‘Sailing spacecraft’ may be used to keep watch on Earth’s polar regions

October 12th, 2009 BANGALORE - India's latest remote sensing satellite Oceansat-2 has begun beaming "good quality" images of the earth and relaying data on sea surface wind speed and direction, the space agency said Monday. The 960 kg spacecraft was launched on board the polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV-C14) from spaceport Sriharikota, about 90 km north-east of Chennai Sep 23, with three scientific instruments (payloads).

October 2nd, 2009 KOROLYOV - Russia's Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) Friday, a report said. The spacecraft lifted off on board a Soyuz-FG rocket Wednesday from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan.

September 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - NASA's Messenger spacecraft is all set to fly by Mercury for the third and final time on September 29. The spacecraft will pass less than 142 miles above the planet's rocky surface for a final gravity assist that will enable it to enter Mercury's orbit in 2011.

September 23rd, 2009 LONDON - A European satellite is all set to begin a quest to make the most detailed global map of the Earth's gravity field. According to a report by BBC News, known as the Goce satellite, the arrow-shaped spacecraft can sense tiny variations in the planet's tug as it sweeps around the world at the very low altitude of just 255km.

September 19th, 2009 LONDON - Two separate lunar missions have found evidence which indicates that the polar regions of the moon are chock full of water-altered minerals. According to a report in Nature News, early results from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), launched on June 18, are offering a wide array of watery signals.

September 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has successfully completed its testing and calibration phase and entered its mapping orbit of the moon's south pole. The spacecraft already has made significant progress toward creating the most detailed atlas of the moon's south pole to date.

September 16th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists from the Tucson-based Planetary Science Institute have created the first detailed maps that show the amount of dry ice (solid carbon dioxide) deposited in the polar regions of Mars. The maps reveal how the ice thickness varies with the seasons.

September 2nd, 2009 China tries to calm unease over rare earths curbsBEIJING — A Chinese official tried to calm unease about curbs on exports of rare earths used in clean energy products and superconductors, saying Thursday that sales will continue but must be limited to reduce damage to China's environment. China produces nearly all the rare earths used in batteries for hybrid cars, mobile phones, superconductors, lightweight magnets and other high-tech products.

July 18th, 2009 CHENNAI - The Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) first lunar mission Chandrayaan-I may have suffered technical setbacks within a year of its launch, but the organisation is confident that the spacecraft will complete its mission. "The failure of electronic components within a year of a satellite's launch is one of the risks that a mission faces.

July 17th, 2009 BANGALORE - A malfunctioning star sensor of India's first lunar mission spacecraft Chandrayaan-I was set right by space scientists to ensure correct orientation, an official said here friday. "One of the star sensors, which gives the orientation of the spacecraft, was malfunctioning but our scientists have overcome this problem with innovative techniques of using antenna pointing mechanism and gyroscope on board the spacecraft to get the orientation information," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) direcvtor S.

July 17th, 2009 BANGALORE - The failure of a critical sensor onboard India's maiden lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 will not impact its mission life and space scientists have overcome the snag with an innovative technique, a top space official said here Friday. "The star sensor used to determine the orientation of the spacecraft towards the lunar surface started malfunctioning from April 26 due to excessive radiation of the sun while orbiting 100 km away from the moon," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman G.

July 17th, 2009 BANGALORE - Indian space scientists have corrected the orientation of the countrys first lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 after one of its sensors malfunctioned, a senior official said Friday. We have overcome the snag and the spacecraft is again able to look at the lunar surface while orbiting at about 200 km above the moon, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) director S.

June 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, successfully completed its most significant early mission milestone on June 23 with a lunar swingby and calibration of its science instruments. The satellite will search for water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at the moon's south pole.

June 10th, 2009 MUMBAI - Japanese spacecraft Kaguya will crash into the moon at around midnight Wednesday and the impact, followed by flashes of light, will be visible from the earth to the naked eye, a scientist said here. The 2,600 kg spacecraft will slam into the moon's surface at a speed of over 6,000 km per hour on its southeastern side, according to Bharat Adur, the director of the Akashganga Centre for Astronomy and a former senior scientist with the Nehru Planetarium.

May 26th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Since the early 1990s, astronomers have discovered more than 300 planets orbiting far away stars, nearly all of them being gas giants like Jupiter. Now, powerful telescopes, similar to NASA's recently launched Kepler Mission, will help spot much smaller rocky extrasolar planets, or exoplanets with water, more similar to earth.