Space Technologies | Science & Technology for UPSC 2024 (Pre & Mains) PDF Download

 Page 1


 
CubeSats 
•Miniature satellites (Micro satellites and nano satellites) that can be manoeuvred in space with tiny 
bursts of water vapour  
?Microsatellites have mass between 10 and 100 kg 
?Nanosatellites have mass between 1 and 10 kg 
•
The standard CubeSat size uses a “one unit” or “1U” measuring 10x10x10 centimeters (or about 4x4x4 
inches) 
•
Can perform tasks such as high-resolution imaging and internet services, disaster response, 
environmental monitoring and military surveillance 
•T o achieve their full potential, CubeSats require micropropulsion devices to deliver precise low-thrust 
“impulse bits” for scienti?c, commercial and military space applications. The new micropropulsion 
system uses ultra-puri?ed water 
?The new system, called a Film-Evaporation MEMS Tunable Array (FEMTA) thruster, uses capillaries 
small enough to harness the microscopic properties of water 
?Since the capillaries are only about 10 micrometers in diameter, the surface tension of the ?uid 
keeps it from ?owing out, even in the vacuum of space 
?Activating small heaters located near the ends of the capillaries creates water vapour and provides 
thrust. In this way, the capillaries become valves that can be turned on and off by activating the 
heaters. The technology is similar to an inkjet printer, which uses heaters to push out droplets of ink 
•NASA’s MarCO CubeSats, the ?rst-of-its-kind, briefcase-sized spacecraft to travel into deep space, 
successfully relayed information from newest robotic resident on Mars – the InSight lander – paving the 
way for the launch of more tiny planetary probes in future 
ExceedSAT1 
•
The Cubesat aims to provide a major boost to private radio operators 
•
It’s twice the size of the popular Rubik Cube puzzle 
•The ‘Made in India’ micro satellite built by a small start up will be the ?rst built in the private sector to go 
into space 
•This satellite is freely available for all radio amateurs across the world. It is an open radio transponder 
that works on ham radio frequencies 
?Amateur radio operators are granted license by a governmental regulatory authority after passing 
an examination on applicable regulations, electronics, radio theory, and radio operation 
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
!
Page 2


 
CubeSats 
•Miniature satellites (Micro satellites and nano satellites) that can be manoeuvred in space with tiny 
bursts of water vapour  
?Microsatellites have mass between 10 and 100 kg 
?Nanosatellites have mass between 1 and 10 kg 
•
The standard CubeSat size uses a “one unit” or “1U” measuring 10x10x10 centimeters (or about 4x4x4 
inches) 
•
Can perform tasks such as high-resolution imaging and internet services, disaster response, 
environmental monitoring and military surveillance 
•T o achieve their full potential, CubeSats require micropropulsion devices to deliver precise low-thrust 
“impulse bits” for scienti?c, commercial and military space applications. The new micropropulsion 
system uses ultra-puri?ed water 
?The new system, called a Film-Evaporation MEMS Tunable Array (FEMTA) thruster, uses capillaries 
small enough to harness the microscopic properties of water 
?Since the capillaries are only about 10 micrometers in diameter, the surface tension of the ?uid 
keeps it from ?owing out, even in the vacuum of space 
?Activating small heaters located near the ends of the capillaries creates water vapour and provides 
thrust. In this way, the capillaries become valves that can be turned on and off by activating the 
heaters. The technology is similar to an inkjet printer, which uses heaters to push out droplets of ink 
•NASA’s MarCO CubeSats, the ?rst-of-its-kind, briefcase-sized spacecraft to travel into deep space, 
successfully relayed information from newest robotic resident on Mars – the InSight lander – paving the 
way for the launch of more tiny planetary probes in future 
ExceedSAT1 
•
The Cubesat aims to provide a major boost to private radio operators 
•
It’s twice the size of the popular Rubik Cube puzzle 
•The ‘Made in India’ micro satellite built by a small start up will be the ?rst built in the private sector to go 
into space 
•This satellite is freely available for all radio amateurs across the world. It is an open radio transponder 
that works on ham radio frequencies 
?Amateur radio operators are granted license by a governmental regulatory authority after passing 
an examination on applicable regulations, electronics, radio theory, and radio operation 
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
! 
