Space exploration and technology

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EagleOne

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DRDO's Tall Claims Face Criticism

India Defence Online, New Delhi — India has once again been criticised for making false moral and ethical claims regarding the issue of the weaponisation of space. The reason India has been implicated is because of the sweeping proclamations that the state-owned Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has made with reference to military space programme.

Sources indicated that the DRDO, unbeknownst of the policy implications of its statements, has revealed that the development of ASAT (anti-satellite weaponry) for electronic or physical destruction of satellites in both LEO (low earth orbit) and geo-synchronous orbit can be expected to be completed by 2015. This was published in DRDO's Technology Perspective and Capability Roadmap.

As a result, the US based organisation called the Military Space Transparency Project (MSTP) has pointed out that the DRDO's statement "blatantly contradicts statements by Indian political leaders that deny any intent by their nation to pursue space weapons".

In the past, the Indian Prime Minister and other prominent leaders have spoken against weapons in outer space. A few years back, Indian ministers had openly criticised China's kinetic kill vehicle (KKV) and stated that the security and safety of assets in outer space is of crucial importance for global economic and social development. Even the Prime Minister of India has gone on record to say that India is not in favour of the weaponisation of outer space.

However, MSTP indicated that this is not the first time that India has made false claims about its ethicality and turned out to be an embarrassment to the world with its double standards.

A report entitled "Military Dimensions in the Future of the Indian Presence in Space", published in 2000 by V Siddhartha, an officer on the personal staff of the DRDO chief, indicated that India could deploy a directed energy weapon in space by 2010 besides the creation of a system called the KALI (kinetic attack loitering interceptor). Despite all the talk from the Indian political leaders, military agencies like the DRDO still go ahead and completely contradict them by pursuing space weapons.

According to the MSTP, the setting of target dates for the development of anti-satellite systems by any nation should be considered shocking, particularly given the scrutiny that was paid to nations such as China and the US when they each demonstrated a direct-ascent ability to strike satellites in space.
 

Rahul Singh

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The whole world had double standards when it comes to agreements NPT,FMCT, etc... Better to have a double standard then fall behind.
Well said LF.... Extremely stupid to see these so called peace loving people saying so openly to us to sacrifice on our security..

DRDO's Tall Claims Face Criticism
While author is right when he quotes two different Indians saying opposite thing but he misses one thing which is difference in dates.

Indian leaders said or criticized ASAT far back in time. Since then lot of time have passed and nothing happened in order to stop or ban these type of development. Against what should have happened world witnessed more development in this field. A lot of time have passed even after latest development and even smallest step against it is still due.

I will like to ask author. In this environment what India should do? Should she wait forever and see her space assets becoming sitting ducks to Chinese ASAT?

Writer should remember one thing that this action by DRDO is reactionary not hostile. Timing of this decision indicates much about hypocritical nature of world and less about duel standards adopted by Indian.

When our enemy have such weapon and world is doing nothing for disarmament then logically India should also have such weapons(not for first strike but as a deterrent).
 
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http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-business/article484502.ece

Alstom teams up with NPCIL and BHEL to supply reactor turbines


Alstom Power, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and BHEL have entered into a tripartite agreement for supplying turbines for the 700-MWe pressurised heavy water reactors that will be built in four locations in India.

"We have been retained to provide turbines for the 700-MWe reactors for India's nuclear power programme. The first order is for Kakrapar in Gujarat," Guy Chardon, Senior Vice-President, Thermal Products, Alstom Power, said here.

He told visiting journalists from India and France that NPCIL, Alstom Power and BHEL would have one-third equity each in this joint venture, which awaited the approval of the Atomic Energy Commission (of India).

Excavation is under way for building two reactors of 700 MWe each at Kakrapar, 80 km from Surat. Six more Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors of 700 MWe each will come up in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana, with two reactors for each State.

Mr. Chardon addressed the journalists on Wednesday, on the eve of the inauguration of Alstom Power's new manufacturing and engineering facility in this picturesque town of Chatttanooga, on the banks of the Tennessee River. Alstom Power's new facility, spread over 3.5 lakh square feet, will manufacture turbines and casings for nuclear power reactors and coal and gas-fired power stations, rotors and generator stators. The plant has the capacity to manufacture the largest steam turbine in the world. It also has the largest rotor balancing facility.

"We supply turbines for all types of reactors. We are very active in India," Mr. Chardon said. Alstom Power and Bharat Forge have come together to establish a plant at Mundra in Gujarat for building turbines for 1,000-MWe and 1200-MWe nuclear power reactors that will be built in India. "We will be supplying turbines for Rosatom's VVER-1200 nuclear power reactors," he said. Alstom Power has entered into a joint venture with Russia's Rosatom to supply turbines for Rosatom VVER-1200 units not only in India but worldwide. (Besides the two VVER-1000 units of 1,000-MWe capacity each built at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu, VVER-1200 units of 1200-MWe capacity each are planned at Kudankulam and Haripur in West Bengal).

Philippe Joubert, president, Alstom Power, said the company would focus on further developing carbon-free technologies such as nuclear, hydro, solar and wind power.

Asked whether Alstom Power would retrofit any steam turbine in India as the company had done in a 500-MWe coal-fired power station at Widows Creek in Alabama, Mr. Joubert said retrofitting steam turbines in India would not make sense because coal-fired power stations in India were small-sized. Instead of retro-fitting, power utilities in India could replace their aged power stations.
 

EagleOne

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India joins multinational telescope project

India has joined the Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT) project, the next generation astronomical observatory that will be located on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

This was announced by Minister of State for Science and Technology Prithviraj Chauhan in California on Friday.

The observatory is scheduled to begin operations in 2018.

Observer status
India has been granted observer status on the TMT Board. This is the first step to becoming a full partner in TMT, which will mean participating in the development and scientific use of what will be the world's most advanced and capable astronomical observatory, according to the press release by the TMT project team.

"In about a year's time," said Ajit Kembhavi, Director, Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune, "we expect this observer status to be converted into full partnership in the project."

The proposal to join the TMT project was initiated by three Indian institutes engaged in astronomy: the IUCAA, the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bangalore, and the Aryabhata Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital. "The government had regarded our proposal as a reasonable one and hence the decision," Professor Kembhavi added.

