Page 21 - Space

Moon landing anticipation builds for Chandyayaan-3 after Russia's crash

All systems on the spacecraft are working "perfectly" and no contingencies are anticipated on the landing day, the Isro said on Monday

Race to the moon: Russia out of contest as Chandrayaan 3 sets up lunar date

Russia has bowed out of the race to the moon with India after its robot lander crashed on the lunar surface, setting Chandrayaan-3 on an easier course while ISRO scientists achieved yet another successful maneouver to take the spacecraft closer to the moon in its soft-landing attempt on August 23. ISRO on Sunday said it has successfully reduced the orbit of Chandrayaan-3 mission's Lander Module (LM), and it is now expected to touch down on the surface of the Moon at 6.04 PM on Wednesday. This came even as Russian lander Luna-25 crashed into the moon after going into uncontrolled orbit. "The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the moon," Russian space agency Roscosmos said in a statement. Roscosmos said it lost contact with the spacecraft on Saturday after it ran into trouble while preparing for its pre-landing orbit after reporting an "abnormal situation" that its specialists were analysing. The Luna-25 was

Isro reduces Chandrayaan-3 module orbit, to land at 18:04 hrs on Aug 23

ISRO on Sunday said it has successfully reduced the orbit of Chandrayaan-3 mission's lander module, and it is now expected to touch down on the surface of the Moon at 1804 hours on August 23. The space agency said the lander module would undergo internal checks ahead of the planned soft landing. The lander module (LM), comprising the lander Vikram' and rover Pragyan', is expected to touch down on the lunar surface on Wednesday, August 23 at 18.04 hours, ISRO said. Earlier ISRO had said that the touchdown would take place at at 5.47 pm on August 23. Now, it has been moved by 17 minutes. The second and final deboosting (slowing down) operation has successfully reduced the LM orbit to 25 km x 134 km. The module would undergo internal checks and await the sunrise at the designated landing site. The powered descent is expected to commence on August 23, 2023, around 1745 hrs IST, ISRO said in a post on 'X' (formerly Twitter) in the early hours of Sunday. According to ISRO, India's pursui

China, Russia aiming to steal tech from US space firms: US officials

The two-page advisory warned that foreign intelligence organisations have started to increasingly see the expanding US space sector as a critical and profitable target

Chandrayaan-3: Isro's Lander Module health normal, gets closer to Moon

ISRO on Friday said that Chandrayaan-3's Lander Module has successfully undergone a deboosting (slowing down) operation taking it closer to the Moon, and that its health is normal. The Lander Module comprising the lander (Vikram) and the rover (Pragyan), will undergo the second deboosting operation on August 20, to be lowered to an orbit that takes it much closer to the Moon's surface. The soft landing on the Lunar south pole is scheduled on August 23. " The Lander Module (LM) health is normal. LM successfully underwent a deboosting operation that reduced its orbit to 113 km x 157 km. The second deboosting operation is scheduled for August 20, 2023, around 0200 Hrs. IST," ISRO said in a post on X (formerly Twitter). The Lander Module of Chandrayaan-3 had successfully separated from the Propulsion Module on Thursday, 35 days after the satellite was launched on July 14.

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