Farout Dwarf Planet 
•Scientists have discovered the most distant object known in our solar system, so remote and unusual 
they chose the nickname “Farout” for the slow-moving, icy, pinkish dwarf planet about 120 to 130 times 
further from the sun than Earth 
•There are roughly 50 dwarf planets in the solar system. The biggest are Pluto, with a diameter of about 
1,470 miles (2,370 km), and Eris, with a diameter of about 1,445 miles (2,325 km) 
•Farout is moving so slowly that it might need more than 1,000 years for a single orbit of the sun 
•
The second-most-distant observed Solar System object is Eris, which orbits at about 96 times the 
distance of the Sun to the Earth. Pluto orbits at about 34 times the distance of Earth from the Sun 
Ultima Thule 
•It is a distant icy ‘worldlet’ located four billion miles from the Sun and is orbiting in the heart of our solar 
system’s Kuiper Belt, far beyond Neptune 
•Objects in Kuiper Belt — a collection of icy bodies ranging in size from dwarf planets like Pluto to smaller 
planetesimals like Ultima Thule and even smaller bodies like comets — are believed to be the building 
blocks of planets  
•Ultima’s nearly circular orbit indicates it originated at its current distance from the Sun. That means 
Ultima is an ancient sample of this distant portion of the solar system 
•NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft ?ew by the object and gave some insights about it 
Soyuz 
•
Russian spacecraft that can carry people and supplies to and from the space station. It can also bring 
people back to Earth 
•It has room for three people to ride in it 
•
It launches from Kazakhstan and takes 6 hours to reach the ISS 
•It does not land like an airplane because it doesn’t have wheels or wings 
?T o land, the Soyuz drops through Earth’s atmosphere. Atmosphere slows the Soyuz. The Soyuz uses 
parachutes to slow down even more. When the Soyuz gets close to the ground, it ?res small rocket 
engines to slow down more. Even then, the landing is bump 
Blue Origin 
•
American privately funded aerospace manufacturer and space?ight services company founded by Jeff 
Bezos CEO Amazon 
•
Company is developing technologies to enable private human access to space 
•
New Shepard : A reusable launch system that has vertical-takeoff, vertical landing capability, developed 
for space tourism  
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
!
Page 3


 
CubeSats 
•Miniature satellites (Micro satellites and nano satellites) that can be manoeuvred in space with tiny 
bursts of water vapour  
?Microsatellites have mass between 10 and 100 kg 
?Nanosatellites have mass between 1 and 10 kg 
•
The standard CubeSat size uses a “one unit” or “1U” measuring 10x10x10 centimeters (or about 4x4x4 
inches) 
•
Can perform tasks such as high-resolution imaging and internet services, disaster response, 
environmental monitoring and military surveillance 
•T o achieve their full potential, CubeSats require micropropulsion devices to deliver precise low-thrust 
“impulse bits” for scienti?c, commercial and military space applications. The new micropropulsion 
system uses ultra-puri?ed water 
?The new system, called a Film-Evaporation MEMS Tunable Array (FEMTA) thruster, uses capillaries 
small enough to harness the microscopic properties of water 
?Since the capillaries are only about 10 micrometers in diameter, the surface tension of the ?uid 
keeps it from ?owing out, even in the vacuum of space 
?Activating small heaters located near the ends of the capillaries creates water vapour and provides 
thrust. In this way, the capillaries become valves that can be turned on and off by activating the 
heaters. The technology is similar to an inkjet printer, which uses heaters to push out droplets of ink 
•NASA’s MarCO CubeSats, the ?rst-of-its-kind, briefcase-sized spacecraft to travel into deep space, 
successfully relayed information from newest robotic resident on Mars – the InSight lander – paving the 
way for the launch of more tiny planetary probes in future 
ExceedSAT1 
•
The Cubesat aims to provide a major boost to private radio operators 
•
It’s twice the size of the popular Rubik Cube puzzle 
•The ‘Made in India’ micro satellite built by a small start up will be the ?rst built in the private sector to go 
into space 
•This satellite is freely available for all radio amateurs across the world. It is an open radio transponder 
that works on ham radio frequencies 
?Amateur radio operators are granted license by a governmental regulatory authority after passing 
an examination on applicable regulations, electronics, radio theory, and radio operation 
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
! 