"The government and people of India recognise the importance of embarking on world class, international science collaboration," said Science and Technology Secretary T. Ramasami, who had accompanied the Minister to sign the agreement.

Originally, there were three international telescope projects to choose from for Indian participation: the 42-m European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the 24.5 m Grand Magellan Telescope (GMT) and the TMT of the United States. The E-ELT, in fact, has offered observation time on the existing ESO telescopes before it comes into operation.

Indian scientists will have access to the existing telescopes operated by Caltech, the nodal institution for TMT. The TMT project is an international partnership among Caltech, the University of California and the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy.

The National Astronomical Observatory (NAO) of Japan joined TMT as a collaborating institution in 2008. The National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences joined TMT with the observer status in November 2009.

The TMT was proposed by American scientists after the enormous success of the first new technology telescope, the twin 10 m Keck Telescope, on Mauna Kea. The TMT's primary mirror builds on the technological and operational heritage of Keck.

Spatial resolution
Like existing ground-based observatories, TMT will be capable of observations with a spatial resolution limited by the natural turbulence of the earth's atmosphere. The TMT will be able to observe objects nine times fainter than Keck in an equal amount of time. However, it will be the first ground-based telescope with Adaptive Optics (AO) as an integral system element. AO denotes systems designed to sense atmosphere turbulence in real time, correct the optical beam of the telescope to remove its effect and enable true diffraction-limiting image on the ground. For any astronomical observations, this is equivalent to observing at a fraction of the cost of a space-based observatory like the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).

According to the arrangement, Indian scientists will get a percentage of the observational time proportional to the percentage of the total project cost that the Indian government would be willing to bear. The next steps in the Indian decision-making process would involve an in-principle decision of the Union Cabinet on the extent of contribution and a decision on the mode of financing the pledged amount. Though the final project cost is not yet clear, it is likely to be in the region of $1 billion. The project has, as of now, completed its $77 m design development phase with$50 m from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and $22 m from Canada. The project has now entered its early construction phase, thanks to an additional $200 m pledge from the Foundation. Caltech and University of California have agreed to raise matching funds of $50 m bringing the current construction investment to $300 m. Canadian partners propose to supply the enclosure, the telescope structure and the first light adaptive optics.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/article487509.ece
 
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http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Earth_Like_Planets_May_Be_Ready_For_Their_Close_Up_999.html

Earth-Like Planets May Be Ready For Their Close-Up

Many scientists speculate that our galaxy could be full of places like Pandora from the movie "Avatar" - Earth-like worlds in solar systems besides our own.

That doesn't mean such worlds have been easy to find, however. Of the 400-plus planets so far discovered, none could support life as we know it on Earth.

"The problem with finding Earth-like planets," said Stefan Martin, an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., "is that their host stars can emit 10 million times more infrared light than the planet itself. And because planets like ours are small and orbit very close to their respective stars, it makes Earths almost impossible to see."

Together with A.J. Booth (formerly at JPL and now at Sigma Space Corp., Lanham, Md.), Martin may have developed a way to make this almost impossible feat a reality.

Their instrument design, called a "nulling interferometer," observes planets in infrared light, where they are easier to detect. It is designed to combine starlight captured by four different telescopes, arranging the light waves from the star in such a way that they cancel each other out. "We're able to make the star look dimmer - basically turning it off," Martin said.

Nulling interferometry is not a new idea, but what sets the results from Martin and Booth apart is how effective it turned out to be. "Our null depth is 10 to 100 times better than previously achieved by other systems," Martin said. "This is the first time someone has cross-combined four telescopes, set up in pairs, and achieved such deep nulls. It's extreme starlight suppression."

That suppression could allow scientists to get a better look at exoplanets than ever before. "We're able to make the planet flash on and off so that we can detect it," Martin said. "And because this system makes the light from the star appear 100 million times fainter, we would be able to see the planet we're looking for quite clearly."

Pandora, up close and personal
Nulling interferometry isn't the only way scientists can find other Earths. NASA's Kepler mission, currently in orbit, is looking for Earth-like planets by watching the light of faraway stars dim slightly as their planets pass in front of them.

Another method of observing exoplanets is coronagraphy, which uses a mask to block the optical light of a star, making its surrounding planets more easily visible. And the proposed SIM Lite mission would also be able to find nearby planets by observing the gravity-induced "wobbling" of their host stars.

However, Martin and Booth's nulling interferometer could eventually give astronomers
the ability to get up close and personal with Earth-like worlds, analyzing their atmospheres for signs of habitability or even possibly life. "We expect to eventually be able to see hundreds of planets with this technique," Martin said.

The technology that they've developed could be used on a follow-up space mission to SIM Lite and Kepler. Martin is now planning to test the system in conditions that better mimic a real-life mission.

Once considered the stuff of science fiction, it may not be long before Earth-like planets, or, in the case of Pandora, Earth-like moons of giant planets, are found to exist other places besides the silver screen.
 

EagleOne

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Obama unveils new space policy, to enhance cooperation with India

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama unveiled a new national space policy designed to strengthen US' leadership in space and putting emphasis on greater cooperation with India.

Shortly after the policy was announced yesterday, White House officials in a conference call with reporters said the US emphasises a lot on its co —operation with India, noting the south Asian country has a "very space friendly" programme.

The US greatly values India's emergence as a global player in space and research and aims to deepen its cooperation with India in the field of space, one official said.

"This policy is about the boundless possibilities of the future," Obama said in a statement as the White House unveiled the basic contours of America's New Space Policy.

"That is why we seek to spur a burgeoning commercial space industry, to rapidly increase our capabilities in space while bolstering America's competitive edge in the global economy".

He said the administration is proposing improved observation of the earth, to gain new insights into the environment and the planet.

Noting that the US will engage in expanded international cooperation in space activities, a fact —sheet issued by the White House said: "The United States will pursue cooperative activities to the greatest extent practicable in areas including space science and exploration, earth observations, climate change research, and the sharing of environmental data; disaster mitigation and relief; and space surveillance for debris monitoring and awareness".

"We set ambitious goals for NASA: ramping up robotic and human space exploration, with our sights set on Mars and beyond, to improve the capacity of human beings to learn and work safely beyond the Earth for extended periods of time.

