Students should cultivate the habit of not only studying hard to score more marks, but also should focus on overall personality development, ISRO Chairman designate V Narayanan said here on Sunday.
“Students should first learn how to study. At a young age, a student may hail from different kinds of backgrounds. They may study whatever they want. But what is important is how they study their subjects. At the time of learning, they should also focus on overall personality development,” he told reporters.
Elaborating, he said, students should adopt two education systems – ‘value based’ and ‘intellectual based’.
“I must thank God and the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) for selecting me to lead this great organisation,” he said.
Narayanan said his colleagues always work with an attitude to ensure that they work for the welfare of the country and its people. “We all consider that the organisation (ISRO) and country are above individuals. Everyone here is working very hard,” he remarked.
The rocket scientist referred to PM’s Narendra Modi’s vision of ‘Viksit Bharat’ by 2047. “The PM’s vision has been to transform the country into a developed nation by 2047,” Narayanan said, and appealed to students to study hard and work for the development of the country and its people.
Narayanan was recently appointed as the Secretary, Department of Space, succeeding Somanath, whose tenure is expected to end by January 13. He also holds the charge of chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation.
SpaDeX is a technology demonstrator mission in which ISRO is attempting a docking manoeuvre for the first time. In-space docking is a critical capability for the more ambitious missions that ISRO has planned in the future, including the sample return mission, manned moon mission, and the building and operation of the Bharat Antariksh Station.
The first module of Bharatiya Antariksh Station is expected to be launched in 2028. It is supposed to have five modules, which are expected to be launched separately and brought together in space.
ISRO had to postpone the docking plans on two occasions earlier, on January 7 and January 9, because the satellites had not been able to achieve the required alignment.
“After the last manoeuvre, the satellites had drifted away, but they were safe. Now, we are re-attempting the entire process. There are certain fixed hold points, the satellites would be brought to these hold points again, before we attempt docking again,” an ISRO official had said at that time.
ISRO SpaDeX Docking Mission: Over the next few days, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will bring two small satellites closer together and then join them in space, demonstrating “docking” for the first time. A successful docking will make India the fourth country in the world — after the United States, Russia, and China — to have the capability.
On Sunday (January 12), ISRO carried out a trial attempt by bringing both the Chaser and Target satellites three metres closer to each other. Afterwards, the satellites were moved apart to safer distances. The space agency is analysing the data for successfully carrying out docking soon.
The two small 220 kg satellites were launched on December 30 from the country’s only spaceport in Sriharikota. While being injected into a circular 450 km orbit, a relative velocity was given to the satellites, allowing them to drift away from each other in preparation for the docking experiment. Initially planned for January 7 and then January 9, the docking has had to be postponed.
Several types of docking mechanisms have been used by the different space agencies over the years, with some allowing interoperability. The International Docking System Standard is used by spacecraft going to the International Space Station. The docking mechanism being used by India is androgynous — meaning the systems on both the Chaser and Target satellites are identical. It is similar to the International Docking System Standard used by other agencies but uses two motors as compared to the 24 used in IDSS.
The mission will also use several new sensors such as Laser Range Finder, Rendezvous Sensor, Proximity and Docking sensor to take precise measurements while bringing the two satellites closer and joining them. It will also use a new processor based on satellite navigation systems to determine the relative position and velocity of the other spacecraft. This is a precursor to completely autonomous systems for future missions that would be able to achieve docking without satellite-based navigation data.
With its vision of setting up a space station by 2035 and sending humans to the moon by 2040, ISRO has been working on key technologies to realise the vision, such as a new heavy-lift launch vehicle capable of carrying up to 30 tonnes to low earth orbit (an altitude of 2,000 km or less). The missions, however, would require docking capability. Take, for example, the Bharatiya Antariksh Station, which will be built by bringing together five modules in space. The first robotic module is slated to be launched in 2028.
Docking capability will also be required for the next lunar mission Chandrayaan-4, which aims to bring back samples from the moon. The planned mission will see the five key modules sent to orbit in two separate launches.
With the space race underway, it was essential for the United States to demonstrate rendezvous (bringing spacecraft close to each other) and docking to achieve the objective of sending humans to the moon. In 1966, the Gemini VIII spacecraft became the first to dock with the Agena target vehicle. It was a crewed mission orbiting the Earth. Interestingly, one of the astronauts on board was Neil Armstrong, who went on to become the first person to set foot on the moon in 1969.
While the US mission had astronauts on board to steer the spacecraft, the then Soviet Union in 1967 demonstrated the first uncrewed, automated docking of Kosmos 186 and Kosmos 188 spacecraft.
China first demonstrated its docking capability in 2011, when the unmanned Shenzhou 8 spacecraft docked with the Tiangong 1 space laboratory. A year later, it demonstrated the first crewed space docking, when the astronauts manually joined the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft to the same space laboratory.
Quelle: The Indian EXPRESS