American Scientist Suggested That Refreezing Arctic Could Help Deal With Climate Crisis

An American scientist David Keith, who is the professor of applied physics at Harvard University offered solution to global warming when he suggested that refreezing Arctic using certain modified jets could help in dealing with the climate crisis. The scientist used climate models for suggesting that by injecting the reflective particles in atmosphere, there could be a reduced amount of sunlight which reached the Earth. This in turn could help in tricking the regional effect which might bring back ice to Arctic.

He claimed that penetration of sunlight could be reduced by merely 0.5 percent for restoring the sea-ice surrounding North Pole. The research conducted by the scientist suggested that this entire operation was possible to accomplish with certain modified Gulfstream jets which could cost approximately 8 billion dollar annually.

It is important to note that overall amount of the ice in Arctic Ocean had reached all-time lowest in September 2012. However, while this scientist believed that action should definitely be taken for dealing with the pollution that was discharged in the atmosphere, he still doesn’t advocate action which his study suggested.

For further information visit: http://www.jagranjosh.com/current-affairs/american-scientist-suggested-that-refreezing-arctic-could-help-deal-with-climate-crisis-1355386996-1

UN Climate Change Negotiations 2012: No firm commitment from rich countries

DOHA: The absence of a commitment by rich industrialised countries to give any firm commitment on climate finance and increase their efforts to reduce emissions reduction by industrialised countries for the pre-2020 period continues to cast its shadow over the negotiations at Doha."The governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have asked nearly $83 billion from Washington (in the wake of superstorm Sandy) not in a year but in one stroke. Tell me then are we asking for lot money when talking about $100 billion," asked Ronny Jumeau, a senior negotiator from Seychelles.

Representatives from nearly 200 countries at Doha are in the second week of their efforts to build consensus over details of a global response to climate change. Their big task is to bring to a successful close the ongoing negotiations as set out in the road map agreed to in Bali in 2007 and to agree on the second phase of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. This would enable countries to move on to negotiating the post 2020 global regime to limit the adverse impact of climate change.

The availability of finance between 2013 and 2020 is one of the key issues that needs to be resolved before countries leave Doha. The fast start finance committed by developed countries at Copenhagen in 2009 was for a three-year period ending 2012. Without adequate funds, it would be difficult for developing countries, particularly vulnerable and least developed countries, to deal with climate change. So far, the industrialised countries have been less than forthcoming, with the sole exception of the United Kingdom.

"The current discussions on finance commit us to look at the 2020 figure of $100 billion. The industrialised countries gave a good faith down payment of $30 billion as fast start finance. We have done more than that," said Jonathan Pershing , deputy special envoy for climate change for the United States. The EU has said that it "find money for climate finance in the interim period" but that there would be "no announcement of a single funding by the EU-27".

The lack of clarity on finance doesn't help bridge the trust deficit between developed and developing countries hampering the possibility of a successful outcome at Doha. "We agreed in Cancun to fast start finance and there would be $100bn for 2020. This is our interpretation. We want to see finance on the table before we leave here. It's part of a package that we're expecting in Doha," Pa Ousman Jorju, chair of the least developed countries said.

The developing country bloc, G-77 and China, comprising 132 countries have asked for $60 billion between 203 and 2015. Industrialised countries are loathe to commit. Instead, they argue that the commitment was to provide $30 billion between 200n and 2012, then $100 billion a year by 2020, and that there has been nothing about the period in between.

For further information visit: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/un-climate-change-negotiations-2012-no-firm-commitment-from-rich-countries/articleshow/17505636.cms

NASA NEWS: NASA Announces Multi-Year Mars Program With New Rover In 2020

From small beginnings NASA's Mars rovers have become a lot bigger. 

Building on the success of Curiosity's Red Planet landing, NASA has announced plans for a robust multi-year Mars program, including a new robotic science rover set to launch in 2020. This announcement affirms the agency's commitment to a bold exploration program that meets our nations scientific and human exploration objectives.

"The Obama administration is committed to a robust Mars exploration program," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "With this next mission, we're ensuring America remains the world leader in the exploration of the Red Planet, while taking another significant step toward sending humans there in the 2030s."

The planned portfolio includes the Curiosity and Opportunity rovers; two NASA spacecraft and contributions to one European spacecraft currently orbiting Mars; the 2013 launch of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) orbiter to study the Martian upper atmosphere; the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission, which will take the first look into the deep interior of Mars; and participation in ESA's 2016 and 2018 ExoMars missions, including providing "Electra" telecommunication radios to ESA's 2016 mission and a critical element of the premier astrobiology instrument on the 2018 ExoMars rover.