"And this policy recognises the importance of inspiring a new generation of young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For, ultimately, our leadership as a nation — in this or any endeavour — will depend on them," Obama said.

The new policy says that all nations have the right to explore and use space for peaceful purposes, and for the benefit of all humanity, in accordance with international law. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Obama-unveils-new-space-policy-to-enhance-cooperation-with-India/articleshow/6104782.cms
 
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http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/F...lanet_Confirmed_Around_Sun_Like_Star_999.html

First Directly Imaged Planet Confirmed Around Sun-Like Star

A planet only about eight times the mass of Jupiter has been confirmed orbiting a Sun-like star at over 300 times farther from the star than the Earth is from our Sun. The newly confirmed planet is the least massive planet known to orbit at such a great distance from its host star. The discovery utilized high-resolution adaptive optics technology at the Gemini Observatory to take direct images and spectra of the planet.
First reported in September 2008 by a team led by David Lafreniere (then at the University of Toronto, now at the University of Montreal and Center for Research in Astrophysics of Quebec), the suspected planetary system required further observations over time to confirm that the planet and star were indeed moving through space together.

"Back in 2008 what we knew for sure was that there was this young planetary mass object sitting right next to a young Sun-like star on the sky," says Lafreniere. The extremely close proximity of the two objects strongly suggested that they were associated with each other but it was still possible (but unlikely) that they were unrelated and only aligned by chance in the sky.

According to Lafreniere, "Our new observations rule out this chance alignment possibility, and thus confirms that the planet and the star are related to each other."

With this confirmation by Lafreniere and colleagues, the system, known as 1RXS J160929.1-210524 (or 1RXS 1609 for short), provides scientists with a unique specimen that challenges planetary formation theories due to its extreme separation from the star.

"The unlikely locale of this alien world could be telling us that nature has more than one way of making planets," says co-author Ray Jayawardhana of the University of Toronto. "Or, it could be hinting at a violent youth when close encounters between newborn planets hurl some siblings out to the hinterlands," he adds.

With its initial detection by the team using the Gemini Observatory in April of 2008 this object became the first likely planet known to orbit a sun-like star that was revealed by direct imaging. At the time of its discovery the team also obtained a spectrum of the planet and was able to determine many of its characteristics, which are confirmed in this new work.

"In retrospect, this makes our initial data the first spectrum of a confirmed exoplanet ever!" says Lafreniere. The spectrum shows absorption features due to water vapor, carbon monoxide, and molecular hydrogen in the planet's atmosphere.

Since the initial observations several other worlds have been discovered using direct imaging, including a system of three planets around the star HR 8799 also discovered with Gemini. However, the planets around HR 8799 orbit much closer to their host star.

The team's recent work on 1RXS 1609 also verified that no additional large planets (between 1-8 Jupiter masses) are present in the system closer to the star. Future observations may shed light on the origin of this mysterious far-out planet. In particular, in a few years, it should be to possible to detect a slight difference in motion between the planet and its star due to their mutual orbit.

Co-author Marten van Kerkwijk (University of Toronto) notes that the difference will be "very small," since the fastest possible orbital period is more than one thousand years. But he adds that by using Gemini it should be possible to measure a very precise velocity of the planet relative to its host.

This will show whether the planet is likely on a roughly circular orbit, as would be expected if it really formed far from its host star, or whether it is in a very non-circular or even unbound orbit, as could be the case if it formed closer to its star, but was kicked out in a close encounter with another planet.

The host star is located about 500 light-years away in a group of young stars called the Upper Scorpius association that formed about five million years ago. The original survey studied more than 85 stars in this association. The planet has an estimated temperature of about 1800 Kelvin (about 1500 degrees Celsius) and is much hotter than Jupiter, which has a atmospheric cloud-top temperature of about 160 Kelvin (-110 degrees Celsius).

The host star has an estimated mass of about 85% that of our Sun. The young age of the system explains the high temperature of the planet. The contraction of the planet under its own gravity during its formation quickly raised its temperature to thousands of degrees. Once this contraction phase is over, the planet slowly cools down by radiating infrared light. In billions of years, the planet will eventually reach a temperature similar to that of Jupiter.

The observations used the Near-Infrared Imager (NIRI) and the Altair adaptive optics system on the Gemini North telescope. Adaptive optics allows scientists to remove much of the distortions caused by our atmosphere and dramatically sharpen views of space. "Without adaptive optics, we would simply have been unable to see this planet," says Lafreniere.

"The atmosphere blurs the image of a star so much that it extends over and is much brighter than the image of a faint planet around it, rendering the planet undetectable. Adaptive optics removes this blurring and provides a better view of faint objects very close to stars."
 
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http://knol.google.com/k/indian-nuclear-reactors#

Indian Nuclear Reactors

Details of existing and planned Indian nuclear reactors, safeguarded and unsafeguarded
Under the recent Indo-US nuclear deal India agreed to place 14 out of its 22 commercial nuclear power reactors under safeguards, amounting to about two-thirds of current nuclear power generation as against two-fifths at present (Two reactors each at Tarapur, Rawatbhatta and Koodankulam built with US, Canadian and Russian assistance respectively are already under safeguards). All future commercial power reactors will also be placed under international safeguards.
Contents

* List of Reactors
* Why We Need Eight Unsafeguarded Commercial Reactors
* Planned Russian Reactors
* Nuclear fuel from Russia
* French Evolutionary Power Reactors (EPRs)
* US Supplied Nuclear Reactors
* Nuclear Power as Total Installed Capacity Percentage

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Thakur, Vijainder K. Indian Nuclear Reactors:Details of existing and planned Indian nuclear reactors, safeguarded and unsafeguarded [Internet]. Version 21. Knol. 2010 Apr 21. Available from: http://knol.google.com/k/vijainder-k-thakur/indian-nuclear-reactors/yo54fmdhy2mq/2.
CitationCitationEmailEmailPrintPrintFavoriteFavoriteCollect this pageCollect this page
India currently operates 18 commercial nuclear power plants with a total installed capacity of 4,340 MW. Four nuclear power plants with a total installed capacity of 2,440 MW are under construction.

The nuclear power capacity addition target for the XI plan (2007-12) is 3160 MW which will bring the total installed capacity to 7280 MW.