Farout Dwarf Planet 
•Scientists have discovered the most distant object known in our solar system, so remote and unusual 
they chose the nickname “Farout” for the slow-moving, icy, pinkish dwarf planet about 120 to 130 times 
further from the sun than Earth 
•There are roughly 50 dwarf planets in the solar system. The biggest are Pluto, with a diameter of about 
1,470 miles (2,370 km), and Eris, with a diameter of about 1,445 miles (2,325 km) 
•Farout is moving so slowly that it might need more than 1,000 years for a single orbit of the sun 
•
The second-most-distant observed Solar System object is Eris, which orbits at about 96 times the 
distance of the Sun to the Earth. Pluto orbits at about 34 times the distance of Earth from the Sun 
Ultima Thule 
•It is a distant icy ‘worldlet’ located four billion miles from the Sun and is orbiting in the heart of our solar 
system’s Kuiper Belt, far beyond Neptune 
•Objects in Kuiper Belt — a collection of icy bodies ranging in size from dwarf planets like Pluto to smaller 
planetesimals like Ultima Thule and even smaller bodies like comets — are believed to be the building 
blocks of planets  
•Ultima’s nearly circular orbit indicates it originated at its current distance from the Sun. That means 
Ultima is an ancient sample of this distant portion of the solar system 
•NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft ?ew by the object and gave some insights about it 
Soyuz 
•
Russian spacecraft that can carry people and supplies to and from the space station. It can also bring 
people back to Earth 
•It has room for three people to ride in it 
•
It launches from Kazakhstan and takes 6 hours to reach the ISS 
•It does not land like an airplane because it doesn’t have wheels or wings 
?T o land, the Soyuz drops through Earth’s atmosphere. Atmosphere slows the Soyuz. The Soyuz uses 
parachutes to slow down even more. When the Soyuz gets close to the ground, it ?res small rocket 
engines to slow down more. Even then, the landing is bump 
Blue Origin 
•
American privately funded aerospace manufacturer and space?ight services company founded by Jeff 
Bezos CEO Amazon 
•
Company is developing technologies to enable private human access to space 
•
New Shepard : A reusable launch system that has vertical-takeoff, vertical landing capability, developed 
for space tourism  
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
! 
OSIRIS-REx 
•NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identi?cation, Security - Regolith Explorer asteroid 
sample return mission (OSIRIS-REx), is the ?rst U.S. mission to collect a sample of an asteroid and 
return it to Earth for study 
•It was assembled by Lockheed Martin Space Systems that will scan the asteroid in visible, infrared and 
X-ray wavelength 
•Asteroids are remnants of the building blocks that formed the planets and enabled life. Those like Bennu 
contain natural resources such as water, organics and metals. Future space exploration and economic 
development may rely on asteroids for these materials 
•Scienti?c Objectives 
?Collect a sample and return it to Earth 
?Map the asteroid 
?Determine Bennu’s physical and chemical properties 
?Measure the orbit deviation caused by sunlight (Yarkovsky effect) 
?Compare observations with data from telescopes  
•
What will it do? 
?Collect a sample from a near-Earth asteroid called Bennu, and return the sample to Earth for study 
?Help scientists better determine the orbit of the asteroid  
?Acquire knowledge about the asteroid’s composition, which could give clues about planets formed 
and how life began 
•
Why Asteroid Bennu? 
