Published in IIT kgp
sept-oct 2020
sponsored by SRiC
Breaking a Virus: The story of IIT Kharagpur’s ground-breaking COVID test page:6
S O U R C E : F R E E P I K
Nasa’s Mars Helicopter
SpaceX launches astronauts to ISS
How to design a Supersonic Jet Engine
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page:36
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‘Ingenious’ enough to explore the Red Planet
Dawn of the new space age?
The tale of Jatayu
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Breaking a Virus:
The story of IIT Kharagpur’s ground-breaking COVID test Written by PRANAV KRISHNAN Designed by HAVEEN HRITHIC T L , KEERTI CHARANTIMATH
January 2020
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he beginning of a year that would throw the entire world into a tumult, the likes of which this century had not yet seen. Outside the initial, hushed up outbreak in China, talk of a virus was akin to whispered rumours - nothing like the fevered discussion that came to the fore of the public conscious, a few months later. But in one lab in IIT Kharagpur, on the top floor of the JC Bose Laboratory complex, the lights shone out into the night - andthey were working on tackling viruses. Not by a premonition, however - they were simply doing their job. Prof. Arindam Mondal and his students at the Molecular Virology Laboratory in the School of Bioscience have dedicated their lives to studying the spectre that has haunted our species from the beginning of time. In a primarily engineering-focused institute, where most students haven’t looked at a biology textbook in years, Prof Mondal swims against the tide. His lab focuses on understanding the molecular interactions between viral and host proteins - while progress has been made since the initial discoveries of the 20th century, the sheer number of viruses and the variations they develop, means that we understandthe ‘what’ of these interactions (the effect on the host), not always the ‘how’. In January, the tightly-knit group was focusing their efforts on the influenza A and B viruses - among the most common diseases, that hits nearly every part of the world in yearly outbreaks. Unlike a common cold or fever, ‘the flu’ can lead to complications like pneumonia in atrisk populations. More sinisterly, the incredible contagiousness of this disease means it has caused several of the worst human pandemics - the Spanish Flu of 1918 (17-100 million deaths) and the H1N1 or Swine Flu of 2009, come to mind. But rather than the treatment of this disease, the team was working on something more fundamental. A crucial part of the medical process, which often goes overlooked-testing.
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The Need for Better Tests
While treatable, the influenza virus is highly contagious, meaning early detection is crucial to preventing spread. Tests that are quick, simple and low-cost, are called Point-of-care testing (PoC). The reason why PoC tests are crucial in a country like India becomes apparent in a visit to its rural towns and villages. In the country that spearheaded generic drugs, making them cheap and accessible throughout the country, medicines were never the issue — diagnosis is.
The School of Biosciences in the JC Bose Complex, IIT Kharagpur
Rapid Covid-19 test : Medical staff conducting the Rapid Covid-19 test Source: EPS
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Most PHCs (Primary Healthcare Centres) lack more than basic tools to test for diseases. For higher quality diagnostics, one must necessarily travel to a semiurban or urban area, leading to a large delay in effective treatment. Immediate high quality diagnosis in villages would be a complete game-changer, not only in rural India, but in several developing countries that lack a coherent healthcare infrastructure to protect their populations. A quick look at the current scenario of testing. The quickest and cheapest tests currently available are called Rapid Influenza Diagnostic Tests (RIDTs). These are antigen tests, that detect the molecules in a virus that are capable of stimulating an immune response. However, their accuracy leaves a lot to be desired, as they are not sensitive enough and their reliability depends largely on the conditions under which they are used. The gold standard remains the vaunted RTPCR test. A mouthful of an abbreviation (Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain reaction), tests for the genetic material of the virus. This means infection can be predicted with almost complete accuracy, as the root of what the virus is , is identified, rather than the antigens it has or the antibodies produced as a response. Caveats :- this is a technique that requires sophisticated infrastructure and highly controlled laboratory conditions. A world away from the PoC test that is sorely needed. And so Prof Mondal’s team at the Molecular Virology Lab worked on innovating a biological protocol that could simplify the RT-PCR functioning, retaining the accuracy the test granted, but making it more accessible and cheaper. A friendly time traveller, or just someone with hindsight, could have pointed out the following spoiler alert: Influenza is a RNA virus, that causes respiratory dysfunction — just like a certain SARS CoV-2.
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March 2020 Suman Chakraborty is probably one of the most interesting individuals on the IIT Kharagpur campus. Joining the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 2002, he’s been renowned since for his research work in the field of Microfluidics. But his zealous devotion to Interdisciplinary and Industry-Academia collaborations have made his inv olvements stand out evident in his most recent administrative positions at the institute. Head of SMST, IIT KGP and Dean of SRIC. Well before the explosion of innovation in the field of biomedical engineering brought by cheaper and more sophisticated electronics, the School of Medical Science and Technology (SMST) was set up in 2001. Bringing together doctors and engineers to collaborate on improving aspects of healthcare, perhaps the most significant disruption to the field was the work on low-cost medical diagnostic devices. Enter Prof. Chakraborty - he realised that the deep understanding of fluids that his lab had, could have direct applications in molecular biology and biochemistry, where fluids ARE what is being studied. What followed at SMST was a remarkable slew of patents for innovative diagnostic devices - measurement of Haemoglobin and Glucose levels using just a single drop of blood, and augmented by technology. The sophisticated image processing techniques engineering had been using in industry for years, had trickled down to even basic smartphones, allowing for unprecedentedly low infrastructure costs.
microfluidic technology (Time Traveller note: ‘this is a surprise tool that will help us later’) to promise a wildly futuristic concept of detecting multiple diseases simultaneously in a single paper cartridge, with only one drop of blood, urine or saliva. While these innovations with a lot of potential application were great, Prof Chakraborty’s frequent consultations with industry giants like General Motors, Shell and ITC made it abundantly clear that research that is not optimised into a marketable product, often does not have the same impact . Enter Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy (SRIC), IIT Kharagpur, a body that works on several collaborative research projects and consultations with industries and renowned research institutes. As Dean, Prof. Chakraborty has worked to accelerate collaborations and establish a strong industry link up with the institute. We were talking about March 2020? That was when Professor Mondal was invited to the Mechanical Engineering Department for a meeting. On how to adapt his team’s prized biological protocol into a simplified and accessible device to tackle the world’s current biggest threat the Covid-19 Pandemic.
The crown jewel of these efforts, the ‘MedColorimeter’, developed in collaboration with Professor Sudip Nag of the E& ECE Department, became the birth child of a start-up called Focus R&D helmed by Prof Chakraborty and incubated in the Science and Technology Entrepreneurs’ Park, IIT Kharagpur. The device used paper based Model of a low-cost and innovative Med-Colorimeter
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The Test The two teams worked in conjunction to adapt the biological protocol to detect the novel Coronavirus in particular, as well as build a portable, cheap and robust device that could make this a game-changing Rapid Covid Test. Their effort was supported financially by the establishment of a fund by IIT Kharagpur Director, Prof. VK Tewari, to support Covid-related Research and Product development.
