InSight lander places its first instrument (SEIS) on?

On 16th December 2018,India launched the Indian Data Relay Satellite System (IDRSS) to improve data relay and communication links with its remote sensing earth observation satellites. The two-satellite IDRSS will maintain continuous communication link with India's remote sensing earth observation satellites. The first one is expected to be launched in 2019. The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III (GSLV Mk III) would carry three Indian astronauts to the space in 2022.

A Pune-based IT firm is developing software for the world's largest ground-based telescope, the Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT), which is likely to come up on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The telescope is being constructed jointly by India, US, China, Japan and Canada and is likely to become operational in the mid-2020s. India is building the telescope's complex optical structure, called the Segment Support Assembly (SSA), which will comprise 492 hexagonal mirror segments, collectively forming the primary mirror. An eight-member team at the IT firm, ThoughtWorks, is designing three different software - Common Software Services (CSS), Data Management Services(DMS) and Executive Software (ES) - to deal with the control systems to manoeuvre the telescope and manage the big data that will be generated once it becomes operational.

Helium hydride ion (HeH+), the first molecule that formed almost 14 billion years ago, was detected by NASA's flying observatory SOFIA towards a planetary nebula. It is the first type of molecule (first molecular bond) that formed in the universe after the Big Bang. At that time, ionised hydrogen and neutral helium atoms reacted to form HeH+. Once the universe cooled down, hydrogen atoms started to interact with helium hydride, creating molecular hydrogen, which set the stage for star formation. From that point on, stars created the other elements of the cosmos.

ISRO Planning to Launch 32 Space Missions in 2019. The missions include the second lunar mission Chandrayaan-2 (Rs.800-crore mission) to land on the moon with lander and rover. India's maiden human space mission in 2021-22, Gaganyaan, will also be pursued this year. Among the ISRO's achievements in 2018 were launch of the heaviest satellite GSAT-29 (3,423 kg) on November 14 and building the heaviest communication satellite GSAT-11 (5,854 kg), launched on December 5 onboard the Arianespace space agency's rocket from French Guiana on the north Atlantic coast of South America.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (Space X) launched its 17th commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) by using Falcon 9 rocket with Dragon Spacecraft. The 213-foot-tall rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. This mission is a part of NASA's Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program, which uses commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to the ISS.

National space agency ISRO and French space agency CNES signed an agreement to set up a joint maritime surveillance system in the country in May. K.Sivan, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, and Jean-Yves Le Gall, President of CNES of France, signed the agreement in Bengaluru. The two nations will explore putting up a constellation of low-Earth orbiting satellites that will identify and track the movement of ships globally, and in particular, those moving in the Indian Ocean region where France has its Reunion Islands. The CNES-ISRO agreement intends to supply an operational system for detecting, identifying and tracking ships in the Indian Ocean. It provides for a maritime surveillance centre to be set up in India in May this year; sharing of capacity to process existing satellite data and joint development of associated algorithms. The two agencies have put up two climate and ocean weather monitoring satellites Megha-Tropiques (of 2011) and SARAL-AltiKa (2013) that are considered a model.

US researchers have used HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) to develop a gene therapy that cured 8 infants who were treated at St. Jude and at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, San Francisco of a rare combined immunodeficiency disease termed as "bubble boy" disorder. Results of the research were developed at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee hospital and were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Japanese unmanned spacecraft, Hayabusa2 reached Asteriod Ryugu on June,2018. Since then, the spacecraft landed multiple robotic probes on its rocky terrain of the Asteroid Ryugu.The spacecraft had surveyed 69,000 locations covering almost 90 percent of Asteroid Ryugu by using a near-infrared spectrometer capable of detecting hydrated minerals.According to its study published in U.S. Journal Science,the spacecraft probed and found the small amounts of minerals containing water on the surface of the asteroid.A part of the water might be from asteroids and comets.

NASA's the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered an Earth-sized planet, HD 21749b and a "sub-Neptune" world, revolving around the star, HD 21749. The star lies 53 light-years from Earth. The research study has been published on 15th April, 2019 in 'The Astrophysical Journal Letters'. TESS was launched to Earth orbit in April 2018 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. One tool termed as 'Planet Finder Spectrograph' (PFS) on the 'Magellan II telescope' in Chile helped to confirm the planetary nature of the TESS signal and measure the mass of HD 21749b. HD 21749b is about 23 times heavier and 2.7 times wider than Earth. It is gaseous, has a substantial atmosphere but not as puffy as Uranus and Neptune. HD 21749b has an orbital period of 36 Earth days.

For the first time ever, a team of Indian astronomers has discovered some sources in the universe that emit radio waves in a totally new mechanism, by using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) which is located at Khodad in Junnar, 80 kms away from Pune. The team is headed by TIFR-National Centre for Radio Astronomy (NCRA) who is responsible for operating GMRT. They have discovered a rare source called 'Extremely Inverted Spectrum Extragalactic Radio Sources'. GMRT is highly sensitive and has a low range feature. Emissions were captured at frequencies around 150 MHz (megahertz).