Project for 2800 MW capacity addition by 2016/2017 have been approved in the year 2009.

List of Reactors
Location Unit Name Capacity (mw) Utility Type Reactor Supplier Percent Complete Expected / Actual Date of Operation
Kaiga,
Karnataka Kaiga 1 220 NP PHWR NPCIL 100
11/2000
Kaiga 2 220 NP PHWR NPCIL 100
03/2000
Kaiga 3 220 NP PHWR NPCIL 100
05/2007
Kaiga 4 220 NP PHWR NPCIL 97.0 06/2010
Kakrapar,
Gujarat Kakrapar 1 220 NP PHWR DAE/NPCIL 100
05/1993
Kakrapar 2 220 NP PHWR DAEC/NPCIL 100
09/1995
Kakrapar 3 700 NP PHWR NPCIL 0 /2015
Kakrapar 4 700 NP PHWR NPCIL 0 /2015
Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu Kalpakkam 1 220 NP PHWR DAE 100
01/1984
Kalpakkam 2 220 NP PHWR DAE 100
03/1986
Kota,
Rajasthan Rajasthan 1 100 NP PHWR AECL 100
12/1973
Rajasthan 2 200 NP PHWR AECL/DAE 100
4/1981
Rajasthan 3 220 NP PHWR NPCIL 100
06/2000
Rajasthan 4 220 NP PHWR NPCIL 100
12/2000
Rajasthan 5 220 NP PHWR NPCIL 100
03/2010
Rajasthan 6 220 NP PHWR NPCIL 99 03/2010
Rajasthan 7 700 NP PHWR NPCIL 0 06/2016
Rajasthan 8 700 NP PHWR NPCIL 0 12/2016
Kudankulam,
Tamil Nadu Kudankulam 1 1,000 NP PWR Russia 93.9 09/2010
Kadunkulam 2 1,000 NP PWR Russia 83.7 03/2011
Narora,
Uttar Pradesh Narora 1 220 NP PHWR DAE/NPCIL 100
01/1991
Narora 2 220 NP PHWR DAE/NPCIL 100
07/1992
Tarapur, Maharashtra Tarapur 1 160 NP BWR GE 100
11/1969
Tarapur 2 160 NP BWR GE 100
11/1969
Tarapur 3 540 NP PHWR NPCIL 100
08/2006
Tarapur 4 540 NP PHWR NPCIL 100
09/2005
Research Reactors 1Apsara 1 BARC PWR UK 100
08/1956
2Cirus 40
PHWR Canada 100
1960
3Dhruva 100
PHWR BARC 100
11/1969
4FBTR 100 NP Sodium Cooled DAE 100
7/1997
5Kamini 100 NP Sodium Cooled DAE 100
1989
Prototype FBR 500 BARC Sodium Cooled DAE ? 2010

1This reactor is slated to be moved out of the BARC complex, which along with the research facilities at Kalpakkam will not be subject to safeguards under the purview of the recent nuclear deal with the US.

2Under the deal India has promised to phase out Cirus over the next five years. The reactor went critical in 1960 and is capable of producing up to 10kg of weapons-grade plutonium in its spent fuel annually. Although the reactor is not under IAEA safeguards, a 1956 Indo-Canadian agreement prohibits the use of plutonium produced in the reactor for non-peaceful purposes. However, the agreement includes no enforcement mechanism and India has interpreted the prohibition to exclude "peaceful nuclear explosions." India used plutonium produced in the Cirus reactor for its 1974 nuclear test, causing Canada to cease all nuclear cooperation with India, including nuclear fuel shipments.

3Capable of producing up to 30kg of weapon grade plutonium each year. It is likely that most Indian nuclear warheads use plutonium extracted from this research reactor.

4Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) uses indigenously developed mixed uranium-plutonium carbide fuel core.

5The Kamini reactor is fueled by U-233 (irradiated thorium) and is part of India's strategy to eventually use U-233 as the primary fuel for India's nuclear program. The Kamini reactor is the only reactor in the world fueled by U-233.

BARC has announced plans to replace the aging Cirus and Druva reactors. A 100MW reactor based on the Dhruva design is very optimistically expected to become operational by 2010.

Another reactor design team at Trombay has completed a preliminary plan for building a new 500 megawatt electric (MWe) Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) that will burn mixed-oxide (MOX) and thorium fuel.
Why We Need Eight Unsafeguarded Commercial Reactors

The uranium fuel rods used in India's heavy-water nuclear power plants can be processed to extract plutonium that can be used in nuclear weapons. However, normally for electrical power production the uranium fuel remains in the reactor for three to four years, which produces plutonium of 60 percent or less Pu-239, 25 percent or more Pu-240, 10 percent or more Pu-241, and a few percent Pu-242. The Pu-240 has a high spontaneous rate of fission, and the amount of Pu-240 in weapons-grade plutonium generally does not exceed 6 percent, with the remaining 93 percent Pu-239. Higher concentrations of Pu-240 can result in pre-detonation of the weapon, significantly reducing yield and reliability.

Under normal conditions, plutonium extracted from commercial reactors is not desirable for use in nuclear weapons due to a low concentration of Pu-239. For the production of weapons-grade plutonium with lower Pu-240 concentrations, the fuel rods in a reactor have to be changed frequently, about every four months or less. Indian heavy water reactors do not have to be shut down in order to change fuel rods. So India has the option to harvest weapons-grade plutonium from those of its 8 commercial nuclear power plants not under safeguard, by changing some of the fuel rods.

The Nuclear treaty with the US mandates that all future commercial nuclear power plants will be subject to safeguards. In other words, to augment its supply of plutonium in the future India will need to construct dedicated military nuclear plants whose electrical output could not be utilized commercially, something that would drive up the cost of the plutonium exponentially.

A large part of the plutonium supply from the 8 commercial reactors not under safeguards will need to be diverted to India's fast breeder program which will initially be fueled by plutonium. While it is true that the plutonium fed into a fast breeder reactor can eventually be recovered, the process takes time. Indeed, it was for this reason that putting the fast breeder reactors under safeguards at this stage was unacceptable to India since it would have starved our nuclear weapons program of the quantum required to achieve a credible nuclear deterrence.