Trial run : Prof Mondal and Prof Chakraborty at a trial-run with the team
Prof Mondal explains:
“The first two steps of the RT-PCR process are fairly simple: 1. collect a swab sample from the patient and immerse this in a medium that we can transport it in; 2. we extract the genetic material of the virus (RNA) using an RNA extraction kit. The 3rd step is what the expensive RT-PCR machine does, and what we wanted to replace.”
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Part 1: Bio Replacing the 3rd step is what they did. Prof Chakraborty’s inerdisciplinary team of engineers from the Mechanical Engg. department and SMST broke down the functioning of the machine into 2 overarching functions: 1. A complex thermal cycler that converts the RNA to DNA (reverse transcription), and then multiplies the miniscule amount to obtain a larger quantity (amplification) 2. A highly sophisticated optical system that detects and identifies the DNA sequence, after a colorimetry technique The thermal cycler is an unnecessarily expensive component that was the first to be stripped out by the team. A cycler isn’t needed if you don’t have a cycle of repeating higher and lower temperatures. A much simpler process involving constant preprogrammed temperatures was innovated, thanks to the Virology team coming up with a complementary process that allowed reverse-transcription and amplification to occur simultaneously.The second process is arguably the most crucial. The biological protocol ends when a set of primers act as ‘labels’ for the unique DNA sequence corresponding to the SARS CoV-2 virus, in a reaction that produces a visible colour. The optical system measures the intensity of the colour, to declare the all-important verdict: Covid Positive, or Covid Negative. Ambiguity still remains at this stage. Understanding Science is to understand the very real chance of a false-positive, or equally a false-negative, thanks to factors like cross-reactivity or varying laboratory conditions - hugely important factors when considering the ground reality that this test is going to be conducted in rushed and high pressure circumstances, in medical camps all over the country. Here’s where the team’s engineering smarts came up with solutions bound to bring a smile to your face.
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Part 2: Mecha • Fragile glass slides were replaced by a paper cartridge, loaded with the probe for the virus - far more robust, sensitive and specific to the virus in question. • Out with the optical with the smartphone.
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What was the process: 1. It starts with using a normal everyday smartphone to be placed in the device, taking a picture of the paper strip 2. The picture is sent to a custom built app, that uses sophisticated image analysis to eliminate human interpretation 3. the image is checked pixel by pixel, checking to see whether a critical colour threshold indicative of a positive result, is crossed
(interestingly, this method allows a quantitative measurement too! i.e. the extent of colour can reveal the viral load in the patient, something far beyond the capabilities of any normal PoC machine) The real genius of this interdisciplinary effort is the amount of expertise required to make a ‘complex’ test, ‘simpler’. That unassuming looking paper strip works using technology from a field at the forefront of mechanical engineering Microfluidics pioneered at IIT-KGP by the establishment of the very first Microfluidics and Microscale Processes Laboratory in India. The key challenge for his team, Prof Chakraborty tells me, was adapting this technique for the movement of fluids at sub-micro scales to the messy world of biology.
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Negative reaction
Positive reaction Test line
Control line Test result: Final test result observed on paper strip
Microfluidics lab, IIT Kgp
“Biological reactions like the conjugation of antibody and antigen, are extremely sensitive. The fluid sample flows through the microscopic channels in the pores of paper, and then the reaction with the probe gives you the colour that allows you to make a rapid diagnosis”. SC then gives me a list of technical jargon - ‘residence time, flow rate, pore density’ all pointing out how vital it is to optimise these competing factors at a small scale, robustly. Their device did just that - using, guess what? The expertise derived from the Med-Colorimeter. (Time Traveller note: Our actions may lead to bigger results than we could imagine at the time - keep dreaming!)
Start the app
Start new test
In fact, it was one of the key members behind the development of the MedColorimeter, Mr. Sujay Biswas, who had a crucial involvement. A Research Scholar at SMST with a background in Mechanical Engineering, he was the link between the Biological and Microfluidics teams. All too often the students and researchers behind the scenes don’t get much credit beyond a cursory mention and the professional satisfaction of having contributed to a project of immense social value. Not this time - this story involves the hard work of 3 research scholars at IIT Kharagpur, during the height of the uncertainty gripping pandemic-hit India. We spoke with them: To be continued in Parts 3 and 4:
Select image
Mobile App: Screenshots from the Purpose-developed app
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How to design a Supersonic Jet Engine: The tale of Jatayu
A team of aerospace sophomores from IIT Kharagpur have designed an engine to power an aircraft capable of crossing the Atlantic ocean in under 2 hours! Their design won them the eighth place in the 2020 AIAA Engine Design Competition, organised in collaboration with Georgia Institute of Technology. Edited by MARTIN JOSE Designed by NIDAMANURI CHANIKYA GUPTA
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ver since the advent of transatlantic flight in the 1940s, aerospace engineers have continually endeavoured to vcover the 5000 kilometers in as little time as possible. While modern commercial airliners need over seven and a half hours to traverse this distance, an aircraft that can travel faster than the speed of sound can do so in about two! It however, takes a lot of creative engineering to design something that travels at such a high speed. Team Aero Sapiens have tackled this challenge and designed Jatayu- a jet engine to power such a beast. The first and most famous aircraft to ferry passengers across the Atlantic at supersonic speeds was the Concorde, an aircraft developed in unison by Britain and France. It made its debut flight in 1976. Despite being admired as a marvel of engineering, it was put out of service in 2003 following quite a few accidents, high costs of operation and its generation of large amounts of noise. While designing the engine to propel something that had to accomplish the same feat, the team had to keep these issues in mind. The team also had to optimise it to use less than 96000 pounds of fuel and ensure that it was durable and easy to manufacture. A jet engine works by compressing air that enters it, injecting fuel into the compressed air and then igniting it. The air under pressure, along with the extra gases produced by the combustion of the fuel exit the engine from the rear at a very high speed, thus propelling the aircraft forward, due to Newton’s third law. The compression is achieved using an elaborate arrangement of compressor fans, both stationary and rotating ones to ‘pack’ as much air as possible into a combustion chamber.
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The Inlet The air intake is the part of the engine where air enters it. It is situated at the very front of the engine. While the design of the air intake of an aircraft that does not travel faster than sound is relatively simple, the design of a supersonic inlet poses a challenge- the air passing through the inlet must be slowed down to a speed less than that of sound so as to avoid damage to the turbines and to facilitate the combustion process. This may be achieved by two main methodseither by having a ‘spike’ in the center of the inlet, a feature seen in many military aircraft, or by having a ‘ramp’ inlet- one which uses variations in its cross sectional area to create shock waves that slow down the air. Aero Sapiens favoured the latter, owing to it being safer and easier to design.
