Stratolaunch
Category: Sc & tech
- The world’s largest aeroplane — with two fuselages and six Boeing 747 engines — made its first test flight in California.
- The mega jet, called Stratolaunch, carried out its maiden voyage over the Mojave desert.
- It is designed to carry into space, and drop, a rocket that would in turn ignite to deploy satellites.
- It is supposed to provide a more flexible way to deploy satellites than vertical takeoff rockets because this way all that is needed is a long runway for takeoff.
- The aircraft is so big that its wing span is longer than a football field, or about 1.5 times that of an Airbus A380.
Monsoon
Category: Geography
- Monsoon rain in India is likely to be “normal” this year.
- Monsoon rainfall this year is forecast to be 96% of the Long Period Average (or 89 cm, which is a 50-year average of India’s monsoon rains).
- Strictly speaking, a 96% forecast is, in the IMD lexicon, “near normal.” This is just shy of ‘below normal’ (90%-96% of LPA) rain.
- The IMD’s optimism stems from global climate models projecting a weakening El Nino.
- The El Nino, a cyclic warming of the Central and Eastern Pacific region, has historically been linked to a weakening of monsoon rain.
- A temperature rise greater than 1 degree Celsius for three months at a trot is considered a “strong” El Nino (and threatening to the monsoon).
- A 0.5 degree Celsius-1 degree Celsius rise is called “weak El Nino conditions.
- Currently, the El Nino is 0.9 degree Celsius.
Nirbhay
Category: Defence & security
- India successfully test-fired its first indigenously designed and developed long-range sub-sonic cruise missile ‘Nirbhay’.
- The missile can be deployed from multiple platforms.
- The missile is capable of loitering and cruising at 0.7 Mach at altitude as low as 100 metres.
GSLV
Category: Sc & tech
- The Union Cabinet approved five more GSLV satellite launch vehicles for the period 2021-24 under the next phase 4 of the ongoing GSLV continuation programme.
- The Indian Space Research Organisation uses the GSLV, the second of its three launchers, to put 2,000-kg class of communication and other satellites to a GEO (or geosynchronous) orbit about 36,000 km away.
- The GSLV Continuation Programme – Phase 4 will meet the launch requirement of satellites for providing critical satellite navigation services, data relay communication for supporting the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme and the next interplanetary mission to Mars.
Notre-Dame
Category: International
- Fire devastates Paris’ iconic Notre-Dame cathedral.
- The cathedral is consecrated to the Virgin Mary and considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture.
- Its innovative use of the rib vault and flying buttress, its enormous and colourful rose windows, and the naturalism and abundance of its sculptural decoration set it apart from the earlier Romanesque style.
- The cathedral was begun in 1160 under Bishop Maurice de Sully and was largely complete by 1260.