India's military weapon program requires Tritium for producing boosted fission and thermonuclear warheads. India extracts the Tritium from heavy water used in commercial PHWR.
Fast Breeder Reactors

The 500 MW Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor being constructed at Kalpakkam is expected to become operational by 2010.

Central government has approved four more FBRs of 500 MW each during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period.

Of the four additional FBRs to be constructed, two will be located at Kalpakkam. A site for the other two reactors is yet to be identified. These reactors are expected to go critical by 2020.
Planned Russian Reactors

During the state visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, India and Russia signed an agreement on Friday, December 5, to build an additional four reactors for the Kudankulam nuclear power plant and construct two new nuclear plants in India.

Russia is seeking two additional plant sites in addition to Kudankulam, one of which has already been allocated at in Haripur, West Bengal.

Russian ambassador Alexander Kadakin told the Hindu in December 2009 that each of the three plant sites could have 10 reactors each.

In a separate deal, Russia agreed to supply $700 million worth of nuclear fuel to India.

During Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Russia in December 2009 it was announced that the two new nuclear reactors to be setup with Russian assistance will be located at Haripur in West Bengal.

Each of the Russian reactors will cost $1.5 billion.
Nuclear fuel from Russia

A civil nuclear deal was signed in the presence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday, December 7.

The deal is described as "better than the 123 agreement" that was signed with the United States since Russia agreed to continue nuclear fuel supply to India for operational reactors of Russian origin in the country in the event that the supply agreement is cancelled for any reason.

The deal additionally allows India to reprocess the uranium supplied by Russia

Russian nuclear fuel producer TVEL signed a $780 million contract for supply of 2,000 metric tons of uranium pellets to India on February 11, 2009 in Mumbai.

The contract made Russia the first country to supply nuclear fuel to India since the Nuclear Suppliers Group lifted a three-decade ban on nuclear fuel sales to the country on September 6, 2008.

TVEL delivered its first shipment of nuclear fuel for Indian heavy-water reactors in April 2009.

TVEL, one of the world's leading manufacturers of nuclear fuel, supplies it to 73 commercial (17% of global market) and 30 research reactors in 13 countries.
French Evolutionary Power Reactors (EPRs)

Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) and France's Areva singed a MOU on Wednesday, February 4, 2009, for construction of up to six new generation Evolutionary Power Reactors (EPRs) in western India.

Areva will initially supply two EPRs OF 1,650 mw each for nuclear plants that the company will be build near the village of Jaitapur in the western state of Maharastra on the Arabian Sea. Orders for an additionals four reactors will be placed subsequently.

EPR reactors feature a leak proof design and four independent cooling systems for safety.

Areva and India's Atomic Energy Department signed a commercial agreement last December for the supply of 300 tons of uranium to be used in NPCIL nuclear reactors under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.
US Supplied Nuclear Reactors
Under the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, India has dedicated wo nuclear reactor sites in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat to US companies.

Progress on the construction of US supplied reactors is awaiting the passage of a liability legislation in India as desired by US suppliers.
 
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ISRO Heavy Lift Vehicle

http://indianspaceweb.blogspot.com/2010/07/isro-heavy-lift-vehicle.html

ISRO Heavy Lift Vehicle



A slide for Dr. B N Suresh's presentation titled 'Indian Space Transportation System: Present Scenario and Future Directions' at TIFR-Mumbai, 19th June 2009 Credit:ISRO

In an earlier post Super Nova had reported on the preliminary concept of an Indian Lunar manned mission presented at IAC-2009. That concept envisaged the development of a crew launch vehicle and a Cargo Launch Vehicle with payload capabilities of 31 and 84 tons respectively to Low Earth Orbit.

The above image shows another concept Heavy Lift Vehicle (HLV) which would be able to haul 100 tons to LEO. What is interesting in this architecture is that no solid stages would be used on the vehicle. 4 SC460 Semi-cryogenic boosters with the SC800 first stage would generate the lift-off thrust for the vehicle. The C100 upper stage would probably serve as an Earth Departure stage (EDS) .

In addition to the HLV, the presentation slide also gives us an idea of the role that the GSLV-Mk III would play in lead up to Lunar manned mission and more importantly in the Indian Human Spaceflight Program.

As we know the present Human Spaceflight concept envisages the development of a crew capsule (Orbital Vehicle) which would be launched by the GSLV-Mk II. This capsule would probably not feature any docking system due to restriction in the payload capacity of GSLV-Mk II (around 5 tons).

Given the greater capability of Mk-III, ISRO plans to use the vehicle to launch a bigger, better equipped crew capsule which would be use to demonstrate rendezvous and docking in addition Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA).
 
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http://knol.google.com/k/vijainder-k-thakur/isro-s-cryogenic-upper-stage-cus/yo54fmdhy2mq/82#


More Powerful Cryogenic Engine


ISRO is already working on a more powerful version of the cryogenic engine that it has developed.

"Our next step is to develop a bigger cryogenic engine with a stress of 20 tons compared to 7.5 tons now," ISRO Chairman, G Madhavan Nair, told PTI in September 2009.

The current version of the Indigenous Cryogenic Engine develops a thrust of 73 kilo Newtons (kN) in vacuum with a specific impulse of 454 seconds and provides a payload capability of 2200 Kg to Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) for GSLV.

Work is underway to increase the thrust to 90 kN.

Eventually, all GSLVs will use the Indian Cryogenic Upper Stage (CUS) that develops 90 kN ton of thrust, against 75 kN of the Russian CUS; and they will carry 15 ton of propellant against 12.5 ton of the Russian engine.

As a comparison, one of the most powerful cryogenic engines in use is the RS-24. Three of them power the Space Shuttle at lift off along with two solid rocket boosters. Each RS-24, commonly referred to as the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME), produces almost 1.8 mega-newtons (MN) or 400,000 lbf of thrust at liftoff.
 
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http://www.satmagazine.com/cgi-bin/display_article.cgi?number=1803516566

Insight... Asia's Game Changer... The ISRO and Its Cryogenic Engine


What does it take to get to space? It's very simple — lots of money and solid engineering.