“Jatayu is not just an assembly of the turbomachines, combustor, or other components. Instead, it is a conglomerate of various ideas explored to make the engine stand out of the pre-existing design concepts. Its design is a compromise between several features to reproduce a highly efficient engine while maintaining its feasibility and viability.” -Team Aero Sapiens
For the competition, the team was provided with the design of a ‘baseline engine’ by the organisers- one that had to be modified and optimised to give the final result. After an extensive literature survey of existing engines and a lot of iteration on Gasturb 13- a simulation software, the team settled on some design choices which led to their design being considerably better than the baseline. A lot of thought and innovation had gone into meticulously designing each subsystem of the engine and integrating them to work in harmony. The sheer ingenuity and cleverness of team Aero Sapiens is reflected in every part of the machine.
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While a ramp inlet is fairly common in aircraft, there is a problem posed by it- a non-alignment of the stream of air with the centerline of the inlet may cause a region where the air travels with lower momentum than desired. The team mitigated this issue by introducing Micro Vortex Generators (MVGs) in the mouth of the inlet. MVGs are tiny projections on the interior of the inlet, which ‘disturb’ the airflow, causing them to swirl in the form of vortices. This swirling of air enables the low momentum and high momentum air to mix effectively, thus increasing the efficiency of the engine.
The Compressor Following its entry into the engine from the inlet, the air flows into the compressor- an elaborate arrangement of blades, some rotating and some stationary, designed to compress the air prior to its ignition in the combustion chamber. This is done so as to
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maximise the pressure with which the air leaves the engine after compression, which would, in turn maximise the thrust produced. The compressor works in many stages, each compressing air to a higher pressure than the last. This ensures that the air is ‘packed tightly’ in the combustion chamber, without there being undue stress on one set of blades. There were many innovations by the team in this area. Aero sapiens succeeded in reducing the number of compressor stages in the compressor from seven in the baseline engine to just four! They did this to achieve a decrease in weight. With an extensive structural analysis of the blades, they selected appropriate materials to lend them strength. Furthermore, because engine noise is an important thing to minimise, especially in supersonic engines, the team intelligently modified the shape of the stators- the stationary fan blades, to produce considerably less noise. There is also a development in the compressor blades that draws inspiration from humpback whales! The compressor blades, just like the flippers of humpback whales, are miniature aircraft wings. Aircraft wings are susceptible to stall- a condition where the flow of fluid ceases to adhere to the wings, thus reducing the ability of the wings to manipulate the airflow. In whales, their flippers stalling will make them work harder to swim. In compressors, stalling causes a decrease of the pressure in the combustion chamber. Humpback whales, through the magic of evolution have acquired tiny structures called ‘tubercles’ on their flippers which, like micro vortex generators, disturb the flow of water, increasing its ability to adhere to the flipper. Jatayu has similar tubercles on its compressor blades, which delays the onset of stall in its compressor by ‘disturbing’ the flow of air over it. By incorporating this, the team made the engine safer
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and expanded its operating range.
The Combustion Chamber The combustion chamber of the jet engine is where all the action happens. Here, an atomised stream of fuel is injected into the compressed air and ignited. It is this part that is predominantly responsible for thrust production. Inside the chamber, a series of scoops are used to guide the air into the combustion zone. The team chose to implement a ‘double annular’ combustion chamber- one which has two inlets into the combustion zone. They accomplished a decrease in the length of the chamber, using this method. With the continuous burning of air under high pressure occurring in the chamber, cooling is an obvious problem that must be overcome. The team accomplishes this using the bypass air of the engine. The bypass air is air that flows between the combustion chamber and the outer skin of the engine. This air is circulated through the combustion chamber to ensure that its temperature does not exceed 1500K.
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The Turbines After leaving the compressor, the hot, fast moving air is made to strike and rotate a series of turbine blades. But why, I hear you ask, do you take away energy from the fast moving air, when that energy can be used to propel the aircraft? The turbine is connected by means of a shaft to the compressor blades. The compressor blades get their energy to rotate from the air that strikes the turbine. With hot, burning air exiting the combustion chamber, the turbines that it strikes have to be kept from suffering structural damage from the high temperatures. The team did so by deciding to use ceramic composites for the blades which can withstand high temperatures. This also eliminated the need for advanced cooling systems of the turbines.
Source : Unsplash
The Exhaust Nozzle The exhaust nozzle is the part of the engine through which the air finally leaves. The team opted to use a convergent- divergent nozzle- one with an unsymmetric hourglass shape. Keep in mind that the hot gases exiting the turbine are travelling at a speed less than that of sound. The nozzle is designed such that when the gases reach the ‘throat’, they travel at the speed of sound or slightly faster than it. The converging section of the nozzle speeds up the flow of air much like how partially closing a garden hose causes the water to emerge from it at a greater speed. The ‘throat’ of the nozzle has the highest pressure of air anywhere in the nozzle. as ensured by the divergent section. This prevents shock waves that form from the gases that go supersonic from travelling back into the engine. This is how the team ensured that the nozzle produces the maximum amount of thrust without compromising the performance of the engine.
Source : Unsplash
Source : Unsplash
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With the efforts of organisations like NASA, companies like Aerion, Boom Supersonic and Boeing and that of bright minds like Aero Sapiens, a future where supersonic flight is not restricted to just military aircraft could be well within reach! There are however, numerous engineering challenges as hurdles- designing a machine that travels faster than the speed of sound is obviously not an easy task! The twenty years that some of the smartest aerospace engineers took to develop the Concorde is testament to this fact. But as seen from history, there is seldom a hurdle that cannot be overcome by clever thinking. It surely will not be long before sleek, yet powerful beasts sporting ramp inlets to show off their supersonic capability, pull over at your local airport to take you to your destinations at unprecedented speeds!
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Source : Unsplash
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Modern Methods of Startup Financing Edited by PRATIM MAJUMDAR Designed by AVANTI HARGUDE
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n this era of humongous growth and fast-paced development, startups and entrepreneurship have become a viable path for college students and youngsters, dreaming about revolutionising the world through their thoughts and actions. In order to materialise a viable idea into a full-fledged organisation, what we need is a persevering team, an adept analysis of the market segment, user traction and of course, funding. As you may have already deduced, procuring appropriate investments in the early stages of a particular startup seems to be a daunting task, and may also define your chances of proceeding into the further stages successfully. Every flourishing startup has to prevail over the “valley of death�, a position wherein the startup generates a negative revenue. That is when angel investors along with family and friends chip in with the seed funding, in order to tide over the valley of death. Till the startups develop into full-blown listed companies, financial injections are required at different stages in order to satiate their high growth appetite and meet their working capital requirements. Since the proliferation of the startup culture since the commencement of the millennium, various venture capitalists and private equity firms have also been conceptualized in order to provide instruments to invest in these high growth but equally high risky ventures.
