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Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) lunar lander Mission by Japan OSIRIS-APophis EXplorer (OSIRIS-APEX) Mission Cabinet approves the Migration and Mobility Agreement between India and Italy Dream Chaser by NASA & Sierra Space PATRIOT Air and Missile Defense System

Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) is a lunar lander mission of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The lander will demonstrate precision landing technology. By 2017, the lander was planned to be launched in 2021, but this was delayed until 2023 due to delays in SLIM's rideshare mission, X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM). It was successfully launched on 6 September 2023 at 23:42 UTC (7 September 08:42 Japan Standard Time). If the mission is successful, Japan will become the 5th country to soft land on the surface of the Moon. On 1 October 2023, the lander executed its trans-lunar injection burn. It entered orbit around the Moon on 25 December and is expected to land on January 19, 2024. Wikipedia

After successfully completing its mission to gather a sample of  asteroid Bennu  in September 2023,  OSIRIS-REx  (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Regolith Explorer) was renamed  OSIRIS-APophis EXplorer  (OSIRIS-APEX). The spacecraft was sent to study Apophis during the asteroid's 2029 Earth flyby. About Apophis: Apophis was discovered on June 19, 2004, by astronomers Roy Tucker, David Tholen, and Fabrizio Bernardi at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. They were only able to observe the asteroid for two days because of technical and weather problems. Fortunately, a team at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia spotted the asteroid again later in the same year. Since its discovery, optical and radar telescopes have tracked Apophis as it orbits the Sun and scientists are confident they know its future trajectory. Estimated to be about 1,100 feet (340 meters) across, Apophis quickly gained notor...

  The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has given its ex-post facto approval to the proposal of Ministry of External Affairs to sign and ratify the Migration and Mobility Agreement between the Government of the Republic of India and the Government of the Italian Republic. The Agreement would enhance people-to-people contacts, foster mobility of students, skilled workers, business people and young professionals and strengthen cooperation on issues related to irregular migration between the two sides. The Agreement locks-in the current Italian visa regime including mechanisms for post study opportunities, internships, professional trainings assuring an advantage for India under the existing labour mobility pathways under the Flows Decree. Some of the key provisions are listed below: Indian students wishing to gather initial professional experience, after completing academic/vocational training in Italy may be granted temporary residence in Italy for up t...

NASA and Sierra Space are making progress on the first flight of the company’s Dream Chaser spacecraft to the International Space Station. The uncrewed cargo spaceplane is planned to launch its demonstration mission in 2024 to the orbital complex as part of NASA’s commercial resupply services. Dream Chaser and Shooting Star The Dream Chaser cargo system, manufactured by Sierra Space in Louisville, Colorado, consists of two major elements: the Dream Chaser spacecraft and the Shooting Star cargo module. As a lifting body spacecraft, Dream Chaser is designed to be reused up to 15 times, and is modified from the  HL-20 spacecraft  developed at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The spaceplane’s cargo module companion, Shooting Star, is designed to support delivery and disposal of pressurized and unpressurized cargo to and from the space station. The cargo module can be used only once and is disposed of prior to re-entry. The Dream Chaser system will launch with i...

Relevance:   Russia warns Japan over providing Patriot air defence systems to Ukraine - The indian Express The PATRIOT air and missile defense (AMD) system is an integral component of U.S. air and missile defense. The system and its interceptors are both expensive and limited in supply. On December 21, 2022, the Department of Defense (DOD) announced the United States would provide a PATRIOT battery to Ukraine as part of a larger $1.85 billion security assistance package. The provision of PATRIOT units now, and whether or not the United States may transfer additional PATRIOT units to Ukraine in the future, present issues that Congress will face in both its legislative and oversight roles. What Is the PATRIOT System?  PATRIOT (Figure 1) is an acronym for “Phased Array Tracking Radar to Intercept on Target.”  The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Life Cycle Management Command (AMCOM) notes  "The PATRIOT is the U.S. Army’s most advanced air defense system. Capable of defeat...