?Proximity to Earth: Every 6 years, Bennu’s orbit brings it near Earth — less than 450,000 km away. 
Its orbit allows a spacecraft to travel there and back safely 
?Size: Asteroids less than 200 m wide spin very quickly, which makes it dif?cult for a spacecraft to 
safely interact with them. Bennu is nearly 500 m in size and revolves once every 4.3 hours, slowly 
enough to collect a sample  
?Composition: Scientists will be able to analyse the asteroid’s chemistry and mineralogy to learn 
more about its composition and how it compares to other asteroids 
Hammer 
•
Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response project, is an 8 tonne ship which 
would be able to de?ect a giant space rock on a collusion course with Earth 
•
Preparing itself to deal with a potential asteroid impact, NASA has drawn up plans to build a huge 
nuclear spacecraft that is capable of shunting or blowing up dangerous space rocks and safeguarding life 
on Earth 
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
!
Page 4


 
CubeSats 
•Miniature satellites (Micro satellites and nano satellites) that can be manoeuvred in space with tiny 
bursts of water vapour  
?Microsatellites have mass between 10 and 100 kg 
?Nanosatellites have mass between 1 and 10 kg 
•
The standard CubeSat size uses a “one unit” or “1U” measuring 10x10x10 centimeters (or about 4x4x4 
inches) 
•
Can perform tasks such as high-resolution imaging and internet services, disaster response, 
environmental monitoring and military surveillance 
•T o achieve their full potential, CubeSats require micropropulsion devices to deliver precise low-thrust 
“impulse bits” for scienti?c, commercial and military space applications. The new micropropulsion 
system uses ultra-puri?ed water 
?The new system, called a Film-Evaporation MEMS Tunable Array (FEMTA) thruster, uses capillaries 
small enough to harness the microscopic properties of water 
?Since the capillaries are only about 10 micrometers in diameter, the surface tension of the ?uid 
keeps it from ?owing out, even in the vacuum of space 
?Activating small heaters located near the ends of the capillaries creates water vapour and provides 
thrust. In this way, the capillaries become valves that can be turned on and off by activating the 
heaters. The technology is similar to an inkjet printer, which uses heaters to push out droplets of ink 
•NASA’s MarCO CubeSats, the ?rst-of-its-kind, briefcase-sized spacecraft to travel into deep space, 
successfully relayed information from newest robotic resident on Mars – the InSight lander – paving the 
way for the launch of more tiny planetary probes in future 
ExceedSAT1 
•
The Cubesat aims to provide a major boost to private radio operators 
•
It’s twice the size of the popular Rubik Cube puzzle 
•The ‘Made in India’ micro satellite built by a small start up will be the ?rst built in the private sector to go 
into space 
•This satellite is freely available for all radio amateurs across the world. It is an open radio transponder 
that works on ham radio frequencies 
?Amateur radio operators are granted license by a governmental regulatory authority after passing 
an examination on applicable regulations, electronics, radio theory, and radio operation 
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
! 
