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operation smiling buddha

        A BRIEF NOTE ON POKHRAN TEST     

                

                   It was on 7^th September 1974,  that happened in a place called Pokhran, a village near Jaisalmer of Rajasthan, which was described as the birth for Indian nuclear weapons. It was the first successful nuclear test by India which was happened on that day and started the real race for nuclear weapons in India.

  

  OPERATION SMILING BUDDHA

                    A team with the best scientists of India including Abdul kalam, Raja ramana, p k Iyengar, headed by Raja Gopala Chidambaram worked hard from 1967. They named it as the `Operation smiling Buddha’ and with the help of Babha atomic energy research centre(BARC) , completed their project by 1974 and without any delay they proceeded with the test that came out as the first successful nuclear test by India.

             

           Though the test was an underground operation which doesn`t release any harmful radiations into the atmosphere and even the statement given by India was that it was tested only for peaceful reasons, the enemy countries reacted in a completely negative way. USA and Canada objected the test while Russia remained silent in support of India. 

    

POKHRAN TEST 2

               Anyway India never stepped back in nuclear advancements though there were many internals political issues that tried to suppress the process but they failed in doing so, as India was ready with their next nuclear stage with 5 successive tests, 3 of hydrogen bombs and 2 of atomic bombs. The day was 11^th may 1998, after 24 years from the first test, the stage was ready for the play. Another milestone for Indian nuclear wing and on 13^th may they completed the remaining tests.

       

           Though USA had set a galaxy of satellites that concentrates on  India for 24 hrs  and a vast number of secret informers , they failed to guess the tests that were going to be taken place in pokhran.

        

             That proved Indian capacity of out breaking any technology that was concentrating on India including the USA`s most powerful satellites and their informers. And this wound not be happened without the support of Indian army which took the responsibility of construction and controlling of pokhran range. 

       

     That placed India in list of countries with their indigenous nuclear force…

different forms of rockets

        Types of rockets

     

         From early invention of rockets to the present rockets there took a lot of changes in its construction, production and application and many different types of rockets took birth in this course.

       

        Generally these rockets are distinguished according to the type of engine they include and the type of engine, depend on their propellant. The early rockets are of liquid propellants, slowly the solid, the hybrid came into existence. Electric and nuclear propellants are the modern ones. Anyhow liquid propellants are most commonly used for the reasons we discuss later.

        

             Before getting into deep, let us know what is a propellant meant by? Ahh  it`s like the fuel for any other vehicles. In the case of liquid and solid propulsion, the propellants are generally chemicals, Ions or charged particles in electric propulsion. Now I guess we can move with the types of propellants.

 Liquid propellants

  

        Propellants in liquid state that consists fuel and oxidizer for combustion. The most commonly used liquid propellants are liquid hydrogen as fuel and liquid oxygen as oxidizer. We select the propellants that on combustion release maximum energy. Ignition is required for some of the propellants which are called Non-Hypergolic and the combination of propellants that doesn`t need any ignition are the HYPERGOLIC ones. The engine contains a fuel tank and an oxidizer tank filled with respective contents. They both are combined in a chamber and then ignited, resulting the combustion and then the gases are ejected out through nozzle with very high exhaust velocities. 

                                               

          To increase the exhaust velocities, the propellants are either pumped out or maintained at very high pressures. The other alternate is to maintain the propellants at very low temperatures to increase their specific densities (such a low temp. where the gases turn to liquid forms which is our sole aim) and then pumped into combustion chamber. The temperatures where these gases turn to liquid form are called the cryogenic temperatures and the engine using this process is called CRYOGENIC engine. We discuss about these cryogenic engines in later steps.

Solid propellants

               As the name states, propellants in solid state are solid propellants. These are generally used for booster rockets. The construction, arrangement and combustion process in it, differs completely with the liquid propellant rockets. Consists a single propellant, made in the form of small blocks called GRAINS and are arranged in highly mannered pattern in a chamber. The ignition starts from one end and slowly spreads to every grain. Higher the surface area, faster the combustion and faster the combustion, larger the thrust. Thus there are many patterns proposed for better results.