Orca: Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (XLUUV) Test Asset System ( XLE0 ) eVinci TRISO Fuel ( TRi-structural ISOtropic particle fuel ) NASA successfully tested a novel Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE) Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora ( CITES )

The U.S. Navy recently accepted delivery of the first Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (XLUUV) Test Asset System, designated XLE0, from the manufacturer Boeing. The XLUUV, also known as Orca, marks a significant milestone in advancing the Navy’s undersea capabilities. The delivery of the Navy’s first-ever Orca XLUUV Test Asset System, XLE0, is the culmination of nearly a decade’s worth of research, design, manufacturing and testing by the Program Executive Office for Unmanned and Small Combatants (PEO USC) and the Unmanned Maritime Systems Program Office (PMS 406). “This has been a very busy year for the XLUUV team and their hard work is culminating in delivery of the Navy’s first-ever unmanned diesel-electric submarine,” said Capt. Scot Searles, program manager of the Unmanned Maritime Systems (PMS 406) program office. “We look forward to continued success with our Boeing teammates in fielding this important capability for the warfighter.” XLE0 began in-water testing in Spring 20...

Westinghouse Electric Company is developing this transportable microreactor (  eVinci )  with support from DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) that will use advanced heat pipe technology and TRISO fuel to help expand access to clean energy to communities across the world.  eVinci’s passive cooling design uses hundreds of heat pipes made of a specialized iron, chromium, and aluminum alloy to draw heat away from the reactor’s fuel. It doesn’t need water for cooling, so it can go places other water-cooled reactors can’t, and eliminates the risk of loss-of-coolant accidents. According to the company, the microreactor will be able to generate up to five megawatts of electricity and operate for eight years or longer without refueling. It will be factory-built and fully assembled before being shipped to its destination. Reference: "3 Microreactor Experiments to Watch Starting in 2026", Office of Nuclear Energy, US Department of Energy Pre...

  TRISO stands for TRi-structural ISOtropic particle fuel. TRISO was invented in the United Kingdom as part of the Dragon reactor project and has been used in many different reactors since. TRISO is currently the fuel form of choice for next generation high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) and very-high-temperature reactors.  The TRISO-coated particle is a spherical, layered composite. The layers that comprise a TRISO particle are the kernel, buffer, inner pyrolytic carbon (IPyC), SiC, and outer pyrolytic carbon (OPyC). Figure depicts an HTGR TRISO particle. The layers within the particle work together as a singular containment system, allowing individual particles to retain fission products under nuclear reactor conditions. TRISO particles are typically ~750-830 µm in diameter (Petti et al. 2004) and vary in size based on kernel type and manufacturing process. There are thousands of these TRISO particles that are combined within a carbon matrix to make an individual fu...

NASA has achieved a new benchmark in developing an innovative propulsion system called the Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE). Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, successfully tested a novel, 3D-printed RDRE for 251 seconds (or longer than four minutes), producing more than 5,800 pounds of thrust. RDRE’s  first hot fire test  was performed at Marshall in the summer of 2022. That test produced more than 4,000 pounds of thrust for nearly a minute. The primary goal of the latest testis to better understand how to scale the combustor to different thrust classes, supporting engine systems of all types and maximizing the variety of missions it could serve, from landers to upper stage engines to supersonic retropropulsion, a deceleration technique that could land larger payloads – or even humans – on the surface of Mars. The RDRE differs from a traditional rocket engine by generating thrust using a supersonic combustion phenomenon known as a...

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna & Flora is an international agreement between    Governments with an aim to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals    and plants does not threaten their survival.    CITES was drafted as a result of a resolution adopted    in 1963    at a meeting of members    of IUCN (The World Conservation Union) and on July 1975, CITES entered in force.     The Government of India signed the Convention in July 1976, which was ratified in October 1976.  Overview of CITES  The CITES Convention CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) is an international agreement between governments and is currently signed by 180 countries. Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. Because the trade in wild ani...

SOUTH ASIAN COUNTRIES MEET AGAIN TO STRENGTHEN EFFORTS TO CURB WILDLIFE TRAFFICKING Human Cell Atlas (HCA) Neutron Stars, Pulsars & Magnetars The Colombo Security Conclave COMMISSIONING OF Y – 12706 (IMPHAL)

A second Training of Trainers (ToT) workshop by TRAFFIC and WWF-India, in collaboration with the South Asia Wildlife Enforcement Network (SAWEN) and Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB), the Government of India,  to strengthen and build the capacity of law enforcement officers from Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and India commenced on 11 December 2023 in New Delhi and culminated in Dehradun, Uttarakhand on 19 December 2023. About  TRAFFIC: TRAFFIC is an organization that was established in 1976 by WWF and IUCN as a wildlife trade monitoring network to undertake data collection, analysis, and provision of recommendations to inform decision making on wildlife trade.  TRAFFIC is governed by the  TRAFFIC Committee , a steering group composed of members of TRAFFIC's partner organizations,  WWF  and  IUCN . A central aim of TRAFFIC's activities is to contribute to the wildlife trade-related priorities of these partners. TRAFFIC also works in close co-...