The plan to design and build a new Mars robotic science rover with a launch in 2020 comes only months after the agency announced InSight, which will launch in 2016, bringing a total of seven NASA missions operating or being planned to study and explore our Earth-like neighbour. The 2020 mission will constitute another step toward being responsive to high-priority science goals and the president's challenge of sending humans to Mars orbit in the 2030s.

The future rover development and design will be based on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) architecture that successfully carried the Curiosity rover to the Martian surface this summer. This will ensure mission costs and risks are as low as possible, while still delivering a highly capable rover with a proven landing system. The mission will constitute a vital component of a broad portfolio of Mars exploration missions in development for the coming decade.

The mission will advance the science priorities of the National Research Council's 2011 Planetary Science Decadal Survey and responds to the findings of the Mars Program Planning Group established earlier this year to assist NASA in restructuring its Mars Exploration Program."The challenge to restructure the Mars Exploration Program has turned from the seven minutes of terror for the Curiosity landing to the start of seven years of innovation," NASA's associate administrator for science, and astronaut John Grunsfeld said.

"This mission concept fits within the current and projected Mars exploration budget, builds on the exciting discoveries of Curiosity, and takes advantage of a favourable launch opportunity."The specific payload and science instruments for the 2020 mission will be openly competed, following the Science Mission Directorate's established processes for instrument selection. This process will begin with the establishment of a science definition team that will be tasked to outline the scientific objectives for the mission.

This mission fits within the five-year budget plan in the president's Fiscal Year 2013 budget request, and is contingent on future appropriations. Plans also will include opportunities for infusing new capabilities developed through investments by NASA's Space Technology Program, Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, and contributions from international partners.

For further information visit: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/NASA_Announces_Multi_Year_Mars_Program_With_New_Rover_In_2020_999.html

NASA NEWS: NASA Announces Multi-Year Mars Program With New Rover In 2020

From small beginnings NASA's Mars rovers have become a lot bigger. 

Building on the success of Curiosity's Red Planet landing, NASA has announced plans for a robust multi-year Mars program, including a new robotic science rover set to launch in 2020. This announcement affirms the agency's commitment to a bold exploration program that meets our nations scientific and human exploration objectives.

"The Obama administration is committed to a robust Mars exploration program," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "With this next mission, we're ensuring America remains the world leader in the exploration of the Red Planet, while taking another significant step toward sending humans there in the 2030s."

The planned portfolio includes the Curiosity and Opportunity rovers; two NASA spacecraft and contributions to one European spacecraft currently orbiting Mars; the 2013 launch of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) orbiter to study the Martian upper atmosphere; the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission, which will take the first look into the deep interior of Mars; and participation in ESA's 2016 and 2018 ExoMars missions, including providing "Electra" telecommunication radios to ESA's 2016 mission and a critical element of the premier astrobiology instrument on the 2018 ExoMars rover.

The plan to design and build a new Mars robotic science rover with a launch in 2020 comes only months after the agency announced InSight, which will launch in 2016, bringing a total of seven NASA missions operating or being planned to study and explore our Earth-like neighbour. The 2020 mission will constitute another step toward being responsive to high-priority science goals and the president's challenge of sending humans to Mars orbit in the 2030s.

The future rover development and design will be based on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) architecture that successfully carried the Curiosity rover to the Martian surface this summer. This will ensure mission costs and risks are as low as possible, while still delivering a highly capable rover with a proven landing system. The mission will constitute a vital component of a broad portfolio of Mars exploration missions in development for the coming decade.

The mission will advance the science priorities of the National Research Council's 2011 Planetary Science Decadal Survey and responds to the findings of the Mars Program Planning Group established earlier this year to assist NASA in restructuring its Mars Exploration Program."The challenge to restructure the Mars Exploration Program has turned from the seven minutes of terror for the Curiosity landing to the start of seven years of innovation," NASA's associate administrator for science, and astronaut John Grunsfeld said.

"This mission concept fits within the current and projected Mars exploration budget, builds on the exciting discoveries of Curiosity, and takes advantage of a favourable launch opportunity."The specific payload and science instruments for the 2020 mission will be openly competed, following the Science Mission Directorate's established processes for instrument selection. This process will begin with the establishment of a science definition team that will be tasked to outline the scientific objectives for the mission.

This mission fits within the five-year budget plan in the president's Fiscal Year 2013 budget request, and is contingent on future appropriations. Plans also will include opportunities for infusing new capabilities developed through investments by NASA's Space Technology Program, Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, and contributions from international partners.