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In the current situations, startups generally resort to either of three methods: the traditional priced equity round, convertible notes or the newly evolved SAFE notes. Each of the methods are bundled with pros and cons, and entrepreneurs frequently fail to adjudge the intricacies of each, which may lead to faulty valuation or low ownership and control over the firm.
Priced Equity Rounds What defines a startup?
Conventional priced equity rounds are rarely utilised by a startup on the road for securing its first financing, since it involves deciding upon a pre-investment valuation (which cannot be approximated by established financial valuation techniques, since it’s too early to say) while also resolving the post-investment implications regarding the shareholder rights and the boardroom powers of the investors involved. These would not have worried the founders if the investors had settled for common stock, but venture capitalists generally go for preferred stock to maintain a stronghold in exchange for the exposure to the high risk. A below-par valuation cap may send out negative signals to the market regarding the firm, thus making it harder to garner funds in later financing stages, while an overvalued firm may not meet up to its expectations when the series funding rounds step in. Thus, equity rounds are generally adopted at later stages of startup financing when the founders have gained experience and the startup has been concretely valued.
Valley of Death Source: Wikipedia
Convertible Notes Convertible notes have been the most trusted sources, as far as early stage financing is concerned, since it is a quicker and simpler mode of financing with lesser legal hassles involved.
India’s Startup environment Source: Invest India
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Convertible notes are basically (loans), with the investments accruing a periodic interest till the next financing round or when a qualifying transaction underlined in the contract takes place, when the principal plus the interest is proportionately converted to equity. The maturity date mentioned in the contract is triggered only if no financing round occurs before the maturity date, in case of which the principal and the accumulated interest is returned to the investor.
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Convertible notes of course, come with an inherent risk of the startup being liquidated while paying out to the investors if the equity financing round is scheduled past the maturity date. The onus thus lies on the founders to negotiate on favourable terms while adjudging the financial situation.
As simple as it may sound, a few points of negotiation in the contract where the founders must act astutely are the interest rate and the amount of investment (principal). The intention of the investors and the founders may seem misaligned in this case, since in the later stages of financing, the founders may push for higher valuation (for obvious reasons, of course) while the investors are interested in lower valuations, since that results in higher number of shares for them and hence greater power over the firm. All Regulation Crowdfunding Offerings (as of December 31st, 2019) By Security Type (USA) Source: Securities and Exchange Commission (USA)
In order to tackle this imminent contradiction, the convertible notes offer the facility of negotiating upon a valuation cap or a discount rate. A valuation cap limits the share price offered to the early stage investors in the later equity financing round. For instance, if $1 Million is invested with a negotiated market cap of $10 million, and in the Series-A round (the first round of equity financing post-breakeven) the startup garners $20 Million with a pre-money valuation of $50 Million and a price of $10 per share, the share price for the convertible note holders would be $2 per share. The convertible note holders may also be offered a discount rate (generally between 10% and 30%) on the share price in the equity financing rounds. Most of the convertible note contracts have provisions to include both discount rates and valuation caps to cover the early stage risk taken up by the investors.
Simple Agreement of Future Equity (SAFE) SAFEs (or iSAFEs in the Indian concept developed by 100X.VC) have been recently developed to improve upon the shortcomings of the convertible notes and make the rounds of funding more friendly from the perspective of the founder. The concept of the SAFE notes was introduced by Y Combinator in 2013, before 500Startups, another startup accelerator based in Silicon Valley introduced KISS (Keep It Simple Security) with a similar idea and plan of action. iSAFE was
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a phenomenal milestone in the Indian startup ecosystem by saving the trouble of going through a legal quagmire for novice founders. A 6-page agreement and the deal is done! The most attractive part of the iSAFE deal is that no interest is charged on the investment, so it’s more like a warrant to convert to stocks at a later financing stage. The exit clause is a bit different from convertible notes’ in the sense that the investment is proportionately converted into equity at the first financing round after the investment (irrespective of the deal value). The iSAFE contract also encompasses the provision of discount rate and valuation cap, and that’s where most founders may falter due to lack of experience. Most founders regard the valuation cap as the present valuation of the firm, which is definitely not the case since the value of the company cannot be calculated at such an early stage. Valuation cap relies more on prowess in negotiation rather than on mathematics, and thus the ball is in the founders’ court. The major fallacy which the founders fail to notice while incessantly signing iSAFE deals is the real dilution percentage once the iSAFE is triggered and the investment materialises into shares, since most of the founders do not maintain a dynamic cap table. It thus becomes really important to track each and every iSAFE deal in a systematic manner before being too entrenched in iSAFE deals.
iSAFE deals protect investors from liquidation and merger/acquisition events in case of which the iSAFE holders have equivalent rights as preferential stockholders. iSAFE holders are also sometimes offered a MFN (Most Favoured Nation) Clause and a Pro-Rata Rights clause. The MFN clause protects investors in case of a down round (where the company is valued lower than the valuation cap mentioned in the contract), while the Pro Rata Rights clause allows investors to buy additional common stock during the equity round, in proportion to the number of shares issued to the investor in the financing round during the conversion of the SAFE.
Delving into mathematics In order to discern the real dilution percentage of the founders while issuing SAFE notes, let’s walk through the following problem: Consider a startup GrowNation whose founder Rohit Mehta raised the first $1 Million in preseed financing on SAFEs with a $5 Million post-money valuation cap. GrowNation seems to be a profitable venture, and thus caught the eye of angel investors who are willing to raise $1 Million via SAFE notes with a post-money valuation of $7 Million. Two years down the lane, GrowNation witnesses its Series A round, with TrackVC investing $5 Million on a $20 Million post-money valuation.
Table: Number of shares with each shareholder aftereachround of investments (Dynamic Cap table)
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Let’s for the time being assume that Rohit had 5000 shares of GrowNation before raising any funding. Now, most naïve founders would believe that only 25% of the company has been diluted (since they would only be referring to the Series A round and ignoring the SAFE rounds because the SAFE rounds won’t be reflected in the static cap table which most founders are familiar with). Therefore, let’s contruct a dynamic valuation cap table, taking into account each round of investments. From an intutional analysis, you may have already deduced that at each step, the number of shares of a particular investor is equal to the amount invested by that shareholder divided by the pre-money valuation multiplied by the total number of shares before the investment. So for instance, in the first round, the amount invested is $1 Million, the pre-money valuation is $4 Million (Post-Money Valuation Cap minus the Amount invested) and the existing number of shares (before the investment) is 5000. Thus, total number of shares for the first SAFE investor is 1/4th of 5000 i.e. 1250. Although, it must be noted that the shares of the SAFE investors materialize only when the equity financing rounds occur.