Do you recall the Space Race between the Russians and the Americans? The resources dedicated in the 50's and 60's for this competition totalled in the billions of each country's currency. Each nation's best and brightest engineering talent was drawn to the Space Race like bees to a flower's nectar. The technology blossomed and grew stronger and more competent over time. Thousands of engineers worked hard, striving for a greater good — a purpose, a mission — to reach the moon. And they did it.

Starting in the mid-70's, there was money to be made from SATCOM. Video distribution via satellite became the true "killer app." RCA and Hughes were making money in the U.S. Within 10 years, Europe and Asia joined in the new space race. It was a race to produce profit — and lots of it. The faster you placed a spacecraft into orbit, the faster you made money.

Today, there are 200+ spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit serving every part of the world. Some are premium-priced orbital locations and neighborhoods, some are not. Regardless, a full payload can count revenue of $20 million or more per year — many full-time video contracts have terms of 10-15 years or more.

As spacecraft enter the end of their station-kept lives, they'll need replacement. The two largest fleets, Intelsat and SES, expect to launch at least 10 spacecraft each over the next three years. Telesat has three spacecraft on-order, and Eutelsat expects to launch four over the next 18 months. Given the need for more spectrum to serve less-developed parts of the globe, demand will surely exceed the supply of available launch windows and launch vehicles.

Satellite operators can turn to a number of manufacturers in the U.S., Europe, Israel, India, and China as capable second-tier vendors. Give the launch market another 10 years, and these options may become even more attractive.

Once built, these spacecraft need to move into orbit. Here's where it gets complicated. Since the formation of United Launch Alliance (ULA) in December of 2006, the U.S. Air Force has essentially taken the Atlas and Delta launchers off the market. They've booked practically the entire manifest, leaving commercial customers to look elsewhere. In 2009, nearly all of the 16 ULA launches were for the U.S. Government.

International Launch Services (ILS), which used to represent Atlas launches, is now focused exclusively on the Proton launcher. A few years ago, the cost of launching via Proton was attractive — until the ULA came along. Prices are now more on-par with Arianespace, the only other viable option for lifting heavy payloads into geosynchronous orbit.

The backlog for Proton launches stands at 23 (as of May 1, 2010). As a launch campaign is typically four weeks in length, one has to figure ILS is booked for two years out. All ILS launches are completed from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

rrs ad sm 0610 The Ariane 5 launcher is built in Europe by a consortium of 10 European countries, the French space agency CNES and EADS Astrium. Arianespace's current backlog of launches into geosynchronous orbit stands at 29. At their current pace, they're booked for three or more years.

Sea Launch, which launches from a converted oil-drilling platform located on the equator 1,500 miles south of Hawaii, filed for bankruptcy protection in June of 2009 and is expected to return to the launch marketplace soon. A catastrophic launch failure in early 2007 did them in, just as they were developing a Land Launch option using the same Zenit rocket that launches out of Baikonur.

Japan's H-2A rocket, a capable launching system based at the Tanegashima Space Center, has never had more than four launches in any given year. Two launches are planned in 2010, and, so far, only one is scheduled for 2011.

Brazil's Alcântara Launch Center is probably the one alternate site that had a promising future. A terrible accident in 2003, and ongoing litigation with native peoples in the immediate vicinity, has stifled further development.

The Asia Pacific Space Centre, located on Christmas Island (Australia), is another unfulfilled dream. Announced in 2001, the center never materialized as a launch option as the airport was not upgraded to accommodate Antonov 124 and Boeing 747 freighters for delivering launcher components or spacecraft ready for launch.

What about China? Nobody from the U.S. will touch that as major ITAR issues govern many spacecraft, or their components — don't expect to see the Western world embrace China's Long March rocket any time soon.

European spacecraft manufacturers are developing "ITAR-free" builds, but that's bound to annoy many companies.
That leaves us with probably the most promising option: the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). The GSLV launcher has proven its capability, but it lacked a reliable upper stage.

The most efficient upper stages today use cryogenic engines. Cryogenic technology involves the use of propellants at extremely low temperatures. Liquid oxygen, combined with liquid hydrogen, offers high energy-efficiency for rocket engines in need of huge amounts of thrust. But oxygen remains a liquid only at temperatures below minus 183 degrees Celsius and hydrogen at below minus 253 degrees Celsius. Building a rocket stage with an engine that runs on such propellants means overcoming a number of engineering challenges. The ISRO was denied access to buying the best available technology, but eventually found a supplier in Russia.

That deal, alas, ended prematurely as sanctions were imposed on India for violating the Missile Technology Control Regime in 1992. With no other options at its disposal, the ISRO decided to develop their own cryogenic technology, thinking such would take approximately 10 years to develop. Instead, the project required more than 16 years. The ISRO worked with Godrej and MTAR Technologies, who produced the cryogenic engine as a consortium.

tytla g1 sm 0610 The U.S. was first to use a cryogenic engine in 1963, followed by Japan in 1977, France in 1979, China in 1984, and Russia in 1987. Adding India to the space elite hinged on the launch of the GSLV-D3 in April, 2010. Unfortunately, the launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre was of limited success. The first stage fired perfectly, and the second stage burned as planned. The ISRO confirmed the indigenous cryogenic engine ignited, but then telemetry data indicated the launch vehicle was tumbling and subsequently all contact was lost.

A failure review board has been formed, led by S. Ramakrishnan, ISRO's Director (Projects) at Thiruvananthapuram-based Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre. Their report is due in time for CommunicAsia in June, where Arianespace CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall will be spotlighted on Day Two. Had the launch been successful, the GSLV-D3 would have made ISRO fully self-reliant in launching heavier communication satellites (4,500 to 5,000 kg). A successful launch would have enhanced India's capability to be a truly competitive player in the multimillion dollar commercial launch market.

about tytal sm 0610 Dan Goldberg, CEO of Telesat, is a leader who has found ISRO "extremely capable" and would welcome the possibility of working toward the day when launches could occur from Sriharikota. With comments like those coming from an innovator such as Telesat, such carries a lot of weight. And that's just was the GSLV needs to do — carry a lot of weight into its assigned orbital slot. Expect the ISRO to continue their good works as they do all in their power to join in as a member of the prime launch market.
 
