The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) kept its ambitious Mars Orbiter Mission on sound footing when its ground controllers successfully corrected the spacecraft’s trajectory on Wednesday (11th June). This complex trajectory correction manoeuvre (TCM), as it is called, puts the spacecraft on the right celestial path to reach Mars on the scheduled day of September 24.  

We hear people often chiding , "its no rocket science" implying that rocket science is the most advanced of the technologies.The advancement in space research is no doubt the reflection of the advancement of science and technology of the country. Escaping out from the earth's gravity well, placing satellites in to the orbits of moon and other planets is no simple thing.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) since its inception in 1970s always kept pace with advancements in the space field. Chandrayaan-I and recent Mission to Mars are the most astounding examples of its capability. But its the success of indigenous cryogenic engine that was alluring ISRO for more than a decade.

After failure of the first attempt in August 2010, the Indigenous Cryogenic Upper Stage was successfully flight-tested onboard GSLV-D5 launch vehicle on January 05, 2014 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota. In this successful flight of GSLV-D5, a communication satellite - GSAT-14 - was launched very precisely to its intended Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit.

I am one of those lazy flok who dream of doing many things in and out of life, but finally settle with doing almost nothing great. In this rush of life, we are always busy not knowing what we are doing and what we are up to.

Except those great few, many of us wander on some dimensions of the earth and vanish into thin air just like any other ordinary being. Are we on this planet to eat, drink, sleep, study , earn and spend money, marry, have children, make family and ultimately die-- with a photo of our smiling face hanging somewhere in the corner of the house?

I always (which I feel most of us) have these questions playing on my mind - what is this soul? Is soul real? Does god really exists? If god really exists why he is not responding to pains of the mankind? Can we see the god? Is there life after death? What happens after death? Is astrology real or just a blind faith? How this creation started? Does the cycle of birth and death real? Is all this what we are seeing is maya/illusion? Are we all just puppets in the game of god? And above all these doubts - the most important one - What is the purpose of my stay on this planet?

Whenever I gaze the empty sky or gaze inside my mind - the above puzzles prop up. But ofcourse in this materialistic world I hardly had time to explore answers and with time the questions also got burried. And Thanks to KINDLE, I chanced upon this wonderful book "The Autobiography of a Yogi" penned by Paramahans Yogananda. As I read through the pages of this book ( I guess I have taken some two months to read it) - it fell upon me what treasure of wisdom we had lost of our great ancient yogis.....

A joyful moment for all those who were waiting for years (rather more than a decade since the first prototype flown  in 2001)  puzzling "When will LCA Tejas take to the Air Force..." . The much awaited IOC-II finally succumbs and LCA tejas finally gets in to Indian Air Force.

On 20th december,2013 the Defence Minister Shri AK Antony  handed over the Release to Service Certificate of the country’s own Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), Tejas, to the Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne, at a function in Bengaluru, marking the fruition of a long and difficult journey of three decades of efforts to make a fighter aircraft of international standards

 Mars Orbiter Mission is India's first interplanetary mission to planet Mars with an orbiter craft designed to orbit Mars in an elliptical orbit. The Mission is primarily technological mission considering the critical mission operations and stringent requirements on propulsion and other bus systems of spacecraft.

It all started when the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) probe lifted-off from the First Launch Pad at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh near Chennai, using a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket C25 at 09:08 UTC (2:38 PM IST) on 5 November 2013. Itt was launched into an elliptical parking orbit with a perigee (nearest point to Earth) of 248 km and an apogee (farthest point to Earth) of 23,550 km by India's workhorse launch vehicle PSLV on November 5, 2013. Following this, the apogee height of the spacecraft's orbit was successively raised through a series of seven altitude-raising orbital manoeuvres (instead of earlier six planned) to nearly 1,93,000 km before trans-Mars injection on 30 November 2013 (UTC).

Having woken up to the progress made by countries like China in developing indigenous engines for military aircraft late, the Union government has directed the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to fast-track the ‘Kaveri’ engine project conceived as the power plant for the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA). Much of the criticism for LCA Tejas can be contributed to Kaveri engine. The indigenous engine development somesaulted many target dates, that it was finally jettisoned from the LCAs project officially in september,2008 and is generally written off as a 25-year, Rs. 2,100-crore drain on resources. But now it looks set to resume where it left off two years ago and complete the last lap of its development. GTRE (Gas Turbine Research Establishment , a lab under the DRDO in Bangalore is the developer of the kaveri engine) is now running two separate successor engine programmes, the K9+ programme and the K10 programme.

'Tejas' is the smallest , light weight, single engine tactical, supersonic, multirole, combat aircraft, best in its class in the world and is being developed by ADA, DRDO and HAL in single-seat fighter and twin seat trainer variants for the Indian Air Force and Indian Navy. This programe which was initiated in the 1980s crops up in news now and then where critics questioning the delay/capabilities and admirers lauding its strengths/technologies come up in equal voice. I am one of those eagerly waiting citizen of India to see the Tejas flying high bringing laurels to the nation. As I keep searching the web to know what is happening with the Tejas - I am just presenting the information I came across