Page 21 - Space

Russia launches Luna-25 mission to Moon, its first lunar lander in 47 years

The Luna-25 spacecraft will separate from the booster about an hour after the launch. The flight to the moon will take up to 5.5 days

ISRO transfers satellite bus tech to Alpha Design to boost private sector

ISRO on Saturday said it has transferred the IMS-1 Satellite Bus Technology to Alpha Design Technologies Pvt. Ltd in a step towards enhancing private industry participation in the country's space sector. NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), the commercial arm of ISRO, facilitated the technology transfer through an agreement signed during an event held at the NSIL headquarters on August 2, the space agency said on its website. The technology transfer documents were formally handed over by D Radhakrishnan, Chairman and Managing Director of NSIL to Col. H S Shankar (Retd.), Chairman and Managing Director of ADTL. ADTL is one of the two private players identified to receive the transfer of this technology through Interest Exploratory Note (IEN) published by NSIL, it said. This transfer marks the beginning of satellite bus technologies developed by ISRO being transferred to private industries. Further, the PSLV is under productionisation by a consortium of industries. ISRO has been enabling

NASA restores contact with Voyager 2 spacecraft after weeks of silence

NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft was back chatting it up Friday after flight controllers corrected a mistake that had led to weeks of silence. Hurtling ever deeper into interstellar space billions of miles away, Voyager 2 stopped communicating two weeks ago. Controllers sent the wrong command to the 46-year-old spacecraft and tilted its antenna away from Earth. On Wednesday, NASA's Deep Space Network sent a new command in hopes of repointing the antenna, using the highest powered transmitter at the huge radio dish antenna in Australia. Voyager 2's antenna needed to be shifted a mere 2 per cent. It took more than 18 hours for the command to reach Voyager 2 -- more than 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometres) away -- and another 18 hours to hear back. The long shot paid off. On Friday, the spacecraft started returning data again, according to officials at California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Voyager 2 has been hurtling through space since its launch in 1977 to explore the outer solar

Hubble Telescope captures planet's atmosphere being blasted away by star

NASA's now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite discovered the system during observations in 2020

Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft leaves earth's orbit, heads towards moon: Isro

The ISRO on Tuesday said Chandrayaan-3 has completed its orbits around the earth and is now heading towards the Moon. "A successful perigee-firing performed at ISTRAC (ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network). ISRO has injected the spacecraft into the translunar orbit," it said. The key manoeuvre was carried out early on Tuesday to slingshot the spacecraft towards the moon. "Chandrayaan-3 completes its orbits around the Earth and heads towards the moon," the national space agency said, adding, "Next stop: the moon." "As it arrives at the moon, the Lunar-Orbit Insertion is planned for August 5, 2023," ISRO said. An ISRO official told PTI that following the trans-lunar injection, the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft escaped from orbiting the Earth and is now following a path that would take it to the vicinity of the moon. The ISRO had said it would attempt softlanding on the lunar surface on August 23. The spacecraft's orbit was progressively increased five times after the Chandraya

SpaceX rocket lifts off with world's largest commercial satellite

Space Exploration Technologies Corp.'s three-fuselage Falcon Heavy ferried the massive payload into orbit at 11:04 p.m. local time from the company's launchpad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center

British-made spacecraft 'Aeolus' expected to fall back on Earth today

Although Aeolus completed its mission successfully, it lacked the capabilities required for a controlled re-entry into Earth's atmosphere

India to launch 7 Singapore satellites from Isro's spaceport on July 30

India would launch PSLV-C56 carrying DS-SAR satellite from Singapore, along with six co-passengers, from the first launchpad of the ISRO's Sriharikota spaceport at 6.30 am on July 30. The DS-SAR satellite is developed under a partnership between Singapore's Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) (representing the Government of Singapore) and ST Engineering. Once deployed and operational, it will be used to support the satellite imagery requirements of various agencies within the Government of Singapore. ST Engineering will use it for multi-modal and higher responsiveness imagery and geospatial services for their commercial customers. DS-SAR carries a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payload developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). This allows the DS-SAR to provide for all-weather day and night coverage, and capable of imaging at one metre resolution at full polarimetry. The NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), a central public sector undertaking under the Department of Space,