Farout Dwarf Planet 
•Scientists have discovered the most distant object known in our solar system, so remote and unusual 
they chose the nickname “Farout” for the slow-moving, icy, pinkish dwarf planet about 120 to 130 times 
further from the sun than Earth 
•There are roughly 50 dwarf planets in the solar system. The biggest are Pluto, with a diameter of about 
1,470 miles (2,370 km), and Eris, with a diameter of about 1,445 miles (2,325 km) 
•Farout is moving so slowly that it might need more than 1,000 years for a single orbit of the sun 
•
The second-most-distant observed Solar System object is Eris, which orbits at about 96 times the 
distance of the Sun to the Earth. Pluto orbits at about 34 times the distance of Earth from the Sun 
Ultima Thule 
•It is a distant icy ‘worldlet’ located four billion miles from the Sun and is orbiting in the heart of our solar 
system’s Kuiper Belt, far beyond Neptune 
•Objects in Kuiper Belt — a collection of icy bodies ranging in size from dwarf planets like Pluto to smaller 
planetesimals like Ultima Thule and even smaller bodies like comets — are believed to be the building 
blocks of planets  
•Ultima’s nearly circular orbit indicates it originated at its current distance from the Sun. That means 
Ultima is an ancient sample of this distant portion of the solar system 
•NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft ?ew by the object and gave some insights about it 
Soyuz 
•
Russian spacecraft that can carry people and supplies to and from the space station. It can also bring 
people back to Earth 
•It has room for three people to ride in it 
•
It launches from Kazakhstan and takes 6 hours to reach the ISS 
•It does not land like an airplane because it doesn’t have wheels or wings 
?T o land, the Soyuz drops through Earth’s atmosphere. Atmosphere slows the Soyuz. The Soyuz uses 
parachutes to slow down even more. When the Soyuz gets close to the ground, it ?res small rocket 
engines to slow down more. Even then, the landing is bump 
Blue Origin 
•
American privately funded aerospace manufacturer and space?ight services company founded by Jeff 
Bezos CEO Amazon 
•
Company is developing technologies to enable private human access to space 
•
New Shepard : A reusable launch system that has vertical-takeoff, vertical landing capability, developed 
for space tourism  
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
! 
OSIRIS-REx 
•NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identi?cation, Security - Regolith Explorer asteroid 
sample return mission (OSIRIS-REx), is the ?rst U.S. mission to collect a sample of an asteroid and 
return it to Earth for study 
•It was assembled by Lockheed Martin Space Systems that will scan the asteroid in visible, infrared and 
X-ray wavelength 
•Asteroids are remnants of the building blocks that formed the planets and enabled life. Those like Bennu 
contain natural resources such as water, organics and metals. Future space exploration and economic 
development may rely on asteroids for these materials 
•Scienti?c Objectives 
?Collect a sample and return it to Earth 
?Map the asteroid 
?Determine Bennu’s physical and chemical properties 
?Measure the orbit deviation caused by sunlight (Yarkovsky effect) 
?Compare observations with data from telescopes  
•
What will it do? 
?Collect a sample from a near-Earth asteroid called Bennu, and return the sample to Earth for study 
?Help scientists better determine the orbit of the asteroid  
?Acquire knowledge about the asteroid’s composition, which could give clues about planets formed 
and how life began 
•
Why Asteroid Bennu? 
?Proximity to Earth: Every 6 years, Bennu’s orbit brings it near Earth — less than 450,000 km away. 
Its orbit allows a spacecraft to travel there and back safely 
?Size: Asteroids less than 200 m wide spin very quickly, which makes it dif?cult for a spacecraft to 
safely interact with them. Bennu is nearly 500 m in size and revolves once every 4.3 hours, slowly 
enough to collect a sample  
?Composition: Scientists will be able to analyse the asteroid’s chemistry and mineralogy to learn 
more about its composition and how it compares to other asteroids 
Hammer 
•
Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response project, is an 8 tonne ship which 
would be able to de?ect a giant space rock on a collusion course with Earth 
•
Preparing itself to deal with a potential asteroid impact, NASA has drawn up plans to build a huge 
nuclear spacecraft that is capable of shunting or blowing up dangerous space rocks and safeguarding life 
on Earth 
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
! 
•The 1,600-foot-wide asteroid Bennu is circling the sun at 63,000 mph. It is now at a comfortable 54 
million miles from Earth 
?While NASA’s Osiris-Rex mission is en route to Bennu to take samples and although there is little 
risk it could hit the Earth, Bennu is still considered as Near Earth Object (NEO) 
LIGO-India 
•
It is a planned advanced gravitational-wave observatory to be located in India as part of the worldwide 
network  
•
LIGO-India, built at Hingoli district in Maharashtra, is planned as a collaborative project between a 
consortium of Indian research institutions and the LIGO Laboratory in the USA, along with its 
international partners Australia, Germany and the UK 
•
Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) project operates three gravitational-wave 
(GW) detectors. Two are at Hanford in the state of Washington, north-western USA, and one is at 
Livingston in Louisiana, south-eastern USA 
•
Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space and time  
?Massive accelerating objects - such as neutron stars or black holes orbiting each other - would 
disrupt space-time in such a way that ‘waves’ of distorted space would radiate from the source. 
