ISRO begins flight integration activity for next lunar mission

Agencies
October 25, 2017

Hyderabad, Oct 25: The ISRO has started flight integration activity for its next lunar mission Chandrayaan-2 and scientists are currently carrying out tests for the lander and the rover that will explore the moon.

Officials said the spacecraft launch, on board GSLV-Mk II, is planned for March and many new technologies have been developed indigenously to achieve the mission requirements.

Chandrayaan-2, India's second mission to the Moon, is an advanced version of the previous Chandrayaan-1 mission nine years ago. This spacecraft is a composite model consisting of orbiter, lander and rover.

According to the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency, unlike Chandrayaan-1, wherein an impact probe crash-landed on the surface of the moon, Chandrayaan-2 will soft-land its lander with the rover on the lunar surface to conduct the next level of scientific studies.

"Things are going on. The orbiter is getting ready. Flight integration activity is going on, and a series of tests are planned for lander and rover. They are all in progress and we are working towards the first quarter (of 2018) launch of Chandrayaan-2," ISRO Chairman A S Kiran Kumar told PTI.

Officials said rover flight systems test include "soil mixing exercise" and mobility test to evaluate the rover's wheel-soil interaction.

According to them, the lander configuration has been finalised to meet soft and safe landing at the identified site, as also payload configuration and interfaces with the lander.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had also established a lunar terrain test facility for conducting lander leg drop tests.

"It is a totally Indian mission; no other collaboration," Kiran Kumar said.

"It (Chandrayaan-2) differs from the previous one (Chandrayaan-1) in the sense that in the last one, we had moon impact probe that descended on the moon in an uncontrolled manner, whereas this (Chandrayaan-2) will carry a lander, which will descend on the surface of the moon in a controlled manner," he said.

After the lander lands on the moon, the rover will come out and it will do some in-situ observations and we will be able to get these observations through radio contact, Kiran Kumar said.

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News Network
May 21,2020

London, May 21: Working mothers in Europe and the United States are taking on most of the extra housework and childcare created by lockdown - and many are struggling to cope, a survey showed on Thursday.

Women with children now spend an average 65 hours a week on the unpaid chores - nearly a third more than fathers - according to the Boston Consulting Group, which questioned parents in five countries.

"Women have been doing too much household work for too long, and this crisis is pushing them to a point that's simply unsustainable," Rachel Thomas, of U.S.-based women's rights group LeanIn.Org, said in response to the data.

"We need a major culture shift in our homes and in our companies ... We should use this moment to build a better way to work and live – one that's fair for everybody."

Researchers say fallout from the pandemic weighs on women in a host of ways, be it in rising domestic violence or in lower wages, as some women cut paid work to take on the new duties.

With lockdowns shutting schools and keeping citizens at home, creating a mountain of domestic work, public campaigns from Georgia to Mexico have urged men to do their fair share.

But women, who on average already do more at home than men, are now shouldering most of the new coronavirus burden, too, said the survey of more than 3,000 working parents in the United States, Britain, Italy, Germany and France.

Women's unpaid hours at home have nearly doubled to 65 hours a week, said the survey, against 50 logged by an average father.

British women are more likely to support others in the COVID-19 pandemic and are finding it harder to stay positive, according to separate analysis released this week by polling firm Ipsos MORI and feminist organisation The Fawcett Society.

It is "no surprise" to see women do more childcare and housekeeping on top of their day jobs, Jacqui Hunt of women's rights group Equality Now, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

However, there are "hopeful signs" that men in West Africa are sharing more childcare during the pandemic in a shift in social norms, found a small rapid analysis by humanitarian organisation CARE International released on Wednesday.

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News Network
May 8,2020

Aurangabad, May 8: At least 15 migrant workers, who were sleeping on the railway tracks while going back to their native places, were run over by a goods train between Maharashtra's Jalna and Aurangabad, officials said on Friday.

A senior railway official confirmed that 15 migrant labourers were run over by a goods train between Jalna and Aurangabad of Nanded Divison of South Central Railway.

The official said that the incident happened around 5.30 am on Friday when the migrant workers, who were on way back to their homes and sleeping on the railway tracks.

However, it is yet not clear from where this group hailed and where they were going.

Amid the nationwide lockdown, thousands of migrant workers stranded in several other cities have started their journey to return to their native places on foot.

The interstate bus service, passenger, mail and express train services have been suspended since March 24.

The railways has started running Shramik Special trains to transport the stranded migrants to their native places since May 1.

Till Thursday railways has run 201 Shramik Special trains.

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News Network
April 11,2020

New Delhi, Apr 11: With 40 deaths and 1,035 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, India on Saturday witnessed a sharpest ever increase in coronavirus cases, taking the tally of the infected people in the country to 7,447, as per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Saturday.

According to the official data, among 7447 COVID-19 positive cases, 6,565 are active cases and 643 are cured, discharged and migrated and 239 patients who have succumbed to the virus.

Maharashtra has reported the highest number of cases in the country which stands at 1,574, including 188 cured and discharged and 110 deaths, followed by Tamil Nadu with 911 corona positive cases.

On the other hand, the national capital has reported 903 cases, which include 25 recovered cases and 13 deaths.

While 553 have detected positive for the infection in Rajasthan, Telangana has 473 corona cases and Chhattisgarh and Chandigarh have reported 18 cases each.

Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, that borders the national capital, has 431 and 177 cases, respectively.
Kerala, which reported India's first coronavirus case, has 364 confirmed cases.

The newly carved union territories -- Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir--- have 15 and 207 cases, respectively.

The least number of COVID-19 cases have reported from the northeast region of the country. While Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Tripura have only 1 corona positive case, Assam has 29 people infected with the virus, which is the highest in the region.

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