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Solar Sailing: Pathway To The Stars

http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Solar_Sailing_Pathway_To_The_Stars_999.html

Solar Sailing: Pathway To The Stars


When it comes to space travel
, no propulsion method surpasses the sheer romance of solar sailing, literally flight on light. We invite you to learn of the exciting advances in the field at a free public event on July 21, 2010 - "Solar Sailing: Pathway to the Stars."

New York City College of Technology (City Tech) is hosting an International Solar Sailing Symposium from July 20-22 in Brooklyn, and will present this special evening program for the public in cooperation with The Planetary Society.

Our Executive Director, Lou Friedman, will kick off the discussion with a brief overview of solar sailing projects around the world before turning the event over to the star of the evening, Junichiro Kawaguchi, to present recent results and a mission update from the spectacular IKAROS mission, still flying in interplanetary space.

Launched by Japan's JAXA Space Exploration Center, IKAROS is the first solar sail ever to be successfully deployed in space.

Following Kawaguchi's IKAROS report, Friedman will provide an update on The Planetary Society's own solar sail mission, Lightsail-1. Our project has just achieved a new milestone by passing its Critical Design Review, clearing the way for construction of the ultra-light spacecraft to now begin.

Other speakers will include NASA's Les Johnson, the University of Strathclyde's Malcolm Macdonald, and City University conference organizer Professor Roman Kezerashvili.
 
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Twin American Voyagers Leaving Our Solar System

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/07/going-deep-twin-american-voyagers-leaving-our-solar-system/

Going Deep: Twin American Voyagers Leaving Our Solar System


In the United States, on the 4th of July, we celebrate the declaration of our independence as a sovereign nation with great pride by proudly displaying our countries' flag and celebrating with fireworks displays across the country. In 1977, just over 1 year after the United States celebrated the 1976 bicentennial of this declaration, a pair of rockets burst into the sky carrying the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes along with, as noted in a recent SPACE.com article, our nation's flag. These missions are on trajectories that have taken them well beyond what we commonly think of as the edge of the Solar System and are racing towards the edge of the heliosphere and will enter true interstellar space. So how far away are these two spacecraft?

The Voyager probes were launched in August (Voyager 2) and September (Voyager 1) of 1977, a good year and a half before this GeekDad was born and around 14 years before this year's crop of graduating High School seniors were born. Voyager 2 is now over 92 astronomical units, or AU, away from our Sun where 1 AU is the average distance from the Sun to the Earth. Voyager 1, on a different trajectory, is now 114 AU from Sol. These distances mean that, right now, commands sent to Voyager 2 take around twelve and a half hours at the speed of light to reach the spacecraft and the telemetry takes another twelve and a half hours to get back to Earth, for a round trip of just over 25 hours. The round trip for Voyager 1 is over 31 hours!

So given these amazing distances, how far away are these 2 spacecraft really? To give you an idea, I am going to lay it out on an American Football field as a way for readers to take go to a local field and seeing how far away this is for themselves. For readers that may not be familiar with an American Football field, the playing field is 120 yards in total with 100 yards, 91.44 meters, being the distance from goal line to goal line.

Placing the Sun at one goal line and working our way out in the solar system (lining up the planets artificially as if they were all in alignment) we first encounter Mercury half of a yard away, Venus roughly another quarter yard away, and Earth will be around the 1 yard line. Stopping here for a moment, at this scale, the Sun is less than half an inch across and the Earth, our tiny home in the Universe, is 1/250th of an inch across. Finishing out the inner Solar System, we encounter Mars at 1.75 yards from the Sun.

Moving out in the Solar System, we meet mighty Jupiter just shy of the 6 yard line. Next up is Saturn just a hair over the 10 yard line, Uranus at almost 22 yards, and Neptune around the 33 yard line. Next is what many consider the edge of the Solar System, the dwarf planet Pluto. Pluto is a bit of an odd-ball as at its closest approach to the Sun it is actually inside Neptune's orbit but at the furthest point out it is well beyond Neptune at the 53 yard line on our Solar System Football Field.

So that is all well and good, but how far away are Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 at this scale? Voyager 2 is a full 100 yards away from the Sun at the opposing goal line and Voyager 1 has left the end zone and is 123 yards away from the Sun! Maybe the few millionths of an inch trip to and from your summer vacation won't seem as long now! For more information on the Voyager probes, be sure to check out JPL's Voyager website.

If you are celebrating the Independence of the United States today, as you look upon the flags flying and the fireworks bursting in the sky, take a moment to look up and think of those two little flags traveling so deep into space.

Read More http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/0...agers-leaving-our-solar-system/#ixzz0srVnob8y
 
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http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/04/american-flag-farthest-home-leaving-solar/

American Flag Farthest From Home Is Leaving Solar System

This July 4th, U.S. citizens around the world may proudly display American flags to celebrate Independence Day while away from home, but they won't hold a candle to the farthest American flag in history, which is leaving the entire solar system behind on NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft.

The spaceflying American flag is a not a huge version of Old Glory, but will be the only one flying more than 10.5 billion miles (16.9 billion km) from Earth this Fourth of July. It is riding on Voyager 1, a 33-year-old space probe on the outskirts of our solar system.

Another far-flung American flag is flying on Voyager 2, which is about 8.6 billion miles (13.8 billion km) from Earth. Both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are on trajectories to leave the solar system behind after passing through a magnetic bubble-like region called the heliosphere.

A NASA photo of the Voyager 2 American flag shows it to be a small U.S. standard packed alongside other mementos from Earth, like the iconic golden record that were also launched the spacecraft and contain messages from Earth for any extraterrestrials that may find them.

"We were extraordinarily proud of what we were doing as a laboratory, as a part of NASA and as a country and we felt it was important to make a statement to that effect," said Jet Propulsion laboratory scientist John Casani, NASA's Voyager project manager at the time it was launched, in a statement provided to SPACE.com this week. "I'm gratified that Voyager is still sailing out there, bearing America's colors. What it represents to us is an affirmation of the pride we had at that time."

Voyager 2's space flag is a 16-inch (40-cm) long version of the Stars and Stripes made of Dacron that engineers painstakingly sewed into the insulating blankets of the Voyager 2 spacecraft, which launched in 1977 on a tour of the solar system's gas giant planets. A similar flag is flying on the Voyager 1 spacecraft, which also launched in 1977 but is not as far from Earth as Voyager 2. [Voyager mission photos.]