These ripples travel at the speed of light through the universe, carrying with them information 
about their origins, as well as invaluable clues to the nature of gravity itself 
•
The mirrors and detectors required to build the system will be sent from the LIGO collaborators in the 
US 
•
A third LIGO detector will help pinpoint the origin of the gravitational waves that are detected in future. 
The existence of these waves were ?rst predicted by Albert Einstein 100 years ago in his general theory 
of relativity 
•
The LIGO detectors discovered the ?rst gravitational waves produced by two giant merging blackholes 
and it won a Nobel Prize in Physics for the same 
Gaganyaan 
•
Indigenous mission that would take Indian astronauts to space 
•It is an Indian crewed orbital spacecraft that is intended to send 3 astronauts to space for a minimum of 
seven days by 2022, as part of the Indian Human Space?ight Programme 
•
It will be for the ?rst time that India will launch its manned mission to space, making the country fourth 
in line to have sent a human to space 
•
ISRO’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle GSLV Mk III, the three stage heavy-lift launch vehicle, 
will be used to launch Gaganyaan 
•
The spacecraft will be placed in a low earth orbit of 300-400 km 
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
!
Page 5


 
CubeSats 
•Miniature satellites (Micro satellites and nano satellites) that can be manoeuvred in space with tiny 
bursts of water vapour  
?Microsatellites have mass between 10 and 100 kg 
?Nanosatellites have mass between 1 and 10 kg 
•
The standard CubeSat size uses a “one unit” or “1U” measuring 10x10x10 centimeters (or about 4x4x4 
inches) 
•
Can perform tasks such as high-resolution imaging and internet services, disaster response, 
environmental monitoring and military surveillance 
•T o achieve their full potential, CubeSats require micropropulsion devices to deliver precise low-thrust 
“impulse bits” for scienti?c, commercial and military space applications. The new micropropulsion 
system uses ultra-puri?ed water 
?The new system, called a Film-Evaporation MEMS Tunable Array (FEMTA) thruster, uses capillaries 
small enough to harness the microscopic properties of water 
?Since the capillaries are only about 10 micrometers in diameter, the surface tension of the ?uid 
keeps it from ?owing out, even in the vacuum of space 
?Activating small heaters located near the ends of the capillaries creates water vapour and provides 
thrust. In this way, the capillaries become valves that can be turned on and off by activating the 
heaters. The technology is similar to an inkjet printer, which uses heaters to push out droplets of ink 
•NASA’s MarCO CubeSats, the ?rst-of-its-kind, briefcase-sized spacecraft to travel into deep space, 
successfully relayed information from newest robotic resident on Mars – the InSight lander – paving the 
way for the launch of more tiny planetary probes in future 
ExceedSAT1 
•
The Cubesat aims to provide a major boost to private radio operators 
•
It’s twice the size of the popular Rubik Cube puzzle 
•The ‘Made in India’ micro satellite built by a small start up will be the ?rst built in the private sector to go 
into space 
•This satellite is freely available for all radio amateurs across the world. It is an open radio transponder 
that works on ham radio frequencies 
?Amateur radio operators are granted license by a governmental regulatory authority after passing 
an examination on applicable regulations, electronics, radio theory, and radio operation 
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
! 