              Nitrocellulose, Nitroglycerine and nitramine products are the most common solid propellants. The above chemicals with some additives combine to form the grains. Gas released after the combustion is no2 which is very helpful in increasing the exhaust velocities and the thrust.

Hybrid propellants  

               When fuel and oxidizer are in different phases then it is referred to as hybrid propellant. It generally comprises of liquid oxidizer and solid fuel. In most cases the fuel taken is a polymer. The liquid oxidizer could be liquid O2, liquid HNO3 or liquid N2O4. We avoid using liquid fluorine due to its high reactivity and unstability.

Electric propellants

              In this, the propellants used are either ions or charged particles. Using high voltages and plasma content the rockets are propelled. Inert gases support a lot for this system and among them xenon works better and almost all the electric propulsion systems generally uses xenon as their propellant. Due to its low thrust production, these are not used for rocket launching into the orbit but they are used for satellite propulsion for adjusting their orbits.

Nuclear propellants

   We generally use hydrogen as the propellant due to its low molecular mass. The gas is heated in a nuclear reactor to very high temperatures and then expanded in a nozzle to generate thrust. Alternatively nuclear rocket is used to generate electricity to power electric rockets.

It`s all about the past and the present, who knows what`s going to be in future?

rocket and its parts

        Rocket and it components 

        The list of components goes to the peak stage if we are dealing with the rocket. Though all the parts are almost equally important, there are few considerable parts without which we can`t imagine our rocket itself.

The engine

  

     Like all the other vehicles rocket too has an engine that is responsible for the complete working of the rocket. While all the vehicles that move on earth has the wheeling system for their propulsion, the vehicles like rockets and aeroplanes doesn`t require this system for their actual propulsion. Thus the properties and aims of the engine differs a lot with normal ones. And the principles used in them also plays role in this difference.

 Thrusters

      Then comes, the Thrusters which helps to eject the masses out of the rocket with high velocities resulting a lift off.  Internal combustion, temperature control at high pressures, maintaining the speed of the ejecting masses, Are the different tasks performed by  thrusters.

Boosters  

        Booster itself is a thruster that helps for producing extra thrust required for initial lift of rocket. Generally these are used in the case of heavy rockets or the rockets that requires high initial thrust.

 Nozzle

          Nozzle plays one of the major role in the rocket launch. It really controls the direction, the speed, the initial thrust and many other tasks, which we discuss later. The pay load, which is not the part that helps for the propulsion but it’s the only part which is solely responsible for the design and construction of the rockets.

Enclosure

        Above all, the best enclosure always plays a major role in this. It should be strong enough to defend the sheer forces, to defend the high temperatures and sometimes the lowest. To defend the extreme pressure and to maintain the pressure levels inside the rocket and many more……

Different rockets use different types of boosters, nozzles, engines and different enclosures.

  Without them working successfully, the launch of a rocket is a dream and it remains a dream forever…

principles of rocket propulsion

    Rocket and its working principles

Newton`s law

When I was a child, it was always a big question for me that how these rockets lift off, I was very amazed when I saw them on the screens. I have thought that there would be extraordinary principles involved in them and only few can understand. Yes they are amazing, not only in childhood days but even in the present days and things about rockets always kept me interested towards them but the laws involved in them are really simple and most useful.

   If we look at them, It`s the Newton`s third law of motion, which they use them for rocket lift off.  The law says that

 For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

             Which means that if we apply some force on a body, then that body will apply an equal force on us but in opposite direction. Actually this law was derived from momentum conservation principle. The momentum of the system remains same until an external force is applied on it. If we are ok with this then how we are going to use this principle in lifting a rocket, what`s the big link in newton`s third law and rocket lift off.

                 If we ask a boy to sketch a rocket on a paper, he generally draws a rough outline of rocket and he never forgot to keep something (sort of fire) coming out from lower end of it, though he doesn`t know why that fire is coming out. It is that fire which is solely responsible for the rocket lift off.