The American flags riding the Voyager probes are not the only distant U.S. standards out in space. Flags were planted on the moon by American astronauts during the six Apollo lunar landings in the late 1960s and early 1970s. NASA probes to Mars and elsewhere also include the U.S. standard.

But the two Voyager probes are currently the farthest human-built objects from Earth, making their American flags the most distance from U.S soil. The probes' signals take nearly 13 hours to travel to NASA's worldwide Deep Space Network of listening antennas and back.

NASA launched both spacecraft in the summer of 1977, but only Voyager 2 took a so-called "grand tour" of the solar system when it visited the gas giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in the 1980s by taking advantage of a rare planetary alignment that occurs once every 176 years. Voyager 1 flew past Jupiter and Saturn.

On June 28, Voyager 2 hit a major milestone when it marked the 12,000th day of its mission. Voyager one, which launched later than its counterpart, will hit the same milestone on July 13.

"I'm proud of the people who worked on this and put so much of their life and energy into building, developing and flying that thing," Casani said. "They did it right."
 
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http://www.space-travel.com/reports/IKAROS_Proves_Photon_Acceleration_Works_999.html

[BIKAROS Proves Photon Acceleration Works[/B]

Japan's space agency
JAXA confirmed on Saturday that its experimental spacecraft IKAROS started to accelerate after unfurling its kite-like solar sail, proving that the new fuel-saving propulsion technique is no science fiction.

On May 21, Japan launched IKAROS (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun), dubbed a "space yacht" for its 200-square-meter sail made of 0.0075 mm-thin polyimide resin, which uses solar radiation to get propulsion. It finished deploying the sail a month ago.

"The small solar power sail demonstrator "IKAROS," which successfully deployed its solar sail, was confirmed to accelerate by solar sail receiving solar pressure," JAXA said on its website.

"This proved that the IKAROS has generated the biggest acceleration through photon during interplanetary flight in history," the space agency added.

The spacecraft is now located 11 million miles from Earth and is heading towards Venus. Upon reaching the planet's orbit it will continue a three-year journey to reach the other side of the Sun.

The far-reaching goal of the project is to build a fuel-effective "hybrid" engine, combining photon acceleration and ion propulsion.

JAXA aims to launch its second mission of a photon-accelerated spacecraft in the late 2010s. It will combine a medium-sized solar sail with a diameter of 50 meters, along with integrated ion-propulsion engines. The destinations of the spacecraft will be Jupiter and the Trojan asteroids.

U.S. and European countries are also developing their own solar sail projects.
 

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NASA, Microsoft produce first-ever 3-D maps of Mars


The new images of Mars are available in the WorldWide Telescope. A Microsoft/NASA photo

WASHINGTON (BNS): Getting close to the Red planet and peeping into all its mysteries is no longer a day dream for space enthusiasts.

US space agency NASA, in partnership with software giant Microsoft, has come out with 3-D maps of Mars covering its mountains, glaciers, craters, valleys and other fascinating surface features.

The new interactive software, which will allow people to visit Mars while sitting on Earth, has been produced by Microsoft engineers after three long years of extracting data from high resolution images produced by NASA's Mars mission.

Viewers, by downloading the new software, can explore the planet while taking exclusive interactive tours and also talking directly with NASA scientists.

The new map has been created by "stitching together" the high resolution images acquired by High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) – a state-of-the-art, remote-sensing camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The engineers acquired some 13,000 or so HiRISE images to produce a single coherent map.

While HiRISE has only imaged about 1 percent of Mars, leaving vast regions of Mars still to be explored, all of the HiRISE images have now been geolocated on a single map, and correlated with other global Mars data sets. Dotted with HiRISE images acquired so far, this new coherent map is the highest-resolution map of Mars' surface ever constructed, NASA said.

"We wanted to make it easier for people everywhere, as well as scientists, to access these unique and valuable images. NASA had the images and they were open to new ways to share them," said Dan Fay, director of Microsoft Research's Earth, Energy and Environment effort.

"We were able to take the imagery from NASA, combine it with their elevation models and lay those onto the surface of the globe of Mars.

"Now users of the WorldWide Telescope can zoom down and actually experience the surface-level detail of Mars. They can pan back and see the height of the craters or the depth of the canyons. The new Mars experience allows people to feel as though they're actually there," Fay said.

So, if you want to experience an enchanting ride to Mars while sitting at home, then here is your way – http://www.worldwidetelescope.org.

http://www.brahmand.com/news/NASA-Microsoft-produce-first-ever-3-D-maps-of-Mars/4448/1/14.html
 
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http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Space_arms_control_treaty_unlikely_in_near-term_US_999.html

Space arms control treaty unlikely in near-term: US


The United States said Tuesday that a space arms control treaty was unlikely to emerge in the near future as it still sees flaws in drafts being tabled at the moment.
"I don't see any near-term progress on a space arms control treaty, but again I think there is a lot of shared interest between the US, Russia, China and others on providing space stability," said Frank Rose, deputy assistant secretary of state at the Bureau of Verification, Compliance and Implementation.

"There are a lot of near-term confidence building measures that we hope to work with Russia and China on," he told journalists after addressing the UN Conference on Disarmament.

Russia and China had proposed a new treaty to ban the use of weapons in space in 2008, but the United States maintained that it is a "flawed document."

Rose pointed out that one sticking point was that it does not ban land-based anti-satellite capabilities.

"We do not believe anti-satellite capabilities are in anyone's interest, they are debris generating," said Rose.

"We need to maintain a sustainable space environment, blowing up satellites is not consistent with that principle," he stressed.

Addressing the Conference on Disarmament, Rose said that "with respect to negotiating a new space arms control agreement, we have not seen a space arms control agreement that meets the criteria ... on equitability and effective verifiability."

His comment was criticised by Brazil's envoy who remarked that effective verifiability was "attainable with the means disposed by not only one country but by many countries."

"So it's possible to have an agreement in the international community that would meet this criteria."

In addition, the Brazilian noted that there are "clear imbalances between countries" in almost every field.

So if the criteria of equitability were to be applied, "leading countries would never be able ot negotiate or be party to an agreement, and it's not the case, fortunately."
 

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