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avenue for venture capitalists to mitigate risk, while also helping founders to raise funding without traversing through a plethora of legalities. But, the usage of iSAFE notes will be fruitful to the founders (and the firm) only if each of their clauses is clearly understood along with underlying implications on the financial scenario of the firm. Each of the deals must be scrutinised before signing, and it entirely depends on the founders as to which method to pick to kickstart their high-growth venture and translate it into a profitable firm.
This approach can assist the founder in deducing that the equity percentage of the founder has been diluted down to 5000/9723 i.e. 51.4%, compared to 75% which he was expecting.
How many tech startups survive till the end? Source: CB Insights
Conclusion iSAFEs (and other innovative financing mechanisms) are bound to grow in the future, since the traditional debt financing methodology of securing loans from banks has been rendered moot after the enactment of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (2016). Various profitable startups such as BigBasket, Ola, BlacBuck and LendingKart have turned to debt financing from venture capitalists, with Trifecta Capital, Stride Ventures, Innoven Capital and Alteria Capital being the major players in the debt financing market. iSAFE thus presents a novel
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Source : Unsplash
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NASA’S Mars Helicopter:
“Ingenious” enough to explore the Red Planet When NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launched on July 30 this year, an innovative experiment will rode along: the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter with some outsize ambitions. This will be the first time in history when an artificial body will be lifted on any other planet. Edited by PIYUSH KUMAR Designed by NIDAMANURI CHANIKYA GUPTA
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ill date, fifteen artificial objects succeeded to touch the surface of Mars and the engineers and scientists at NASA have launched one more rover and a helicopter on July 30 this year. In history, the date July 20, 1976 witnessed the first-ever successful landing of an artificial body sent from Earth to the Martian surface. The mission was composed of two spacecraft Viking 1(lander) and Viking 2(orbiter) whose primary objectives were to obtain high-resolution images of the Martian surface and to understand its geology and habitability potential. After 44 years of further advancements in technology, today the scientists and astronomers at NASA are standing at the edge of creating a new history by lifting an artificial body in the atmosphere of another planet for the first time. The Mars Helicopter is a small, autonomous aircraft which is on its way to the surface on the Red Planet attached to the belly of the Mars 2020 rover named “Perseverance”. The Mars Helicopter had passed the final phase of testing in August 2019 and mechanically connected to the belly of the Mars 2020 rover. It will land on the surface of Mars in February 2021, as predicted by NASA. Destined to become the first aircraft to attempt powered flight on another planet, NASA’s Mars Helicopter officially has received a name: Ingenuity. If the helicopter does take flight as designed, future Mars missions will be revolutionised with the addition of aerial dimension to the planet explorations. “Exploring the Red Planet with Mars Helicopter exemplifies a successful marriage of science and technology innovation and is a unique opportunity to advance Mars exploration for the future,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. But why is lifting a body a difficult task on Mars?
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The Atmosphere on Mars: Researchers believe that long ago, the Martian atmosphere used to be thick that retained enough heat for liquid water to exist. But with time the Mars lost a significant amount of atmosphere leaving behind a deserted and frozen environment today. Compared to the Earth, the air is thinner at the surface of Mars, with pressure about 0.6% of Earth’s sea level and gravity is lower (approx one-third of gravity on Earth). Flying on mars with such atmospheric conditions is equivalent to flying on Earth at 100,000 feet (30,500 meters) altitude -- about seven times higher than a typical terrestrial helicopter can fly. Aerodynamic force is directly related to the air density flowing past the body. ‘Lift’ is created by deflecting a moving fluid (liquid or gas) and depends linearly on the density of the fluid. At places where fluid density is less, flight is nearly impossible.
Ingenuity Flight Dynamics: The key parameter affecting the aerodynamic properties of the Mars Helicopter is the density, which is 1-2% of Earth density at sea level. Clearly, the thin atmosphere reduces the achievable thrust for a given rotor size; beyond that, however, it also affects the flight dynamics of the vehicle in ways that must be well-understood in order to design a control system. Besides gravity, the main forces on a helicopter are due to the rotor interacting with the surrounding atmosphere. The rotor is a dynamical system whose properties largely determine the flight characteristics of the vehicle as a whole. Of particular importance for the helicopter flight dynamics is the dynamics of rotor blade flapping; that is, the out-of-plane motion of the rotor blade that occurs when the blade is subjected to forces. Many helicopters have hinges that allow the
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flap, but even for hingeless helicopters like the Mars Helicopter, blade flapping occurs due to elastic deformation of the blade. The thin Martian atmosphere significantly affects the dynamics of blade flapping by reducing the level of aerodynamic damping. This alters the response of the helicopter rotor to periodic inputs, including cyclic control inputs; in particular, the forces and moments on the helicopter fuselage in response to such inputs tend to be oriented differently when compared to similar inputs on Earth helicopters. Furthermore, the poorly damped flap dynamics gives rise to poorly damped, oscillatory modes in the overall flight dynamics, called the regressing and advancing flap modes. The existence of such modes represents a problem due to the danger of the control system coupling with the modes and potentially destabilizing them. Due to this issue, it was determined early in the design process that the Mars Helicopter would need to be designed with unusually stiff blades, with a rotating flap frequency of about 80–90 Hz. This has the effect of moving the poorly damped modes to frequencies high enough not to interfere with the control system. A drawback of the stiff rotor design is an increased sensitivity to gusts, which also worsens the open-loop unstable behaviour of the helicopter. To overcome the problem of low lift from a thin atmosphere, the engineers at NASA designed a rotor system with two counter-rotating blades placed co-axially. In layman’s terms, one of the blade pulls in the air from outside and concentrates it in the space between the two blades, and the other blade borrows its lift from that concentrated flow of air. The two blades have opposite senses of rotation, because with the same sense of rotation enough concentrated flow cannot be generated between the two blades, thus reducing the lift.
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The Helicopter Idea: Being part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, Bob Balaram (an IIT Madras alumnus) solved the problem by developing a lightweight, autonomous, twin-rotor, solar-powered helicopter. Bob Balaram is the inventor of Ingenuity. He innovated the design and testing environments working as a chief engineer of NASA’s Mars Helicopter Project. MiMi Aung was the head project manager. Bob’s mind ignited with the idea of Mars Helicopter when he was attending a professional conference in Stanford, where a professor spoke about “mesicopter,” a miniature rotorcraft. The idea got affirmative reviews from researchers and scientists. Although the helicopter idea was not selected as an instrument, it was funded for technology development. “In the early days of this project, the feasibility of flying at Mars was questioned,” said MiMi Aung, Mars Helicopter project manager at JPL. “But today we have a helicopter down at the launch site, installed on the rover and waiting to board the rocket which will carry us to the Red Planet.” As a technology demonstration, Ingenuity is a high-risk, high-reward experiment. The helicopter is hitching a ride to Mars attached to the belly of the Perseverance rover. For several months following the rover’s landing, Ingenuity will remain encapsulated in a protective cover to shield it from debris during entry, descent and landing. When the timing in the rover mission is right, Ingenuity will be deployed to stand and operate on its own on the surface of the Red Planet. If the 4-pound (2-kilogram), solar-powered craft — a combination of specially designed components and off-the-shelf parts — survives the cold Martian nights during its pre-flight checkout, the team will proceed with testing.