The Human Cell Atlas ( HCA ) is an international collaborative consortium that charts the cell types in the healthy body, across time from development to adulthood, and eventually to old age. This enormous undertaking, larger even than the Human Genome Project, will transform our understanding of the 37.2 trillion cells in the human body. It is only possible now thanks to global collaboration, technological and computational breakthroughs, and science at great scale. An open global initiative, the HCA was founded in 2016 and has grown to more than 2,900  HCA members , from over 1,500 institutes and 94 countries around the world. Bringing together an international community of biologists, clinicians, technologists, physicists, computational scientists, software engineers, and mathematicians, HCA membership is open to the entire scientific community worldwide –  join us here . The HCA is also keen to engage with the  public . Human Cell Atlas - Home

  Neutron stars are formed when a massive star runs out of fuel and collapses. The very central region of the star – the core – collapses, crushing together every proton and electron into a neutron. If the core of the collapsing star is between about 1 and 3 solar masses, these newly-created neutrons can stop the collapse, leaving behind a neutron star. (Stars with higher masses will continue to collapse into stellar-mass   black holes .) A neutron star is the densest object astronomers can observe directly, crushing half a million times Earth's mass into a sphere about 12 miles across, or similar in size to Manhattan Island, as shown in this illustration. (Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center) This collapse leaves behind the most dense object known – an object with the mass of a sun squished down to the size of a city. These stellar remnants measure about 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) across. One sugar cube of neutron star material would weigh about 1 trillion kilograms (o...

The Colombo Security Conclave was formed in 2011 as a trilateral maritime security grouping of India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. The roadmap of activities was later expanded, with Mauritius joining as the fourth member and Bangladesh & Seychelles participating as observer countries. The Conclave underlines regional cooperation and shared security objectives concerning all littoral nations in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). It aims to make maritime security, marine pollution response and maritime search & rescue priorities for the region. A number of activities have been held under the five pillars of cooperation of the CSC which include Maritime Safety and Security, Countering Terrorism and Radicalization, Combating Trafficking and Transnational Organized Crime, Cyber Security, Protection of Critical Infrastructure and Technology and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief. Recently it agreed on a roadmap to ensure the security and stability of the Indian Ocean region in th...

The Indian Navy is all set to commission its latest Stealth Guided Missile Destroyer  Imphal  at Naval Dockyard, Mumbai on 26 December 2023 in the presence of the Hon’ble Raksha Mantri, Shri Rajnath Singh as the Chief Guest . The event marks the formal induction into the Navy of the third of four ‘ Visakhapatnam’  class destroyers, indigenously designed by the Indian Navy’s in-house organisation, Warship Design Bureau and constructed by Mazagon Dock Limited, Mumbai. Notably ,  Imphal  is the first warship to have been named after a city from the North East, the approval for which was accorded by the President on 16 April 2019 , thus underlining the importance of the region for national security, sovereignty and prosperity. Imphal was delivered to the Indian Navy on 20 October 2023 after completing a rigorous and comprehensive trial programme both in the harbour and at sea. ( https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1969435 ) Subsequently, the ship succe...

Polar Stratospheric Clouds ( PSC ) The Reserve Bank - Integrated Ombudsman Scheme, 2021 Internal Ombudsman mechanism in Regulated Entities RBI introduce CoF token creation facilities directly at the issuer bank level Payments Infrastructure Development Fund – Extension of Scheme and Inclusion of PM Vishwakarma Scheme beneficiaries Megalake Paratethys is the largest lake ever existed on Earth: Guinness Book of World Records

How they are formed?  Air temperatures in both polar regions reach minimum values in the lower stratosphere in the winter season. Average daily minimum values over Antarctica are as low as −90°C in July and August in a typical year. Over the Arctic, average minimum values are near −80°C in late December and January. Polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) are formed in the polar ozone layer when winter minimum temperatures fall below the formation temperature of about −78°C. This occurs on average for 1 to 2 months over the Arctic and 5 to 6 months over Antarctica. What is their role in Ozone depletion? Ozone-depleting substances are present throughout the stratospheric ozone layer because they are transported great distances by atmospheric air motions. The severe depletion of the Antarctic ozone layer known as the “ozone hole” occurs because of the special meteorological and chemical conditions that exist there and nowhere else on the globe. The very low winter temperatures in the Antar...