ISRO Preparing to Launch Cost-Effective Chandrayaan-2 Lunar Lander in April to Moon South Pole Region
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MONDAY Ongoing…
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Indian Space Research Organization is aiming to launch its 8-billion rupee (US$123M) Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, lander, rover mission in early April, or in November if delayed. Dr. K. Sivan, ISRO chairman since January, says this is less expensive than the $165M Hollywood movie “Interstellar”. Taking over a month to reach the Moon after launch, Chandrayaan-2 lander and its 20-kg rover will operate on the lunar surface for 1 lunar day, or 14 Earth days. To maximize the operation time, ISRO will land the spacecraft right after the local dawn, resulting in ideal launch opportunity coming only once a month. With the Earth shadow casting on or near the Moon (lunar eclipse) around Jan / Feb and Jul / Aug this year, and again around Jan 2019, the best times to launch are early Apr and early Nov to avoid the shadow. Chandrayaan-2, weighing 3290 kg, will launch on heavy-payload lifter Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark II from Sriharikota space port off India east coast. India would become the 4th country to soft-land spacecraft on the Moon, after USA, Russia, and China. ISRO is aiming to land on a high plateau between 2 craters, at ~70° south. The team is currently conducting landing simulations at Liquid Propulsion System Centre at Mahendra Giri in Tamil Nadu, soft-landing a prototype vehicle from 70-80 meter height. (Pictured: ISRO Chairman K. Sivan, former ISRO Chair U. R. Rao; Image Credit: ISRO, LRO) 
Feb 26 — 
Feb 26 — NewSpace: 
Feb 26 — USA: Findings from National Space Council last meeting expected to be announced, member names of
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Weekly Planet Watch – Evening Planets: Venus (WSW), Uranus (SW); Morning Planets: Mars (ESE), Jupiter (ESE), Saturn (SE).
39th IEEE Aerospace Conference Highlights Aerospace Systems, Tech, Science, Policies, Education
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Continued from…
TUESDAY
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Feb 27 — Silicon Valley Space Center, AIAA San Francisco Section, Santa Clara CA: Tech Talk: Numerical Simulation for NewSpace and Beyond; at Hacker Dojo.
Feb 27-28 — ESA, Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia, Madrid, Spain: Workshop: From Mars Express to Exomars.
Feb 27 – Mar 1 — Canaveral Council of Technical Societies, NASA Kennedy Space Center, Space Florida, Economic Development Commission of Florida Space Coast, Cape Canaveral FL: 45th Space Congress: The Journey: Future Exploration for Universal Opportunities; featuring Astronauts Robert “Bob” Cabana, Bob Crippen, Ellen Ochoa, Nicole Stott, Winston Scott.
Feb 27 – Mar 1 — NASA, Lunar and Planetary Institute, Universities Space Research Association (USRA), Denver CO: Deep Space Gateway Science Workshop; to actively engage the scientific community in early stages of determining ways Deep Space Gateway concept could be used to facilitate science.
Feb 27 — Moon: Moon at perigee (distance 363,938 km), 04:36; 2.0° S of Beehive Cluster, 07:00.
Feb 27 — Apollo Asteroid 2014 EY24: Near-Earth Flyby (0.038 AU).
WEDNESDAY
Feb 28 — Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA, Greenbelt MD: Colloquium: Origin of the Moon; Robin Canup of Southwest Research Institute, 15:30.
Feb 28 — Foothill College, SETI, Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Ames Research Center, NASA, Los Altos Hills CA: Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series: When Mars Was Like Earth: Five Years of Exploration with NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover; Ashwin Vasavada of JPL, 19:00.
Feb 28 – Mar 1 — British Interplanetary Society, London, United Kingdom: Symposium: Mars in the Age of New Space Launchers; two-day symposium to explore emerging possibilities for human Mars exploration and settlement, as NASA SLS rocket approaches its first flight and as competing plans from private industry take shape.
Feb 28 – Mar 4 — MEXT, METI, JAXA, Space Generation Advisory Council, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan: Second International Space Exploration Forum (ISEF2) ministerial-level meeting to build support for global cooperation in space exploration, and meetings Y-ISEF for young professionals. I-ISEF for industries and “Strategies for the Moon Base & Space Natural Resources” side event.
Feb 28 — Moon: 0.91° NNE of Regulus, 20:00.
Feb 28 — Apollo Asteroid 2015 BF511: Near-Earth Flyby (0.030 AU).
THURSDAY
NET Mar — KARI, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, South Korea: Korea Aerospace Research Institute original date planned to have completed indigenous second-stage rocket.
Mar 1 — Deep Space: Deep Space Network spends 5-7 hours per day listening for Voyagers 1 and 2 signals being sent to Earth every day; in interstellar space and heliosheath, Voyagers collect data on surrounding environment magnetic fields and charged particles.
Mar 1 — United Launch Alliance, Launch Atlas 5 / GOES-S, Cape Canaveral AFS FL: ULA Atlas 5 rocket, designated AV-077, to launch GOES-S, the second next-generation geostationary weather satellite for NASA and NOAA.
Mar 1-2 — Center for the History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics, National Science Foundation, College Park MD: Conference: To Boldly Preserve – Archiving for the Next Half-Century of Space Flight; featuring Leonard David, John Goodman, Marilyn Graskowiak, Holly McIntyre-DeWitt, Patricia Williams, Sharad Shah.
Mar 1 — Moon: Full Worm Moon, 14:51.
FRIDAY
Mar 2-12 — Sexten Center for Astrophysics, Sexten, Italy: Conference: Galaxy Interactions and Mergers Across Cosmic Time.
SATURDAY
Mar 3 — International Lunar Observatory Association, Space Age Publishing Company, Skyworld Indonesia, Singapore Space and Technology Association, Yogyakarta, Indonesia: Galaxy Forum Indonesia 2018: Yogyakarta; at Gadjah Mada University, expecting more than 250 attendees, free to public.
Mar 3-10 — IEEE, AIAA, PHM Society, Big Sky MT: 2018 IEEE Aerospace Conference; at Yellowstone Conference Center.
Mar 3 — Mercury: 1.1° NW of Venus, 20:00.
Mar 3 — Apollo Asteroid 2018 CZ2: Near-Earth Flyby (0.080 AU).
SUNDAY
Mar 4 — Moon: 6.9° NNE of Spica, 16:00.
Mar 4 — Neptune: At conjunction with Sun, 04:00.
Mar 4 — Amor Asteroid 2018 AF4: Near-Earth Flyby (0.088 AU).