Source : Unsplash
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Source : Unsplash
After designing, testing and redesigning for four years, in May 2018 Bob and his team came up with an end result as described:
Structure:
The helicopter is built around a central mast a hollow structural tube that runs from the top of the helicopter to the bottom. Within this tube are the wires from the Electronics Core Module (ECM) to the propulsion motor, elements, and the host spacecraft. The mast tube is designed to be stiff so as to minimize control interactions, as well as have low thermal conductivity to minimize thermal leakage into the ECM. Total weight is about 4 pounds on Earth, 1.5 pounds on Mars. This small but an ingenious device is embedded with latest technical instruments. The Helicopter will be attached to the rover through upper launch lock which will provide power and communications prior to deployment. The solar panels, cells and two rotors are attached to the mast which will be the main power system of the copter. The sensor assembly contains all the sensors and measuring instruments like inclinometer, altimeter and cameras. The landing gear mounting plate consists of a plate to which are connected 4 light-weight legs.
Portrait of Perseverance rover and NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter
Tech Specs of Ingenuity: The main challenge in front of Bob was to develop a helicopter with rotor systems powerful enough to lift the whole body in the thin atmosphere of Mars keeping it lightweight at the same time. Started in August 2013 as a technology development project at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Mars Helicopter had to hold new perspectives to the future science, discoveries and exploration missions to Mars. In May of 2016, a full-scale prototype with a rotor diameter of 1.21 m was flown under simulated Mars atmosphere conditions in the JPL 25-foot diameter environment chamber. The helicopter was of a coaxial rotor design with a cyclic and collective on the lower rotor. The test was conducted with the chamber evacuated to vacuum and backfilled with carbon-dioxide gas to a density of 0.0175 kg per metre cubed.
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Power:
Solar panel attached to the body that charges Lithium-ion batteries, providing enough energy for one 90-second flight per Martian day (~350 Watts of average power during flight). The helicopter battery consists of 6 Li-ion cells with a capacity of 2 Ah. The maximum discharge rate is greater than 25 A with the maximum cell voltage of 4.25 V. It also contains a heating mechanism to keep it warm through the cold Martian nights. The Helicopter Power Board has two DC/DC converters that will help in regulating the battery voltage. The solar panel is made from Inverted Metamorphic cells which has 32% greater efficiency. The cells are optimized for the Mars solar spectrum and occupy a rectangular area with 680 sq. cm of the substrate (544 sq. cm active cell area) in a region centered
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and immediately above the coaxial rotors. This region minimally interferes with the flow through the rotor.
Processors:
A three-level fault-tolerant computing architecture is used. The 2.26 GHz Quad-core SnapdragonTM 801 processor with Linux Operating system is used along with a Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter, a Serial Peripheral Interface and General Purpose I/O . This processor implements visual navigation via a velocity estimate derived from features tracked in the camera and filter propagation for use in flight control, data management, command processing, telemetry generation, and radio communication. The avionics consists of 5 printed circuit boards which form the 5 facets of the Electronic Core Module cube, enclosing the 6-cell lithium-ion battery pack.
Engineering Demonstration Model Design of Ingenuity
Telecommunication System:
Wireless communication will take place through radio antennas at the top of entire helicopter assembly to be commanded from the Earth via the Mars 2020 rover and the Mars orbiters. Communication with the rover will take place through a radio link called Zig-Bee, a standard 900Mhz chipset attached both to rover and helicopter. A one-way data transmission mode is used to recover data from the helicopter in real-time during its brief sorties. When landed, a secure two-way mode is used. Due to protocol overhead and channel management, a maximum return throughput in the flight of 200 kbps is expected while two-way throughputs as low as 10 kbps are supported if required by marginal, landed circumstances.
Rotor System:
The design uses two 4 feet (1.2 meters) long counter-rotating rotor systems that spin up to 2,800 revolutions per minute – about 10 times the rate of a helicopter on Earth. It provides a lift as well as the forces required for the directional control of its trajectory. The rotor is
Avionics Boards shown in unfolded configuration together with key interfaces
very stiff with a very high flap frequency and is fabricated from carbon fiber composites powerful enough to lift the whole helicopter assembly up to an altitude of 15 feet. The rotors are actuated with a custom 46 pole brushless motor with solenoid wound teeth using rectangular copper wire. Three DC motors operating through a 4-stage gear-box control the height and tilt of each swashplate.
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Sensors and Cameras:
Equipped with inertial sensors, a laser altimeter and two cameras. Sensors collect data on how fast the helicopter is travelling and in which direction. Cameras help the helicopter see. A 4000 pixels colour camera, and a Video Graphics Array black-and-white camera is mounted on the copter. The inconsistent Mars magnetic field precludes the use of a compass for navigation, so it will use a solar tracker camera integrated to JPL’s visual-inertial navigation system. At the heart of the helicopter, avionics is a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). The FPGA performs vehicle flight control including an attitude control loop operating at 500 Hz, an outer motor control loop, waypoint guidance, sensor I/O from the IMU, altimeter and inclinometer, and analog telemetry for current and temperature sensing.
Landing System:
The landing system consists of 4 legs made of tapered carbon fibre/epoxy tubes. The feet are designed to prevent the leg from digging into soft landing surfaces. The landing system provides for a passive drop onto the ground from a height of 0.3 m with only limited attitude rate control activities during the final contact event with the ground. The landing gear is designed to allow the landing on the surface with slopes up to 10 deg in any direction with the vehicle at an additional roll angle of 30 deg. Vertical velocity at the height where the passive gravity drop is initiated can be as high as 2.5 m/s.