Farout Dwarf Planet 
•Scientists have discovered the most distant object known in our solar system, so remote and unusual 
they chose the nickname “Farout” for the slow-moving, icy, pinkish dwarf planet about 120 to 130 times 
further from the sun than Earth 
•There are roughly 50 dwarf planets in the solar system. The biggest are Pluto, with a diameter of about 
1,470 miles (2,370 km), and Eris, with a diameter of about 1,445 miles (2,325 km) 
•Farout is moving so slowly that it might need more than 1,000 years for a single orbit of the sun 
•
The second-most-distant observed Solar System object is Eris, which orbits at about 96 times the 
distance of the Sun to the Earth. Pluto orbits at about 34 times the distance of Earth from the Sun 
Ultima Thule 
•It is a distant icy ‘worldlet’ located four billion miles from the Sun and is orbiting in the heart of our solar 
system’s Kuiper Belt, far beyond Neptune 
•Objects in Kuiper Belt — a collection of icy bodies ranging in size from dwarf planets like Pluto to smaller 
planetesimals like Ultima Thule and even smaller bodies like comets — are believed to be the building 
blocks of planets  
•Ultima’s nearly circular orbit indicates it originated at its current distance from the Sun. That means 
Ultima is an ancient sample of this distant portion of the solar system 
•NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft ?ew by the object and gave some insights about it 
Soyuz 
•
Russian spacecraft that can carry people and supplies to and from the space station. It can also bring 
people back to Earth 
•It has room for three people to ride in it 
•
It launches from Kazakhstan and takes 6 hours to reach the ISS 
•It does not land like an airplane because it doesn’t have wheels or wings 
?T o land, the Soyuz drops through Earth’s atmosphere. Atmosphere slows the Soyuz. The Soyuz uses 
parachutes to slow down even more. When the Soyuz gets close to the ground, it ?res small rocket 
engines to slow down more. Even then, the landing is bump 
Blue Origin 
•
American privately funded aerospace manufacturer and space?ight services company founded by Jeff 
Bezos CEO Amazon 
•
Company is developing technologies to enable private human access to space 
•
New Shepard : A reusable launch system that has vertical-takeoff, vertical landing capability, developed 
for space tourism  
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
! 
OSIRIS-REx 
•NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identi?cation, Security - Regolith Explorer asteroid 
sample return mission (OSIRIS-REx), is the ?rst U.S. mission to collect a sample of an asteroid and 
return it to Earth for study 
•It was assembled by Lockheed Martin Space Systems that will scan the asteroid in visible, infrared and 
X-ray wavelength 
•Asteroids are remnants of the building blocks that formed the planets and enabled life. Those like Bennu 
contain natural resources such as water, organics and metals. Future space exploration and economic 
development may rely on asteroids for these materials 
•Scienti?c Objectives 
?Collect a sample and return it to Earth 
?Map the asteroid 
?Determine Bennu’s physical and chemical properties 
?Measure the orbit deviation caused by sunlight (Yarkovsky effect) 
?Compare observations with data from telescopes  
•
What will it do? 
?Collect a sample from a near-Earth asteroid called Bennu, and return the sample to Earth for study 
?Help scientists better determine the orbit of the asteroid  
?Acquire knowledge about the asteroid’s composition, which could give clues about planets formed 
and how life began 
•
Why Asteroid Bennu? 
?Proximity to Earth: Every 6 years, Bennu’s orbit brings it near Earth — less than 450,000 km away. 
Its orbit allows a spacecraft to travel there and back safely 
?Size: Asteroids less than 200 m wide spin very quickly, which makes it dif?cult for a spacecraft to 
safely interact with them. Bennu is nearly 500 m in size and revolves once every 4.3 hours, slowly 
enough to collect a sample  
?Composition: Scientists will be able to analyse the asteroid’s chemistry and mineralogy to learn 
more about its composition and how it compares to other asteroids 
Hammer 
•
Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response project, is an 8 tonne ship which 
would be able to de?ect a giant space rock on a collusion course with Earth 
•
Preparing itself to deal with a potential asteroid impact, NASA has drawn up plans to build a huge 
nuclear spacecraft that is capable of shunting or blowing up dangerous space rocks and safeguarding life 
on Earth 
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
! 
