UPSC PRELIMS 2020 CURRENT AFFAIRS - MANIFEST IAS

UPSC PRELIMS 2020
            CURRENT AFFAIRS
Space:                    Celestial Bodies
Future Missions           1. Exoplanets
1. Chandrayan 3           2. Exomoons
2. Gaganyaan              3. Ploonet
3. Aditya L1              4. Jellyfish galaxies
4. Indian Space Station
                          Foreign Missions
                          1. Punch Mission
                          2. Solar Orbiter Mission
                          3. LRO
                          4. Sentinel 3
                          5. Voyager

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Chandrayaan 3
• It would be performed by ISRO alone as a repeat
  attempt to demonstrate the landing capabilities
  needed for the Lunar Polar Exploration Mission.
• The mission may include site sampling and lunar night
  survival technologies.
• Launch likely in 2020.
The Lunar Polar Exploration Mission:
• It is a robotic lunar mission concept by ISRO and
  JAXA to explore the south pole region of the Moon in
  2024.
• JAXA is likely to provide the rover, while ISRO would be
  responsible for the lander.
• The rover would carry multiple instruments including a
  drill to collect sub-surface samples.

Gaganyaan
• Indian Human spaceflight Programme
• A fully autonomous spacecraft will orbit the Earth at 400 km
  altitude for up to seven days carrying a 3-7 member crew and
  return to the Earth after a mission duration.
• HAL manufactured crew module.
• DRDO will provide
   • Space grade food
   • Systems like crew healthcare, fire suppression, radiation measurement
     and protection
   • Parachutes
• Vyommitra, a Female Robot will accompany the astronauts.
• It will be equipped with emergency mission abort and
  emergency escape.
• Uncrewed mission will be launched in 2020 and crewed one in
  2021.

Aditya L1 Mission
The Aditya-1 mission was conceived as a 400kg class satellite
planned to launch in a 800 km LEO launched by PSLV-XL.
It will be placed in the halo orbit around the Lagrangian point 1
(L1) of the Sun-Earth system which is 1.5 million km away from
the Earth.
It gives the advantage of continuously viewing the Sun without
any disturbances like eclipses.
The satellite six payloads to observe:
• Corona
• Chromosphere
• Photosphere
• Particle flux
• Magnetic field strength
• Solar wind

Indian Space Station
• India plans to have its own space station, and
  modalities for it will be worked out after
  Gaganyaan.
• A small module for microgravity experiments will
  be established.
• It is envisaged to weigh 20 tonnes.
• Astronauts can stay for 15-20 days there.
• It would be placed in an orbit 400 km above earth.
• The time frame for launch is 5-7 years after
  Gaganyaan.

Celestial bodies
• Jellyfish galaxies disc shaped galaxies that have many
  tentacle-like arms streaming away from the disc. They
  are formed when a disc-shaped galaxy rams into
  a galaxy cluster. It is a dense region containing many
  hundreds or thousands of galaxies packed into a small
  region.
• Exoplanets are the planets that orbit around other Sun-
  like stars.
• Exomoons are the moons of exoplanets.
• Ploonets are planets that used to be moons, which
  have escaped their parent planets’ gravity and start
  orbiting their parent stars. There are none of these
  ploonets in our solar system. They might exist in other
  star systems.

Punch (The Polarimeter to Unify the
    Corona and Heliosphere) Mission
• It will focus directly on the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, and how
  it generates the solar wind.
• It will image and track the solar wind as it leaves the Sun.
• The spacecraft also will track coronal mass ejections - large eruptions of
  solar material that can drive large space weather events near Earth.
• These observations will enhance the research by Parker Solar Probe and
  the NASA Solar Orbiter.

Solar Orbiter Mission
• Solar Orbiter is a satellite mission to explore the inner
  regions of the sun and the heliosphere from a near-sun
  orbit.
• Seven-year mission to study how our star can affect the
  space environment throughout the solar system.
• The spacecraft also will be the first to provide images of
  the Sun’s poles.
• Solar Orbiter is a cooperative mission between the ESA
  and NASA.
• The mission is managed by ESA; the scientific payload
  elements of Solar Orbiter are being provided by ESA
  Member States, NASA and ESA.

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
(LRO)
• LRO is a robotic mission that set out to map the moon's
  surface.
• LRO and the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing
  Satellite (LCROSS) were launched in 18, 2009.
• It spent its first three years in a low polar orbit
  collecting detailed information about the moon and its
  environment.
• LRO continues to help identify sites close to potential
  resources with high scientific value, favourable terrain
  and the environment necessary for safe future robotic
  and human lunar missions.
• The Exploration Mission was focused on supporting the
  extension of human presence in the solar system.

Sentinel-3
• It is an Earth observation satellite constellation
  developed by the ESA as part of the Copernicus
  Programme. It currently consists of 2
  satellites: Sentinel-3A and Sentinel-3B.
• Two more satellites, Sentinel-3C and Sentinel-3D,
  are on order.
• Copernicus, is the European programme to
  establish a European capacity for Earth observation
  to better manage the environment, and to
  understand and mitigate the effects of climate
  change.

Voyager Mission
• Launched in the 1970s to explore the outer planets.
• The mission objective of the Voyager Interstellar
  Mission (VIM) is to extend the NASA exploration of
  the solar system beyond the neighbourhood of the
  outer planets to the outer limits of the Sun’s sphere
  of influence and beyond.
• Voyager 1 included the flybys of Jupiter and Saturn
  and became the first spacecraft to enter
  the interstellar medium.
• Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited all
  four gas giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and
  Neptune and discovered 16 moons.