Telecom panel approves licence for setting satellite earth station gateways

The Digital Communications Commission, formerly Telecom Commission, on Thursday approved issuance of separate licence for satellite earth station gateways that connect space communications with land-based networks, an official source said. The Satellite Earth Station Gateway (SESG) permit holders will not provide any service directly to end customers and be levied a non-refundable one-time entry fee of Rs 10 lakh. "DCC has approved Trai recommendation of Satellite Earth Station Gateway," the source said. The SESG licence holder will be allowed to set up several SESGs to cater to the requirement of constellation based satellite service providers but would need to obtain separate permission from the DoT before installing each SESG. The SESG licence shall be valid for a period of 20 years from the effective date of the licence with a provision of renewal for 10 years. At present, the DoT is the licensing authority for telecommunication services, while the Ministry of Information and

Top headlines: Ola advances plan for IPO, Govt's FDI push in space sector

Business Standard brings you the latest headlines at this hour

ISRO's human spaceflight programme gets boost with Chandrayaan-3 success

The historic launch of India's third Moon mission, Chandrayaan-3 on-board LVM3-M4 rocket has given a major fillip to the country's first human spaceflight programme as the same launch vehicle with 'human rated' capability, would be used for the ambitious Gaganyaan mission. The Bengaluru-headquartered Indian Space Research Organisation is busy working on its flagship project, Gaganyaan, which envisages the demonstration of human spaceflight capability by launching a crew of three members to an orbit of 400kms for 3 days and bring them back safely to earth, by landing in sea waters. According to scientists at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, here, the 44.3 metre tall LVM3 rocket which carried the Chandrayaan-3 on July 14, would be the launch vehicle with 'human rated' capability. The heavy lift launcher of ISRO, consists of three stages -- solid stage, liquid stage and cryogenic stage. For the Gaganyaan programme, LVM3 rocket is re-configured to meet the human rating requirements and has

62 of 111 lunar missions in last seven decades were successful: NASA data

Of the 111 lunar missions in the last seven decades, 62 were successful, 41 failed and eight achieved partial success, according to the US space agency NASA's database on Moon missions. India on Friday launched its third mission to the Moon, Chandrayaan-3, with an aim to soft land on the surface of Earth's only natural satellite. A successful landing would make India the fourth country to achieve the rare feat after the United States, China and the erstwhile USSR. According to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the technically challenging soft landing on the lunar surface, which Chandrayaan-2 could not achieve, has been planned for 5.47 pm on August 23. Former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair said the success rate of lunar missions is nearly 50 per cent because of the uncertainties when the rockets leave Earth's gravitational field. "The influence of other planets, from the Sun, is quite a bit. A lot of radiation conditions exist in space and this leaves some equipment or

Chandrayaan-3 LIVE: India has taken lead in space tech, says Jitender Singh

'Fat boy' LVM3-M4 rocket will carry Chandrayaan-3 on Friday as part of the country's ambitious moon mission

India to make second Moon landing attempt today as space race heats up

The Chandrayaan-3 is scheduled to blast off at 2:35 p.m. local time Friday from India's main spaceport on Sriharikota, an island off the southern state of Andhra Pradesh

NASA CHAPEA 1 mission: Locked volunteers inside Mars simulator for 378 days

NASA began its ambitious mission by locking four volunteers inside a Mars simulator, CHAPEA 1 for 378 days. It is one of the three simulators that volunteers will have to experience in the future

