Beijing, May 15: China on Saturday successfully landed a spacecraft containing a rover on Mars, the state media announced quoting China National Space Administration (CNSA).
The rover — Tianwen-1 — touched down at its pre-selected landing area in the southern part of Utopia Planitia, a vast plain on the northern hemisphere of Mars, at 7:18 a.m. (Beijing Time), the CNSA announced.
China is now the second nation to successfully land a Mars rover after United States’ NASA. Interestingly, apart from China and NASA, the Soviet Union had also landed a probe on Mars, however it ended prematurely as the spacecraft failed only a few minutes after it landed.
It took ground controllers more than an hour to establish the success of the pre-programmed landing. They had to wait for the rover to autonomously unfold its solar panels and antenna to send the signals after landing, and there was a time delay of more than 17 minutes due to the 320-million-km distance between Earth and Mars.
The vehicle used a combination of a protective capsule, a parachute and a rocket platform to make the descent. The successful touchdown is a remarkable achievement, given the difficult nature of the task.
The successful orbit insertion of the Tianwen-1 mission in February made China the sixth entity to do so, following NASA, the Soviet Union, the European Space Agency (ESA), India and the United Arab Emirates.
According to Chinese media, CNSA Head Zhang Kejian said the Mars exploration mission has been a total success.
Tianwen 1, the country’s first independent Mars mission, was launched by a Long March 5 heavy-lift carrier rocket on July 23 from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province, kicking off the nation’s planetary exploration program.
The 5-metric ton probe, which consists of two major parts – the orbiter and the landing capsule- has flown for 215 days and about 475 million km on its journey to Mars. The average flight speed was about 100,000 km per hour.
Tianwen 1 is the world’s 46th Mars exploration mission since October 1960, when the former Soviet Union launched the first Mars-bound spacecraft. Only 18 of those missions were successful.
On behalf of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, the State Council and the Central Military Commission (CMC), Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the CMC, extended warm congratulations and sincere greetings to all members who have participated in the Mars exploration mission, Tianwen-1, in a congratulatory message.
Meanwhile, a senior NASA official also congratulated China. “Congratulations to CNSA’s #Tianwen1 team for the successful landing of China’s first Mars exploration rover, #Zhurong! Together with the global science community, I look forward to the important contributions this mission will make to humanity’s understanding of the Red Planet,” Associate Administrator for the NASA Science Mission Directorate Thomas Zurbuchen said.
Russia’s Roscosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin welcomed the revival of exploration of the solar system planets by the leading space powers. “The successful landing of China’s spacecraft on the surface of Mars is a great success of the PRC’s fundamental space research program,” Rogozin wrote on Telegram.
Roscosmos chief added that the Russian-European mission ExoMars is scheduled for Mars next year and affirmed Russia’s commitment to strengthening international cooperation “for the joint promotion of research into the Universe.”
New Delhi, May 15: As Coronavirus infection is spreading to rural India, the National Jal Jeevan Mission has advised States and Union Territories to monitor water quality and undertake surveillance to ensure potable drinking water to every home and public institutions in all villages across country.
The advisory notably has come amid reports of dead bodies found floating in rivers in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
“In the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, criticality of public health including preventive action, is well understood, making safe drinking water, improved sanitation and better hygiene a pre-requisite for improved public health,” the Jal Shakti Ministry said in a statement.
The Mission also asked every state and UT to have at least one state/UT level laboratory and region-wise laboratories in bigger states and UTs so that all nearby sources are tested regularly.
Similarly, all districts should have a district-level laboratory and setting up of the same to be accorded highest priority, said the statement.
Further, all laboratories are to be opened for public to test their water samples at a nominal rate.
“This will instill confidence in public on the quality of water supplied and the demand for water purification devices will be curtailed,” the statement added.
The JJM scheme aims to ensure assured tap water supply to all rural households by 2024.
Under the scheme announced in 2019, four crore households are said to have been provided with tap water connections.
New Delhi, May 14 : The Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp on Friday told the Delhi High Court that its privacy policy update is not ‘mandatory’ in nature as it does not force any user to accept the same.
WhatsApp also alleged that privacy policies of many Internet-based applications including Big Basket, Koo, Ola, Truecaller, and Zomato as well as the Central Government’s contact tracing app Aarogya Setu have similar policies and that some even collect more data.
The plea filed by WhatsApp contended that any interference with its update would ‘cripple’ the entire industry of internet-based applications and websites.
The new update does not expand WhatsApp’s ability to share data with Facebook, the US-based social media firm argued.
It also reiterated that the privacy and security of personal messages and calls do not change and are protected by end-to-end encryption.
WhatsApp and Facebook cannot read or listen to them, the tech giants said.
The Court will hear the matter on Monday.
On May 5, the bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jasmeet Singh had asked WhatsApp to file their reply while hearing Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Advocate Harsha Gupta seeking some interim orders as WhatsApp intends to bring its policy into effect from May 15.
As per the fresh policy of WhatsApp, users have to agree to its new data-sharing norms, a key point of which is sharing data from business conversations with Facebook.
Earlier, the Centre had informed the Delhi High Court that WhatsApp’s new privacy policy violated the 2011 IT Rules.
Tel Aviv, May 13: At least 1,600 rockets were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the escalation, around 400 of which fell inside the Palestinian enclave, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Jonathan Conricus said on Thursday.
Conricus specified at a briefing that these figures include the overnight shelling.
According to the IDF spokesman, the effectiveness of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system is estimated at around 90 percent.
Six Israeli civilians and one servicemen were killed since the beginning of the escalation, Conricus noted.
Washington, May 12: The global death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic has
crossed 3.308 million, while more than 159.1 million cases of the infection have been detected till now said the US-based Johns Hopkins University(JHU).
JHU is the most credible organization which compiles global data related to the pandemic.
As of 20:30 GMT Tuesday(0100 hrs IST, Wednesday), the number of cases in the world stood at 159,164,818, including 3,308,508 fatalities.
The United States still has the highest case count in the world, with 32,765,633, including 582,635 fatalities.