All eyes to ISRO........ ISRO ROCKS AGAIN....

India is all set to rule the space... Heard right?? With its mega-launch program on February 15, India will create history by launching a record 104 satellites, including 101 foreign ones, into the polar sun-synchronous orbit(SSO), about 500 km above the earth. The launch is expected to be a world record when it comes to the number of satellites put into orbit by a launch vehicle in a single mission, surpassing the 37 satellites launch record set by a Russian rocket on June 19, 2014.

India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, in its thirty ninth flight (PSLV-C37), will launch the 714 kg Cartosat-2 series satellite for earth observation and 103 co-passenger satellites together weighing about 664 kg. Of the total earth-observation satellites, there are 101 nano satellites, one each from Israel, Kazakhstan, The Netherlands, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and 96 from United States of America (USA), as well as two Nano satellites from India and the Cartosat-2 series. The foreign satellites in the list are 88 Dove satellites from PLanet Labs, USA, 8 Lemur-2 nanosatellites from Spire Global, BGUSat from Israel, Al-Farabi-1 from Kazakhstan, PEASS from The Netherlands, DIDO -2 from Switzerland, and Nayif-1  from  UAE. The total weight of all the satellites carried onboard PSLV-C37 is about 1378 kg.  PSLV-C37 will be launched from the First Launch Pad (FLP) of Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota on Wednesday, February 15, 2017 at 9.28 Hrs IST. It will be the sixteenth flight of PSLV in 'XL' configuration (with the use of solid strap-on motors). 

The deployment of 88 Dove satellites by the PSLV-C37 mission is on track to be the single biggest constellation launch in history.  The major challenge that would be faced by scientists for the proposed mission is to hold the rocket in the same orbit till all the satellites are ejected. Dr. K. Sivan, Director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram, said the every satellite will be separated in different angle and at different time from the launch vehicle in order to prevent collision between satellites.The satellite separated from the launch vehicle will have a relative velocity of one metre per second. So after 1,000 seconds the distance between a satellite and the rocket will be 1,000 metres. “The satellite that gets launched first will move at a relatively faster velocity than the next satellite that is launched. Due to different relative velocities, the distance between the satellites will increase continuously but the orbit will be the same,” he said.

PSLV- C37, will use the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) to determine the orbit of each satellite injected from the launch vehicle at a height of more than 500 km from the earth’s surface. “By turning to IRNSS, we are shedding our dependence on the Global Positioning System (GPS) that was being used for orbit determination in previous missions,” said Dr. K. Sivan.

Earlier ISRO was about to launch 83 satellites in one go which included 80 foreign satellites and three Indian satellites in January. However, the Indian space agency has made addition of 20 more foriegn satellites and have postponed the launch for a month.

ISRO has gained reputation in International space market after the success of iconic Mangalyaan mission and successful GSLV launch which enabled Indian space agency to lift up heavier payload. After that foreign space agencies are seeking help of ISRO for their satellite launches. Space agencies like NASA are also willing to collaborate with ISRO for future space missions.Till date, ISRO has launched over 50 foreign satellites. By lifting up 101 foreign satellites in one go, Indian space agency will improve its own record for lifting the maximum number of foreign satellites. In addition, Indian space agency will hit the century of foreign satellite launches. When asked about record making ISRO chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar has revealed that the Indian space agency is not focusing on making the world record rather scientists are working on expanding the launching capacity of launch vehicles.

Antrix is the commercial wing of Isro, an organisation that promotes and commercially markets Isro products and services. The 101 international customer nano-satellites are being launched as part of the commercial arrangements between Antrix Corporation Limited. Antrix is wholly owned by the Government of India. 

ISRO has some stiff competition ahead, but for now, it is in good position for commercial satellite launches. I think its time for ISRO to focus on reviving human spaceflight venture and other technology developments. India is  also planning to go to Venus for the first time and re-visit the Red Planet very soon. 

The launch will be a major feat in country’s space history, a record no space agency across the globe has achieved. Following are some of  the records that will be created if this mega launch is a huge success:

• ISRO will be the world record holder of launching the most number of satellites in one go.
• Indian space agency will hit the century of foreign satellite launches.
• PSLV-C37 will use IRNSS, India’s own navigation system, therby shedding our dependence on GPS
• ISRO is breaking its own record with this launch. Last year the space agency had launched record 20 satellites in one go.
• The deployment of 88 satellites from a single rocket is the largest single fleet launch in history.

