India’s mars mission — Mangalyaan

 The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) also known as Mangalyaan, is a space probe which was launched on 5 November 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It is India’s first interplanetary mission and it made it the fourth space agency to achieve Mars orbit, after Roscosmos, NASA, and the European Space Agency.

On 23 November 2008, the first public acknowledgement of an uncrewed mission to Mars was announced by then-ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair. The MOM mission concept began with a feasibility study in 2010 by the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology after the launch of lunar satellite Chandrayaan-1 in 2008. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh approved the project on 3 August 2012.

Objectives of the mission

The main objectives are to develop the technologies required for designing, planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission comprising the following major tasks:

• Orbit manoeuvres to transfer the spacecraft from Earth-centred orbit to heliocentric trajectory and finally, capture into Martian orbit
• Development of force models and algorithms for orbit and attitude (orientation) computations and analysis
• Navigation in all phases
• Maintain the spacecraft in all phases of the mission
• Meeting power, communications, thermal and payload operation requirements
• Incorporate autonomous features to handle contingency situations

The Chairman, ISRO, Shri A.S. Kiran Kumar releasing the Mars Atlas on the occasion of the completion of one year of Mars Orbiter Mission in Orbit, in Bengaluru

The space agency had planned the launch on 28 October 2013 but was postponed to 5 November following the delay in ISRO's spacecraft tracking ships to take up pre-determined positions due to poor weather in the Pacific Ocean. Launch opportunities for a fuel-saving Hohmann transfer orbit occur every 26 months, in this case the next two would be in 2016 and 2018.

The mounting of the five scientific instruments was completed at Indian Space Research Organisation Satellite Centre, Bengaluru, and the finished spacecraft was shipped to Sriharikota on 2 October 2013 for integration to the PSLV-XL launch vehicle. The satellite's development was fast-tracked and completed in a record 15 months, partly due to using reconfigured Chandrayaan-2 orbiter bus.

During a meeting on 30 September 2014, NASA and ISRO officials signed an agreement to establish a pathway for future joint missions to explore Mars. One of the working group's objectives will be to explore potential coordinated observations and science analysis between the MAVEN orbiter and MOM, as well as other current and future Mars missions. On 28 September 2014, MOM controllers published the spacecraft's first global view of Mars. The image was captured by the Mars Colour Camera (MCC).

Earliest images of the surface of Mars taken by the MOM, 25th September 2014

ISRO celebrates the success of the mission

International reactions

In 2014, China referred to India's successful Mars Orbiter Mission as the "Pride of Asia". The Mars Orbiter Mission team won US-based National Space Society's 2015 Space Pioneer Award in the science and engineering category. NSS said the award was given as the Indian agency successfully executed a Mars mission in its first attempt; and the spacecraft is in an elliptical orbit with a high apoapsis where, with its high resolution camera, it is taking full-disk colour imagery of Mars.

An image taken by the Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft was the cover photo of the November 2016 issue of National Geographic magazine, for their story "Mars: Race to the Red Planet". ISRO plans to develop and launch a follow-up mission called Mars Orbiter Mission 2 (MOM-2 or Mangalyaan-2) with a greater scientific payload to Mars in 2024.

Which is the most luxurious railway station in India?

 The answer is One and Only Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra railway station.

Why ?

1. The new Katra railway station in Jammu and Kashmir is finally complete with world-class facilities and was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Spread over an area of 83 hectares, the station has three platforms — each 550 meters long and big enough to accommodate trains with 26 compartments.

2. The facilities include smooth-running escalators, lifts and a fully air-conditioned hotel with a shopping lounge and a multi-cuisine food station.

3. The station has a huge parking lot that has been constructed to accommodate cars and passenger buses.

4. Here is a picture of the lounge area at the station.

5. The two-storey main building has two lifts, with the first floor comprising a guest house, a multi-cuisine restaurant and a shopping lounge run by the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation.

6. Pictured here is one of the rooms built for the comfort of waiting passengers at the Katra station.

7. Stunning entrance......!

8. Constructed at a cost Rs 1,050 crore, the 25 km-long railway line between Katra and Udhampur has 10 tunnels and 32 bridges.

These all things makes it Luxurious station.

India's first female spy

Neera Arya is called India's first female spy. She was a soldier of Rani Jhansi Regiment in Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's Azad Hind Fauj. She spied on the British several times and was successful. She had such a strong will for the independence of the country that she killed her own husband, who worked for the British government, to save the brave freedom fighter Netaji Bose.

🔹Neera Arya became a soldier of Rani Jhansi Regiment in Azad Hind Fauj at a very young age. When she was a spy, she was instructed that if she gets caught by the British, she should shoot herself without thinking and attain martyrdom. She spoke Hindi, English and Bengali as well as other Indian languages. Her husband CID Inspector Srikant Jayaranjan Das worked for the British and was very loyal to the British.

🔹One day the British gave the responsibility of killing Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose to Shrikant Jayaranjan. Jayaranjan Das somehow reached Subhash Chandra Bose secretly. He was about to kill him when his wife Neera recognized him. Before he could kill Netaji with his bullet, Neera immediately stabbed her husband Jayaranjan Das in the stomach with a bayonet and killed him and Nira saved Netaji. Netaji was stunned to see Neera's bravery and sacrifice.

🔹After the surrender of Azad Hind Fauj, Neera was sentenced to black water for the murder of her husband. She was given severe torture there. Here she was kept in a small cell. She was kept tied in iron chains in a cell where even the rays of the sun could not reach. She was constantly mistreated.

🔹One day the jailer asked her, 'If you tell us where Netaji is, we will release you.' But she did not open her mouth under any circumstances. She was brutally tortured to get information about Netaji. Her body was branded with iron bars, but she kept enduring the torture!

🔹The news that Netaji had died in a plane crash had spread everywhere, yet the British did not believe that Netaji had died. The British were very afraid of Netaji, that is why the British used to ask Nira where Subhash Chandra Bose was hiding? Nira used to say that he had died in a plane crash, the whole world knows this. But the British government was not able to accept Netaji's death. Nira was even offered bail in exchange for giving information. But Nira never said anything in reference to Netaji or other comrades of the Azad Hind Fauj.

🔹When the British jailor repeatedly asked her, “Where is Netaji?”, Nira used to say that Netaji is in my heart. On hearing this, one day the jailor angrily said, “Okay, we will rip out your heart and see where Netaji is.”

Salute to this sister, this daughter.

Their courage, their bravery, their tolerance, their loyalty.