India has again successfully launched a 5000 km range Agni-5 missile from a mobile launcher. Agni-5 can carry a payload of upto 1.3 ton nuclear warhead and can strike it target 5000 km in just 20 minutes. Agni-5 is a three stage missile and this time it was launched from a canister mounted on a truck at Wheeler Island off Odisha coast. Agni-5 weigh 50 tonnes and cost 10 million $ or 50 crores rupees. The canister launch will give Indian army a great flexibility and strength. It is 17 metres long and 2 m wide. The very accuracy Ring Laser Gyro based Inertial Navigation System (INS) and the most modern and accurate Micro Navigation System (MNS) has ensured the missile reach the target point within few metres of accuracy.
Opportunity, the intrepid NASA rover that spent 15 years on Mars climbing in and out of craters to gather evidence of the planet's watery past, has been brought down by tiny particles of dust. After weeks of trying to revive the veteran Mars rover in the wake of a blinding dust storm, NASA has given up on ever hearing from it again. It's a humble ending for a machine that survived a 300-million-mile journey through space, executed a hole-in-one landing, and set a record by driving more than 28 extraterrestrial miles. Opportunity's last transmission to Earth occurred on June 10 amid an epic Martian dust storm. Still, NASA engineers remained hopeful that when the dust settled, the rover would recharge its solar-powered batteries and resume its superlative mission. Opportunity landed on Mars in January 2004 for a mission that was supposed to last 90 Martian days. Its twin rover, Spirit, had landed three weeks earlier on the other side of the planet. "Wit
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