•The 1,600-foot-wide asteroid Bennu is circling the sun at 63,000 mph. It is now at a comfortable 54 
million miles from Earth 
?While NASA’s Osiris-Rex mission is en route to Bennu to take samples and although there is little 
risk it could hit the Earth, Bennu is still considered as Near Earth Object (NEO) 
LIGO-India 
•
It is a planned advanced gravitational-wave observatory to be located in India as part of the worldwide 
network  
•
LIGO-India, built at Hingoli district in Maharashtra, is planned as a collaborative project between a 
consortium of Indian research institutions and the LIGO Laboratory in the USA, along with its 
international partners Australia, Germany and the UK 
•
Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) project operates three gravitational-wave 
(GW) detectors. Two are at Hanford in the state of Washington, north-western USA, and one is at 
Livingston in Louisiana, south-eastern USA 
•
Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space and time  
?Massive accelerating objects - such as neutron stars or black holes orbiting each other - would 
disrupt space-time in such a way that ‘waves’ of distorted space would radiate from the source. 
These ripples travel at the speed of light through the universe, carrying with them information 
about their origins, as well as invaluable clues to the nature of gravity itself 
•
The mirrors and detectors required to build the system will be sent from the LIGO collaborators in the 
US 
•
A third LIGO detector will help pinpoint the origin of the gravitational waves that are detected in future. 
The existence of these waves were ?rst predicted by Albert Einstein 100 years ago in his general theory 
of relativity 
•
The LIGO detectors discovered the ?rst gravitational waves produced by two giant merging blackholes 
and it won a Nobel Prize in Physics for the same 
Gaganyaan 
•
Indigenous mission that would take Indian astronauts to space 
•It is an Indian crewed orbital spacecraft that is intended to send 3 astronauts to space for a minimum of 
seven days by 2022, as part of the Indian Human Space?ight Programme 
•
It will be for the ?rst time that India will launch its manned mission to space, making the country fourth 
in line to have sent a human to space 
•
ISRO’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle GSLV Mk III, the three stage heavy-lift launch vehicle, 
will be used to launch Gaganyaan 
•
The spacecraft will be placed in a low earth orbit of 300-400 km 
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
! 
?It will rotate around the Earth every 90 minutes, and astronauts will be able to witness sunrise and 
sunset 
UNNATI 
•
UNispace Nanosatellite Assembly & Training by ISRO 
•Launched to commemorate 50th anniversary of the ?rst UN conference on the exploration and peaceful 
uses of outer space (UNISPACE 50), the programme aims to provide opportunities to the participating 
developing countries to become stronger in assembling, integrating and testing nanosatellites 
•
It will be conducted for three years 
Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway 
•
Moon-orbiting space station that NASA plans to start building  
•It will help humanity extend its footprint out into deep space and also enable a variety of increasing 
scienti?c and commercial activities on and around the moon 
Bangabandhu-1 
•It is the ?rst Bangladeshi geostationary communications and Broadcasting Satellite 
•
Manufactured by Thales Alenia Space and launched in 2018 by Falcon 9 rocket of SpaceX 
Hayabusa2 
•
It is an asteroid sample-return mission operated by Japanese Space agency (JAXA) 
•Launched in 2014 and rendezvoused with near-Earth asteroid Ryugu 
•
It dropped an explosive (small carry-on impactor made of copper) designed to make a crater on the 
asteroid to collect its underground samples to ?nd possible clues to the origin of the solar system 
•
MASCOT 
?Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout is a lander built by German Aerospace Centre in collaboration with 
the French Space agency and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency  
?It can take images at multiple wavelengths, investigate minerals with a microscope, gauge surface 
temperatures and measure magnetic ?elds 
?Unlike moving rovers, MASCOT will be largely immobile, it will “jump” once on its mission 
Gaia 
•
It is a space observatory of the European Space Agency, launched in 2013 
•It is an ambitious mission to chart a three-dimensional map of our Galaxy in the process revealing the 
composition, formation and evolution of the Galaxy 
www.YouTube.com/SleepyClasses 
www.SleepyClasses.com 
!