For further information visit: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/NASA_Announces_Multi_Year_Mars_Program_With_New_Rover_In_2020_999.html

NASA NEWS: NASA Twin Spacecraft Create Most Accurate Gravity Map of Moon

  WASHINGTON -- Twin NASA probes orbiting the moon have generated the highest resolution gravity field map of any celestial body. The new map, created by the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, is allowing scientists to learn about the moon's internal structure and composition in unprecedented detail. Data from the two washing machine-sized spacecraft also will provide a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed and evolved.

The gravity field map reveals an abundance of features never before seen in detail, such as tectonic structures, volcanic landforms, basin rings, crater central peaks, and numerous simple, bowl-shaped craters. Data also show the moon's gravity field is unlike that of any terrestrial planet in our solar system. These are the first scientific results from the prime phase of the mission, and they are published in three papers in the journal Science.

"What this map tells us is that more than any other celestial body we know of, the moon wears its gravity field on its sleeve," said GRAIL principal investigator Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. "When we see a notable change in the gravity field, we can sync up this change with surface topography features such as craters, rilles or mountains."

According to Zuber, the moon's gravity field preserves the record of impact bombardment that characterized all terrestrial planetary bodies and reveals evidence for fracturing of the interior extending to the deep crust and possibly the mantle. This impact record is preserved, and now precisely measured, on the moon. The probes revealed the bulk density of the moon's highland crust is substantially lower than generally assumed. This low bulk crustal density agrees well with data obtained during the final Apollo lunar missions in early 1970s, indicating that local samples returned by astronauts are indicative of global processes.

The map was created by the spacecraft transmitting radio signals to define precisely the distance between them as they orbit the moon in formation. As they fly over areas of greater and lesser gravity caused by both visible features, such as mountains and craters, and masses hidden beneath the lunar surface, the distance between the two spacecraft will change slightly.

"We used gradients of the gravity field in order to highlight smaller and narrower structures than could be seen in previous datasets," said Jeff Andrews-Hanna, a GRAIL guest scientist with the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. "This data revealed a population of long, linear, gravity anomalies, with lengths of hundreds of kilometers, crisscrossing the surface. These linear gravity anomalies indicate the presence of dikes, or long, thin, vertical bodies of solidified magma in the subsurface. The dikes are among the oldest features on the moon, and understanding them will tell us about its early history."

While results from the primary science mission are just beginning to be released, the collection of gravity science by the lunar twins continues. GRAIL's extended mission science phase began Aug. 30 and will conclude Dec. 17. As the end of mission nears, the spacecraft will operate at lower orbital altitudes above the moon. When launched in September 2011, the probes were named GRAIL A and B. They were renamed Ebb and Flow in January by elementary students in Bozeman, Mont., in a nationwide contest. Ebb and Flow were placed in a near-polar, near-circular orbit at an altitude of approximately 34 miles (55 kilometers) on Dec. 31, 2011, and Jan. 1, 2012.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. GRAIL is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems of Denver built the spacecraft.

For further information visit: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/dec/HQ_12-417_GRAIL.html

ISRO News; Failure of India's Big Rocket Project Is Symbolic Of Deep Structural Problems

The ongoing "Asia Pivot" by United States is rapidly changing the regional dynamics of the Indo - Pacific region, and nowhere is it more visible than the sphere of cooperation in defence and space research. Recently Canadian and Australian defence co-operation and ties with India reached unprecedented highs, a chain of event termed as the "Rise of the Anglosphere" by historian Walter Russell Mead.

However, the successive failure of Indian GSLV missions, combined with India's stubborn secrecy and fierce independence in the space sector is giving rise to doubts about the scope of further future co-operations. Although the failure of this signature launching vehicle is attributed to technical glitches, it is highly symbolic of the greater lack of clarity, purpose and direction in the Indian space program.

The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) was originally intended to be India's signature launching vehicle, eventually to launch India's INSAT type satellites, and reduce dependence on foreign rockets. In the early nineties, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, India was forced to develop independent launching vehicles. India originally tried to buy the technology to build a cryogenic upper stage from Russia, but was denied, under pressure from United States and other Western countries.

With the development of indigenous Cryogenic engine, India became the sixth country in the World to posses the technology, which could be potentially used for civilian and military purposes. Indian GSLV generally uses L40 liquid strap on boosters and old Soviet KVD 1 upper stage. But even though Indian military and ballistic missile programs were successful, as recently evident with the successful launch of Agni V ICBM, its civilian rocket and space program were mediocre at best.

