On a visit to his home state, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who turned 69 on Tuesday, offered prayers to goddess Narmada at the Sardar Sarovar dam.

Accompanied by Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, Modi offered prayers as part of the state government’s Namami Devi Narmade Mahotsav celebrations being held to mark the dam receiving water to its full capacity.

Modi also visited the Butterfly Garden in Kevadiya and named the saffron coloured plain tiger butterfly as the state butterfly.

Modi began the day with a visit to the Statue of Unity and the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the river Narmada.

The Statue of Unity, billed as the tallest in the world, was inaugurated by him on Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s birth anniversary on October 31 last year.

He also tweeted a video of the statue, taken from his helicopter.

Modi arrived at Kevadiya on Tuesday morning to take part in the ‘Namami Narmada’ festival being celebrated by the Gujarat government to mark the filling up of the dam to its full reservoir level of 138.68 metres.

For the first time since the height of the dam was raised in 2017, the water level reached its highest peak at 138.68 metres on Sunday evening.

Modi along with Rupani, then performed ‘puja’ at the dam site to ‘welcome’ the water of river Narmada, the lifeline of Gujarat.

The PM, who would be addressing a gathering near the dam, also visited various developmental projects being carried out near the dam and Statue of Unity to boost tourism.

These projects include river rafting, a jungle safari park, a butterfly park and Ekta Nursery, an officil said.

Modi also visited the Khalvani Eco-Tourism site. In the safari, he apparently spotted deer.

He also visited the Dutt Mandir at nearby Garudeshwar village on the banks of Narmada.

source: https://www.dailypioneer.com/2019/top-stories/birthday-boy-modi-visits-statue-of-unity-in-home-state.html

ISRO is racing against time to spring ‘Vikram’ back to lifeand salvage the lander-rover part of the Chandrayaan-2 mission.

The lander Vikram, with rover ‘Pragyan’ tucked inside it, lost communication with the ground-stations during its final descent, just 2.1 kms above the lunar surface, minutes before the planned soft-landing in the early hours of Saturday.

ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) said on Sunday Vikram had a “hard-landing”.

The Bengaluru-headquarterd space agency on Tuesday again confirmed that the lander has been located on the lunar surface by the on-board cameras of the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter which is circling the moon in its intended orbit.

“All possible efforts are being made to establish communication with (the) lander”, ISRO further said in a tweet.

A senior ISRO official associated with the mission said: “The images from the orbiter camera showed that Vikram is in single piece lying on the lunar surface; not broken into pieces. It is in a tilted position. It’s not in its four legs, as usual”.

This official added on condition of anonymity: “it’s not upside down. It’s lying on its side”.

ISRO officially did not comment on the condition of the lander.

Chandrayaan-2 comprises an orbiter, lander (Vikram) and rover (Pragyan).

The mission life of the lander and rover is one Lunar day, which is equal to 14 earth days.

ISRO Chairman K Sivan said on Saturday evening that the space agency would try to restore link with the lander for 14 days and it has been reiterating the resolve since then.

An ISRO official said Vikram hit the lunar surface at a place about 500 metres away from where it was originally planned to touch-down.

But there was no official word on this from ISRO.

Sources said an ISRO team is trying to see if they can reorient the antennas of the lander in such a way that communication can be restored.

“Efforts are going on”, they said.

According to a senior ISRO official, orientation may have been lost during the final descent when velocity was reduced, due “sensor or on-board software or computer anomaly”.

“A committee is looking into what has gone wrong. They will come out with answers soon”, this official said.

Meanwhile, flawless and precise launch and efficient management of the Chandrayaan-2 mission —- till the lander ‘Vikram’ lost communication with ground-stations –, has paid rich dividends to the ISRO on the orbiter front.

The 2,379 kg orbiter whose mission life was designed to be one year would now be able function for almost seven years.

“Enough fuel is available with the orbiter. Up to (lunar) orbit insertion, we did not have any flaw. Additional fuel which was anticipated was not used at all. Everything went as per the plan. Additional fuel is available with us (on-board the orbiter)”, an ISRO official said.

Another ISRO official said, “One of the limiting factor is on-board fuel availability. Because the performance of GSLV-MK III (which launched the spacecraft) and efficient mission management, we have enough fuel for continuing it forward for seven years.”

The space agency also said, the precise launch and mission management has ensured a long life of almost seven years instead of the planned one year for the orbiter.

ISRO had said 90 to 95 per cent of the Chandrayaan-2 mission objectives have been accomplished and it would continue to contribute to Lunar science , notwithstanding the loss of communication with the Lander which hit lunar surface after failing in its planned attempt to soft-land in the early hours of Saturday.

Noting that Chandrayaan-2 mission was a highly complex one, which represented a significant technological leap compared to the previous missions of ISRO, the space agency said it brought together an orbiter, lander and rover to explore the unexplored south pole of the Moon.

This was a unique mission which aimed at studying not just one area of the Moon but all the areas combining the exosphere, the surface as well as the sub-surface of the moon in a single mission, it added.

Source: https://www.dailypioneer.com/2019/india/nasa-ready-to-jointly-explore-solar-system-with-isro.html