Wishing ISRO all the best for creating history….We can also be a witness to the history by switching on our TV or by you tube. Doordarshan will telecast the launch operations live, with a pre-launch program starting from 8:50AM. Isro will also be streaming the launch live on its site. Finally, a live web stream of the launch will also be available on the DoordarshanYouTube channel.

New State Of Matter Is Here...

How many states of matter do you know about? It’s not just solids, liquids, gases, and maybe plasmas that we have to think about when we talk about the states of matter. Beyond these there's an entire catalog of matter alternatives: Bose–Einstein condensate, degenerate matter, supersolids/superfluids, quark-gluon plasma, etc. The difference is that all those alternatives are lab-created and don't have much place out in the real world of nature. Researchers at Japan's Tohoku University came up with an entirely new state of matter with an unusual combination of properties—insulator, superconductor, metal, magnet. The team, led by Kosmas Prassides, says they've created what's called a Jahn-Teller metal by doping rubidium, a strange alkali metal element, into buckyballs, a pure carbon structure which has a spherical shape from a series of interlocking polygons.
Superconducting lattices of fullerides – C₆₀ plus three alkali-metal atoms – have been studied for more than two decades, and provide an interesting test bed. This is because the distance between fulleride molecules – and hence the electronic properties of the material – can be adjusted by applying pressure to the material or doping it with different kinds of atoms.

The new state was found by changing the distance between neighbouring buckyballs by doping the material with rubidium. While they were tweaking the pressure between the buckyballs, the team came across a phase shift that transformed the material from an insulator into a conductor, a process called the Jahn-Teller Effect that was first predicted in 1937. Appropriately, the team is calling this novel material a Jahn-Teller metal. Jahn-Teller effect is a process used in chemistry to describe how at low pressures, the geometric arrangement of molecules and ions in an electronic state can become distorted.
The team's discovery is the first time anyone has ever witnessed the Jahn Teller effect - the change from an insulator to a conductor - in action. The researchers hope that discovery of a new state of matter in a material that appears to be an insulator, superconductor metal and magnet all rolled into one, could lead to the development of more effective high-temperature superconductors. This new state of matter allows scientists to transform an insulator, which can’t conduct electricity, into a conductor by simply applying pressure.
By applying or removing pressure, it's possible to boost the conductivity of what may have been an insulator at lower pressures. High pressure: conductivity. This is what the rubidium atoms do: apply pressure. Usually when we think about adding pressure, we think in terms of squeezing something, forcing its molecules closer together by brute force. But it's possible to do the same thing chemically, tweaking the distances between molecules by adding or subtracting some sort of barrier between them—sneaking in some extra atoms, perhaps.
What happens in a Jahn–Teller metal is that as pressure is applied, and as what was previously an insulator becomes a metal, the effect persists for a while. The molecules hang on to their old shapes. So, there is an overlap of sorts, where the material still looks an awful lot like an insulator, but the electrons also manage to hop around as freely as if the material were a conductor. This is important because this transition from insulator to metal is also a transition from insulator to potential superconductor. The resulting metal just needs low enough temperatures and all of a sudden its electrons start pairing up and skipping around, with the result being a sudden drop to exactly zero electrical resistance. This is obviously a very desirable property. I.e. Jehn-Teller metals involve some other electron pairing mechanism, that might mean the possibility of superconductivity occurring at not-so-cold temperatures.
Superconductors are a large and diverse group of materials that offer zero resistance to electrical currents when cooled below a critical temperature (T_C). Due to lack of resistance there is no loss of energy either in form of heat or sound or any other form. In normal cases when metals are used to transmit electricity there is electrical resistance in the form of heat which results in loss of energy. On the other hand if a material is superconductor of electricity then electrons pair up and start moving throughout the superconducting materials without any resistance and hence no loss of energy. However, scientists have seen that superconductivity can be achieved only at relatively higher temperatures i.e. very cold temperature.

In the fig. the alkali metal rubidium (pictured as blue spheres, above) occupy the vacant holes in between the polygons, changing the distance between neighboring buckyballs. This resulted in the highest achievable temperature for the onset of superconductivity: around 35 K or -238.15 degrees Celsius. That’s still very cold, yes, but it’s an improvement.
What makes this discovery so significant is that from here, there’s one more step required to turn the material into a superconductor, a material with zero resistance, which revolutionise how we use and produce electricity. If the complete potential of superconductors is realized, we may solve many major problems related to energy in the world.