navigation satellite from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on April 4, 2014.

Credit: ISRO

India launched its second navigation spacecraft aboard a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) on Friday to continue building an independent space-based system to provide positioning services over Indian territory.

The 144-foot-tall launcher lifted off at 1144 GMT (7:44 a.m. EDT) from the Satish Dhawan Space Center, India's primary space launch site on the country's eastern coastline about 50 miles north of Chennai.

The launch occurred at 5:14 p.m. local time in India.

Propelled by a solid-fueled first stage and six strap-on motors, the PSLV raced into the sky from the Indian launch base, flying east while shedding all six boosters and the first stage in the first two minutes of the flight.

The rocket's second stage Vikas engine ignited for two-and-a-half minutes to push the launcher into space, then the PSLV's third and fourth stages accelerated the mission's payload to orbital velocity.

The upper stage released the Indian navigation satellite about 20 minutes after liftoff, prompting cheers and congratulatory handshakes in the launch control center.

Preliminary data showed the rocket placed the spacecraft in an orbit with a high point of 12,807 miles, a low point of 176 miles and an inclination of 19.2 degrees. The parameters are close to prelaunch predictions.

The launch marked the 26th PSLV mission since 1993 and the launcher's 22nd successful flight in a row.

"Reinvent the Toilet Challenge": Solar-powered toilet ready for India debut

CU-Boulder postdoctoral researcher Tesfayohanes Yakob, left, and research engineer Dana Haushulz are shown here with a novel solar-thermal toilet developed by a team led by CU-Boulder Professor Karl Linden as part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Reinvent the Toilet Challenge" to improve sanitation and hygiene in developing countries. 

Credit: University of Colorado Boulder

A revolutionary University of Colorado Boulder toilet fueled by the sun that is being developed to help some of the 2.5 billion people around the world lacking safe and sustainable sanitation will be unveiled in India this month.

Dana Haushulz

The self-contained, waterless toilet, designed and built using a $777,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has the capability of heating human waste to a high enough temperature to sterilize human waste and create biochar.

Biochar is a highly porous charcoal, said project principal investigator Karl Linden, professor of environmental engineering.

The biochar has a one-two punch in that it can be used to both increase crop yields and sequester carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.

The project is part of the Gates Foundation's "Reinvent the Toilet Challenge," an effort to develop a next-generation toilet that can be used to disinfect liquid and solid waste while generating useful end products, both in developing and developed nations, said Linden.

Since the 2012 grant, Linden and his CU-Boulder team have received an additional $1 million from the Gates Foundation for the project, which includes a team of more than a dozen faculty, research professionals and students, many working full time on the effort.

Tesfayohanes Yakob

According to the Gates Foundation, the awards recognize researchers who are developing ways to manage human waste that will help improve the health and lives of people around the world.

Unsafe methods to capture and treat human waste result in serious health problems and death – food and water tainted with pathogens from fecal matter results in the deaths of roughly 700,000 children each year.

Linden's team is one of 16 around the world funded by the Gates "Reinvent the Toilet Challenge" since 2011.

All have shipped their inventions to Delhi, where they will be on display March 20-22 for scientists, engineers and dignitaries.

Construction

Karl Linden

The CU-Boulder invention consists of eight parabolic mirrors that focus concentrated sunlight to a spot no larger than a postage stamp on a quartz-glass rod connected to eight bundles of fiber-optic cables, each consisting of thousands of intertwined, fused fibers, said Karl Linden.

The energy generated by the sun and transferred to the fiber-optic cable system, similar in some ways to a data transmission line, can heat up the reaction chamber to over 600 degrees Fahrenheit to treat the waste material, disinfect pathogens in both feces and urine, and produce char.

ISRO: India's Mars Orbiter Mission approach Mars orbit in 200 days

India's Mangalyaan, the Mars Orbiter mission, launched in November last year, is likely to reach the Red Planet in 200 days, the state-owned space agency has said.

"If everything goes as planned, Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) will get inserted into its Martian orbit around, exactly after 200 days from today," the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) reported on Friday evening.

To date, the Mars Orbiter mission has travelled 21 million km, after performing six orbit raising maneuvers around the Earth. 

PSLV-C25 carrying the Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft was launched from Sriharikota on 05 November 2013.

The Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, India's first interplanetary probe, was launched by PSLV-C25 at 1438 hours on November 5, 2013 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. 

In its voyage towards Mars, the mission has successfully completed 100 days in space tomorrow (February 12, 2014). It is scheduled to reach Mars's orbit on Sept. 24 this year.

The spacecraft health is Normal. The spacecraft is continuously monitored by the ground station of ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC), located at Byalalu, near Bangalore. 

Except for a 40 minute break in the Telemetry data received from the spacecraft to the ground station, data has been continuously available for all the 100 days.

The propulsion system of the spacecraft is configured for TCMs and the Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) Operation. 

On February 6, 2014, all the five payloads on Mars Orbiter spacecraft were switched 'ON' to check their health.

When Mangalyaan, the Mars Orbiter mission, reaches its destination, India would become the world's sixth country after the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and China to achieve such a feat.

ISRO: India unveils its astronaut crew capsule, plans test launch

India, hoping to become the fourth nation to send humans into space, has unveiled a key element in the effort, an indigenously manufactured astronaut capsule.

The country's space agency has displayed a prototype of its first crew capsule module designed to carry two people into low Earth orbit.

The Indian Space Research Organization announced plans to send the test prototype into orbit with the first experimental flight of the country's latest rocket, the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III.

Capable of putting 10 tons of payload into a low-Earth orbit, it could launch in May or June from Sriharikota spaceport on the coast of the Bay of Bengal, the agency said.

Currently only the United States, Russia and China have accomplished the feat of putting humans into Earth orbit.

The Indian space agency said it has decided on the test flight even though the government has yet to grant approval and funding for a human space-flight program.

"We thought it better to [go ahead to] gain some confidence in the design of our crew module," said Sundaram Ramakrishnan, director of ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Center in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.

The capsule, manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, is intended to carry two or three astronauts into a low-Earth orbit on a weeklong mission.