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), a launcher vehicle used previously to launch civilian satellites was used as a model of GSLV programs, but it was not successful. Multiple versions of GSLV were launched in the last decade, with more than half of them failing due to technical difficulties. A brief stint of success in 2003- 04 was followed by successive failures. The vehicle failed to reach orbit, lost control of liquid fuel booster, veered of designated trajectory and had to be destroyed over the Bay of Bengal, or failed to deliver payload in the last four missions. With an unprecedented failure rate, GSLV is gradually on its way to be the costliest misadventure of Indian strategic and space sector. The eighth launch is scheduled in 2013.

The causes of these failures are minor, according to the official bureaucratic rhetoric, and were attributed to minor technical malfunctions. There was no clear response to queries as to why five out of seven launches have resulted in total or partial failure. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is also secretive and tight-lipped about capability and weight of the satellites and why India is still unsuccessful in launching communication satellites more than 3000 KG, 36 Transponder class, whereas the nearby competitors like Japan and China, not to mention USA, Russia and European Space Agency have already moved on to triple that size.

There is no clarity and accountability when it comes to tax payer's money spent on space research, and no heads roll even when there are repeated failures. The lack of purpose is also evident as India lacks fixed and dedicated plan in the Space sector. In an interview earlier this year, Dr. K, Radhakrishnan, chairman of ISRO, stated that India's main concern and thrust is in the area of applications and not manned space flights and space stations, unlike Russia, US or China. India with its massive population and democratic set up needs more communication satellite to cater to domestic needs, unlike China which is heavily centralized and controlled.

However that argument and logic falls flat as India is already planning for its second lunar mission in early 2014, Chandrayaan 2, and possibly a manned space mission by 2017.In January 2011, the U.S. officially removed export controls on several subsidiaries of India's Defense Research and Development Organization and the ISRO. It was a clear signal that the United States would like to chart a new future of space co-operation with India.

American think tank Heritage Foundation also published a report around same time, calling for enhanced space and missile defence co-operation between India, Australia and United States, including satellite defence and interceptors, theatre based missile defence and most importantly future co-operation and joint space programs. However there seems to be lukewarm response and enthusiasm from the Indian side.

India's notorious reliance on Russian hardware is also a major hindrance when it comes to further cooperation with the West. Only with the benefit of hindsight would we be able to determine the trajectory of India's space co-operation with the West, or whether it takes any specific direction, but at this present point of time, it is safe to assume, that without any clear plan, or white paper, India's current space prospects are quite grim, and will continue in the chaotic and headless way for the near foreseeable future.

For further information visit: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Failure_Of_IndiaS_Big_Rocket_Project_Is_Symbolic_Of_Deep_Structural_Problems_999.html

ISRO News: ISRO eyes a 6-tonne ‘K’ band satellite

It has invited expressions of interest from global satellite manufacturer’s .The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) plans to foray into the powerful and high-throughput world of ‘K’band satellites by importing a six-tonne satellite, building one itself, or both.It is looking at packing in 100 beams in a ‘next generation’ satellite compared to its regular 40, a senior ISRO associate and satellite expert said. It is testing the market to find a seller who could make it in the next 2 to 3 years as also be a partner in building such an indigenous satellite. It could take ISRO at least five years to work on it from scratch.

ISRO has assembled all its communications and Earth observation satellites in-house for some decades now. “We are trying out a different and twin-pronged approach here,” he saidISRO Satellite Centre or ISAC, the satellite assembly centre in Bangalore, earlier this month invited expressions of interest from global satellite manufacturers ‘for design, development, fabrication and operationalisation’ of a 6-tonne K-band spacecraft. It would weigh almost double the size of the biggest that ISRO has produced so far.

Experts say the K band will allow higher and faster data transmission on the Internet by at least two or three times what ISRO satellites now offer; and that it will suit VSAT operators who support this traffic.“K band is the future, the world is moving towards it and if we don’t get in now, we will be left behind,” the scientist told The Hindu. “We have started building a six-tonne satellite at ISRO facilities, but it will take time.”

In 2010, ISRO sent up GSAT-4 with a K band transponder. However, its home-grown GSLV launcher failed. The next one, GSAT-11, is at least two years away. The same year, it also built a K-band satellite, called HYLAS-1 (or Highly Advanced Satellite) for a fee for British operator Avanti in a tie-up with Europe’s Astrium.

A K band transponder can accommodate far more users more efficiently than ISRO’s older Ku band satellites, one of them said. However, a disadvantage was ‘rain fade’ or disturbed transmission during rain. The latest exercise comes at a time when ISRO is desperately augmenting its satellite capacity by leasing foreign satellites partially or fully.

For further information visit: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/isro-eyes-a-6tonne-k-band-satellite/article4134039.ece