'Avenues are opening up for space exploration'

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will soon launch a satellite, ‘Aditya’, to study the sun round the clock, former Chairman of ISRO A S Kiran Kumar said.

“ISRO will also take up Mars and Venus spacecraft missions in future, opening up the avenues of Astrophysics, for the research and student community,” he said. Kumar was addressing the gathering after inaugurating the first Pilikula International Full-Dome Film Festival and Planetarium Conference organised at Pilikula Regional Science Centre (PRSC) on
Wednesday.

Mars Orbiter has completed five years on September 2019 and is expected to survive for some more time even though it was designed to last for six months, Kiran recollected. “It was a real challenge to enable it to work autonomously as even the solar radiation could deviate its trajectory. The orbiter has been sending good quality images enabling large observations,” he said.

Kiran Kumar said the credit for the discovery of water molecules on the lunar surface goes to Chandrayan 1. The satellite carried two US made instruments while Chandrayan 2 was built with indigenous instruments. Chandrayan 2 has good angular resolution, aperture radar to completely capture the lunar surface, shadowed regions on the moon, former chairman of ISRO said.

Pollution was also having a negative impact on space study. The increasing pollution was causing disturbances in the reception of celestial signals.

Daskhina Kannada district Deputy Commissioner (DC) and PRSCS Chairperson Sindhu B Roopesh presided over the programme.

Special Secretary (Technical), Department of Science and Technology, Dr H Honne Gowda, International Planetarium Society President and Adler Planetarium USA Director Dr Mark Subba Rao, International Sales, Evans and Sutherland, USA, Director Scott A Niskach, PRSC Director Dr K V Rao and PRSCS Member Secretary R Meghana were present.