Objectives of Mission: The major purpose of the Mars 2020 mission is the successful landing of “Perseverance” rover on the Martian surface. It will not only continue to explore the past habitability of the planet but also search for the ancient microbial life. It is designed to examine the minerals present in the soiland rocks at the surface of Mars. It will collect the samples of soil and sediments in a tube for potential return to
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Earth by later missions. Even if the Helicopter project encounters difficulties in its operation, the science gathering mission of Perseverance will not be affected. The objective of sending an autonomous helicopter on the surface of Mars is the demonstration of technology, and to serve as a proof of concept for the addition of an aerial dimension to space exploration in future missions. This has a tremendous advantage over land exploration options, as a helicopter can easily access, navigate and map terrain that cannot be accessed by land rovers, and can also act as a scouting agent for future missions. Soon after the rover lands on the planet’s surface, a suitable location will be found to deploy the helicopter down from the vehicle and place it onto the ground. The rover then will be driven away from the helicopter to a safe distance from which it will relay commands. After its batteries are charged and tests are performed, controllers on Earth will command the Mars Helicopter to take its first autonomous flight in history. Its performance during the tests will directly affect the decisions relating to the consideration of helicopters and aircraft for future Mars missions. According to NASA’s Mars Exploration website: “The Mars Helicopter is a technology demonstration to test powered flight on another world for the first time. It is hitching a ride on the Mars 2020 rover. A series of flight tests will be performed over a 30-Martian-day experimental window that will begin sometime in the spring of 2021. For the very first flight, the helicopter will take off a few feet from the ground, hover in the air for about 20 to 30 seconds, and land. That will be a major milestone: the very first powered flight in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars! After that, the team will attempt addition al experimental flights of incrementally farther distance and greater altitude. After the helicopter completes its technology demonstration, the Mars 2020 rover will continue its scientific mission.”
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NASA clearly stated that the Mars Helicopter project is solely a demonstration of technology which is developed for testing and analysing the aerodynamic forces applied by the thin air of the Martian atmosphere. The results of the tests will further give shape to the aerial exploration of Mars and other planetary targets with the atmosphere. Despite the best effort and best testing on Earth, Balaram says quite frankly, “there is a risk that we could fail. But if it succeeds on Mars it will be kind of a Wright Brothers moment on another planet.”
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Mars Helicopter Installed on Mars 2020 Rover
Functional testing of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter and its cruise stage occurred in the airlock inside Kennedy Space Center’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility on March 10, 2020.
The Rotor Assembly of Ingenuity
Illustrative image of Mars Helicopter and Perseverance rover on the Red Planet
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How is our data secured? 175 zettabyte. That’s the amount of data expected to be present in the internet by 2025, but is this data secured? There have been various hacks and attempts to steal this data. Thus, companies adopt various steps to keep our data secured. Edited by AYISHIK DAS Designed by SHALMALI SRIRAM
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n 2011 Sony Pictures suffered an easy SQL Injection attack by LulzSec (a hacktivist group), which released around 1 million user accounts, including passwords, email addresses, home addresses, dates of birth, etc. which broke the privacy policy of their service. In the same year, Citigroup suffered an exploitation of Insecure Direct Object Reference (changing numbers in URLs after entering valid details), which caused the information leakage of their 200,000 credit card users. Even enterprises like Apple and Uber were under data breaches. Does this mean that software companies are secured? Are our data and personal information secured? What are large companies with massive data doing to prevent loss of our personal data? Here are some standard practices that are done by companies.
Keeping track of the data The most crucial step to securing data is to know where the information is being stored. Knowledge of the location of data at all times helps at finding vulnerabilities. Teams figure out solutions to the weak links. Most companies use data discovery tools to track the data to see which computer has access to which data and encrypt or delete vulnerable data.
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Source : Unsplash
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rootkits and bootkits as well as malicious threats. Other cloud service providers (CSPs) have launched cloud security technologies to prevent hostile attacks. While many argue that CSPs’ security measures to their servers far exceed what any modest or even large company is likely to apply to its on-site servers, the feeling that their most sensitive data’s security is out of their hands makes many organizations nervous. Big companies limit types of data stored in the cloud and encrypt sensitive data in addition to the use of tools specialized in data protection in the cloud.
Source : Aureon ‘”Data Encrytion : Why you should protect your business “
Educating employees at all levels Encryption Data records get lost and stolen much time. Encryption is designed to protect data while it moves and stored in network storage. Encryption makes the data unreadable without a secret code or decryption code. From encrypted hard drives, USBs, and phones to data encrypted prior to its transfer to the cloud or onto portable devices, encryption has become a must for all companies looking to secure their sensitive information. Due to pandemic, most of the work is done by ‘work from home.’ Thus, most of the devices used by workers are away from the company’s safety net and prone to theft or loss. This is prevented by the security provided by encryption.
Protecting the cloud Companies are storing more and more data to the cloud, making it an integral part of the digitalization of data. This makes the cloud a very lucrative target for hackers to steal data. Thus, protecting the cloud is very important. Google Cloud has released ‘shielded VMs (virtual machines),’ a set of security controls set up to harden its security against
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Human error is one of the weakest links in the flow of data. Whether through ignorance or negligence, employees and system glitches account for 49% of data breaches according to a survey conducted by the Ponemon Institute. The majority of data breaches are caused by employees accidentally falling victim to hacking, skimming, or phishing attacks. According to the Ponemon Institute, these attacks cost an average of $3.5 million (Rs. 28.4 crores) to companies. Considering these figures, it’s clear that most organizations have room to enhance their employee cyber education. Ponemon Institute also estimates training employers would save companies $204 (Rs. 14,000) per employee in large companies and $3533 (Rs.2.65 lakhs) in small companies. Software like Data Loss Prevention solutions can act as an efficient enforcement method by setting clear policies that protect and restrict access to sensitive data. Employees should stay aware while clicking unknown emails and keep systems up to date.
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Injects malicious scripts Saves Malicious script into a database
Attacker
User request data from server
Vulnerable webpage server Data containing the Malicious script is loaded
Victim Malicious script may get added
“Database attack process” Source : cWatch
Prevent database attacks Data entering an organization can be a dangerous vector use to attempt to gain access to the system. Many of these strategies rely on passing dangerous payloads to poorly designed systems, exploiting flaws to gain control. SQL injection is a classic example, occurring when a hacker intentionally appends SQL code to seemingly harmless data like a customer name in a web application. Flaws in the underlying software can result in arbitrary execution of this code, resulting in data being unintentionally returned to the hacker. These attacks are particularly dangerous because they may not cause an
error or other event that might attract the attention of IT administrators overseeing security. Technology powerhouses like Google, Microsoft, and Apple know how to get security right. They invest in the best technology, processes, and people to ensure that their engineering teams create secure software. Large cyber-security teams are hired to combat data breaches. Response teams are active, and much development in cyber-security is being done, including security solutions with artificial intelligence, machine learning, analytics, and automated incident response orchestration.
The Indian cybersecurity services industry is expected to grow to about $7.6 billion in 2022 from $4.3 billion at present. At a growth rate of about 21 per cent, it is expected to be worth $13.6 billion by 2025, according to a report by the Data Security Council of India. This shows that efforts are being made to secure our data.
Source : FNBC “Data Privacy Day: Protect Yourself Online”
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SOURCES: Unsplash
S O U R C E : P I N T E R E S T
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SpaceX launches astronauts to ISS: Dawn of a new space age?