Isro eyes 29 primary, 16 auxiliary facilities for solid motor advancement

A group of vital facilities essential for the enhancement of solid motor realisation was inaugurated at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC-SHAR) at the spaceport of Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh by Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation and Secretary in the Department of Space, Somanath S, on Wednesday. SDSC-SHAR is responsible for the development of solid motors/segments for ISRO's launch vehicles including PSLV, GSLV, LVM3, and SSLV. "It aims at establishing 29 primary and 16 auxiliary facilities to bolster solid propellant processing capabilities striving to achieve 2X improvement in its capacity", the Bengaluru-headquartered national space agency said in a statement. Commencing the first phase of this initiative, today's inauguration unveiled five key facilities dedicated to solid propellant mixing, casting, machining, as well as the non-destructive testing of cast segments, it was stated. Director of SDSC-SHAR, A Rajarajan, and Directors from other ISRO Centres/Units

India made quantum jump in field of space in last 9 years: Jitendra Singh

India has made a quantum jump in the field of space in the last nine years, and efforts have been made to diversify the applications of space, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Thursday. He said the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has painstakingly made an effort to diversify the applications of space. "Space technology has virtually entered every household in one way or the other," the Minister of State for Space told the fourth edition of the G20 Space Economy Leaders Meeting (SELM), under G20 Presidency of India, here. "...in the last 8-9 years, under Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi, India has actually made a quantum jump (in the field of space)...," Singh said. In the last three years after reforms were introduced in the space sector, India now has more than 140 active and successful startups in this field, the Minister said. Union Minister of State for External Affairs and Education, Rajkumar Ranjan Singh, G20 Sherpa, Amitabh Kant, Secretary in the Department of Space and ...

India's space prog to transform planet's connection to final frontier: NYT

Hailing India's ambitious space programme, The New York Times has said the country, currently home to about 140 registered space-tech start-ups, "stands to transform the planet's connection to the final frontier" and can emerge as a "counterweight" to China. "When it launched its first rocket in 1963, India was a poor country pursuing the world's most cutting-edge technology. That projectile, its nose cone wheeled to the launchpad by a bicycle, put a small payload 124 miles above the Earth. India was barely pretending to keep up with the US and the Soviet Union. In today's space race, India has found much surer footing, the NYT article said. The article titled 'The Surprising Striver in the World's Space Business' notes that India has become home to at least 140 registered space-tech start-ups, comprising a local research field that stands to transform the planet's connection to the final frontier." "The start-ups' growth has been explosive, leaping from five when the pandemic ...

India, France launch Strategic Space Dialogue to strengthen partnership

India and France have launched the Strategic Space Dialogue, seeking to further deepen their nearly-six-decade-old partnership in the sector. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said the inaugural India-France Strategic Space Dialogue was held in Paris on Monday. Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra led the Indian delegation for the talks with French Secretary-General, Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs Anne-Marie Descotes. The nearly-six-decade-old Indo-French space partnership spans collaborations in technologies for satellite launches, research, operational applications, innovation and NewSpace partnerships for deep space exploration. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the French National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) have been partnering in the fields of space medicine, astronaut health monitoring, life support, radiation protection, space debris protection and personal hygiene systems. Earlier this month, CNES President Philippe Baptiste travelled to

Musk, Tata & Mittal on one side, Ambani on other for satellite spectrum

Elon Musk wants his Starlink to beam down wireless internet in India from satellites orbiting the earth, but the licensing regime his group favours has put him at odds with Mukesh Ambani's Reliance. After meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New York last week, Musk on June 21 said he was keen to launch Starlink in India that "can be incredibly helpful" in bringing the internet to remote villages that lack on-ground infrastructure. But Starlink wants India to just assign a license for the service and not insist on auctioning the signal-carrying spectrum or airwaves. This stand finds Musk on the side of Tatas, Sunil Bharti Mittal's firm, and Amazon, who too prefer the same route. But Ambani's Reliance says there must be an auction of spectrum for foreign satellite service providers to offer voice and data services to provide a level playing field to traditional telecom players who offer the same services using airwaves bought in government auctions. "India's space-based ...