                A rocket, when releases a lot of mass in any form meant that, it is applying some force on that mass to come out, and from newton`s law, that mass also applies the same force on the rocket in the opposite direction and if that force can dominate the earth`s gravitational pull, then we are succeeded, our rocket lifts off from the earth.

     I said am amazed, not only in the childhood days but also in the present days with the case of rockets where the force produced by small particles of gases can dominate the force produced by the gravitational pull of the heavenly body EARTH…

space race 3

Space race 3

They were not satisfied with just the satellite. They want something more, something unbeatable. And in that course Russia was trying at their best levels. Like Russia, USA also was trying hard to create the history.

   After Russia`s launch of its first satellite, within a month they sent a dog named laika on 3^rd November 1957. USA was successful in achieving that satellite feat with its EXPLORER on 31st January 1958.

           Russia again in the front pages, it was successful in sending a living animal into the space and bringing it back safely to the earth. though it was the craziest moment for Russia, it was fearful news for USA as Russia was rewriting all the pages of world`s history on its name. While USA was busy in increasing its chances to lead in space race, Russia was completely ready for that step. Sergei korolov, the Russian scientific head, selected his best person and it was the year 1961 and the date was 12^th april.

        

         There was a man standing at the entrance of the rocket. Yuri Gagarin, his name. The last words he left out before stepping into the rocket were…

         

        “I will be back”

       

        Countdown starts

        Ignition…

        Boost…

        The first man into the space

And the Space Race never turn back

space race II

Space race -2

Those days were only meant for wars. Countries used their scientific knowledge to develop their military powers and in the same days there were scientists who want to travel in space. Sergei Korolov a Russian top scientist and sir warner van brown, a German scientist settled in USA, belong to the same group who always dream about space exploration. They know that vehicles used in mass destruction can also be used for the space travel but the govt. wasn`t aware of this fact andwasn`t even  willing to know about it.

           In that critical situation, both the scientists tried very much separately to make the govt. accept for the space exploration and they did succeed in a very short period of time.   Now all that they have to do is to design such a rocket which can pierce the earth`s atmosphere and reach the target SPACE and also to design a satellite.

Space war

          

    It was not a war with weapons and not for the mass destruction, but it`s for the pride, it`s for the superiority in space exploration and it`s for the title ` the first country to put a satellite in space’. Russia, in its first test has failed due to over weight of the satellite. Within a short span of time they were ready to launch satellite with low weight.

        The day was October 4^th, 1957, whole of Russia were waiting to see a wonder and that date, I swear, it would be written with golden words in the history of the world. It was a day on which a Rocket erupting the hot gases has pierced each and every layer of earth`s atmosphere and has set the first ever satellite into the earth`s orbit. 

   It was SPUTNIK, what they named it…

space war -1

Cold war between Russia and USA (part-1)

  

Birth of modern rockets

               It was the period of world war 2, Hitler wants to show his power to the world , want to take control over the world and this thought forced the most brilliant scientists of Germany to design the world`s first missile .Sir Warner Van Brown designed the most powerful rocket and Hitler named it as vengeance (v-2). In a time span of just one year Germany used about 2000 v-2s in the war. But as soon as the Germany defeated badly in the war, the production of v-2s was been shutdown.    

               After the 2^nd world war, the only major countries left, was USA and USSR. Time passed for a decade without any things happened that can be mentioned in the world`s history, as both the major countries are silent and off course busy in developing their own financial status. But that silence resulted in a cold war between them and that war was meant to develop the most powerful missiles ever used. Both USA and USSR used the technology of v-2 rocket for developing their own missiles.

      After the humiliation of Germany, Van Brown moved on to USA to make his ideas come true. Sergei Korolov, a Russian top rocket scientist took the responsibility of developing a rocket that can hit any place in the world, which was the desire of Russian higher authorities. But this research made him think of space travel using these powerful rockets. Sergei Korolov from Russia and van brown from USA succeeded in producing the rockets that can clear off the earth`s atmosphere.

    And  the space race starts………..