The first human space flight mission from a private firm opens up new possibilities for the space industry. What exactly did they accomplish and what does this mean for the future of space exploration? Edited by SHAURYA SHRIVASTAVA Designed by SHARVARI SRIRAM
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hat’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” These words, when received in the summer of 1969, marked the beginning of a new era- the era of human spaceflight. While there has been a constant debate on the importance of human spaceflight, it is well acknowledged that the space industry did disappoint in manned spaceflight missions. The last moon landing was way back in 1972 after which the interest in human spaceflight declined steadily. With a few fatal accidents like the Columbia disaster, public pressure mounted too high to allow for future human spaceflight missions. The average taxpayer wasn’t interested in seeing a fellow countryman on the moon or in space anymore, especially when other problems seemed more critical. Until now.
The Falcon-9 launches On May 30, two American astronauts, Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley, lifted off for a journey to space from the familiar Florida launchpad. Only this time, the rockets were not from NASA. Enter SpaceX. Elon Musk’s highly ambitious space start-up had materialised to colonised mars. And while the first few of its rocket launches didn’t go well, sending American astronauts to space would be game-changing for the company. While the crowd cheered and million watched the telecast, the Falcon 9 engines roared to the skies. The launch was a success and a resounding reminder that the USA is still an extremely competent nation in science and tech; a question which many raised given the country’s complete helplessness against the pandemic.
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SOURCES: SpaceX Lift-off: The Falcon-9 launches from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The white smoke in the left side of the image is water vapour released on the launchpad for fire prevention, while the rocket exhaust is guided through a flame deflector system.
The launch was broadcasted live and watched by millions across the globe as the Falcon 9 lifted off Launchpad 39A. A few minutes later, the stage booster separated followed by the separation of the Crew Dragon from the Falcon 9. The spacecrafted then manoeuvred and docked itself to the ISS.
The astronauts also installed a European Drawer Rack Mark 2 (EDR-2) module engineered by the European Space Agency. The EDR-2 is a flexible experimental facility, roughly fridge-sized, and will allow for new experiments to be run in space. The initial experiments planned for the EDR-2 include testing of a metal 3D-printer and investigating particle physics and heat transfer behaviour in microgravity. One of the advantages of working in space, is, of course, that it is a low gravity environment, which makes installation of such modules significantly less demanding physically for the astronauts. Another key part of the mission involved taking images and contributing it to the Crew Earth Observations (CEO). These images are then sent for geological studies, as they offer important insights into cloud formation and how the planet Earth is behaving over time.
Why did the astronauts do aboard the ISS? The astronauts, Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley helped their fellow astronauts with the usual tasks for managing the ISS on their 64-day trip. This involved changing batteries of the space station by executing several space walks among other things. There were already two Russian and an American aboard the ISS when the Crew Dragon arrived. The astronauts also conducted several experiments in space to observe the response of various biological and physical systems in a low-gravity environment. These experiments are planned before the launch and are an essential part of most ISS missions. Some of them include handling fluids in space, and how electrolysis and other processes occur in microgravity.
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SOURCES: NASA
Robert Behnken aboard the ISS: The NASA astronaut performs a experiment to investigate Droplet Formation inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG). The study focuses on evaluating the effect of microgravity on water droplet formation and water flow. In an attempt to conserve water, the flow-rate in showers were reduced. However, this led to longer usage time and little improvement overall. This experiment aims to improve the technology behind these devices to help conserve water and energy.
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How did they return then? One of the most crucial phases of any ISS mission is the return of the astronauts. The Crew Dragon performed a series of precise thrust manoeuvres to lock up in the path planned by the mission control. Once locked, the astronauts are then protected by a heatshield which experiences temperature around 2000 degrees celsius. On August 2, the spacecraft splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, after the parachute was opened. SpaceX had originally planned to use their SuperDraco thrusters to return on land instead of water. However, as development progressed, the engineers switched to focus on parachutes as their landing system for their increased relaibility and ease to incorporate for, in the Crew Dragon.
Why are NASA and SpaceX doing this together?
SOURCES: SpaceX
The Demo-2 mission, as it is officially called by SpaceX, is the first in a series of launches upcoming under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The program is a partnership between NASA and private companies to ‘develop and operate a new generation of spacecraft and launch systems capable of carrying crews to low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station.’ Boeing and SpaceX have been selected under the program which promises to boost the space industry. This will enhance the utilisation of existing facilities while boosting space research. NASA also ends up saving an enormous amount of the American Taxpayer’s money as it shifts from the Soyuz Rocket to the Falcon 9, a welcome move to the American citizens and to NASA. As the Falcon 9 shoot for the skies, it will be a testimonial to SpaceX and its capabilities. In particular, it serves to validate thee
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Falcon 9 launch vehicle, the launch pad 39A and the Crew Dragon spacecraft. This will be the final test before NASA certifies the Crew Dragon for for operational, long-duration missions to the space station. Meanwhile, Boeing’s Starlink has not made it to the ISS due to several software glitches but will try again later in the year, but without astronauts. The Crew Dragon is a bigger updated version of the original Dragon capsule which has been used several times in the past to transport cargo to the ISS. The Crew Dragon however, has a much higher capacity and can accomodate 7 astronauts. NASA later intends to use the spacecraft again to transport four more astronauts to the ISS later this year. The crew dragon is quite different from the space shuttle used before, with touch controls instead of buttons and far more space than the latter.
Why are the ISS missions so important? ISS missions are crucial to future spaceflight travel as they offer deep insights into the challenges involved in long duration space missions. The ISS is used to conduct several experiments in the zero-gravity environment. Lately, there has been a spike in companies attempting to perform experiments from diverse fields, ranging from biology to robotics manufacturing. It is argued that as gravity effects decrease, it might be much easier to manufacture in such environments. From a basic sciences perspective, the ISS can help
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unravel deep mysteries in various fields, as it is the only accesible microgravity lab with true in-space conditions. Experiments can be performed to observe the change in biological functioning of organisms due to microgravity and radiation. Physics research and material sciences are some other disciplines which are affected and this researched upon in microgravity.The ISS also has unique observation capabilites which are particularly helpful in predicting geological happenings and study climate change.
What does this mean for the future of space industry? The launch has also opened up new doors for several start-ups which looked too ambitious a couple of years ago amidst increasing interest in space tourism. A few private firms have already announced their plans to have their own capsule at some time with the ISS but only exclusive to tourists, an idea which seems more plausible than ever before. But while the possibilites are endless, the competition will also rise. SpaceX might have been the biggest name in private space industry, but will now face tough competition, especially with some big names like Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson aiming for the skies as well. On the other hand, Boeing is closing up on the lead and will probably be capable to launch astronauts next year. With increased funding and public interest, it might not be long before space becomes the next most popular tourist attraction!
A Falcon-9 Rocket launch: The crew dragon and many other SpaceX missions have used the Falcon-9 as their rocket of choice. SpaceX plans to replace the Falcon-9 with its ambitious Starship rocket for future launches which will be fully-usuable
SOURCES: Unsplash
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