Page 22 - Space

India to sign Artemis Accords, send joint mission to ISS, says White House

India has decided to join the Artemis Accords, which brings like-minded countries together on civil space exploration, and NASA and ISRO have agreed to a joint mission to the International Space Station in 2024, the White House said Thursday. On space, we will be able to announce that India is signing the Artemis Accords, which advance a common vision for space exploration for the benefit of all humankind, a senior administration official said hours before the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Joe Biden in the Oval Office. Grounded in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 (OST), the Artemis Accords are a non-binding set of principles designed to guide civil space exploration and use in the 21st century. It is an American-led effort to return humans to the moon by 2025, with the ultimate goal of expanding space exploration to Mars and beyond. The official said that NASA and the ISRO are developing a strategic framework for human spaceflight cooperation this year. I

China sets record by sending 41 satellites to space by Long March 2D rocket

The number of Jilin-1 satellites has now increased to 108, completing China's first commercial constellation of more than 100 remote-sensing satellites

Announcement coming soon on 'Hava' rocket testing facility: ISRO Chief

Indian Space Research Organisation chairman S Somanath on Thursday said there will be an announcement soon about the space agency's testing facility with regard to the hypersonic air breathing vehicle 'Hava'. The space scientist, however, emphasises that ISRO was not focused on air breathing technology because it wants to deal more with space. Air-breathing engines are those that take in air from its surroundings in order to burn fuel, such as jet engines. It is therefore not suitable for space travel as there is no air/atmosphere in space. "We are also developing a new rocket 'Hava' to fly at a hypersonic speed for 200-plus seconds. You will also hear some announcements soon about our testing plant with the new fuel for air breathing," Somanath told reporters here. 'HAVA' stands for Hypersonic Air Breathing Vehicle with Air Integration System. Replying to a query on the progress made on air breathing technology, Somanath said ISRO is looking at it not as an immediate input for an

Nasa's telescope detects complex molecules in galaxy 12 bn light-years away

The unexpected discovery is assisting astronomers in piecing together answers to some of the universe's lingering questions

Indian scientists discover alien planet, 13 times bigger than Jupiter

The planet is 731 light years away from Earth and orbits its star once every 7.24 days, reports said

Quantum jump in space sector in last 9 years of Modi govt: Jitendra Singh

Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Friday said the space sector has registered a quantum jump in the last nine years of the Modi government. Addressing the India Defence Conclave 2023 here, he said, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken several policy initiatives in the past nine years to encourage indigenous design, development and manufacture of defence equipment, thereby promoting "Atmanirbharta" in the defence sector. "As a result, there is a quantum jump in space sector in the last nine years which surpasses the progress made in the nearly six decades before that," said Singh, who holds multiple portfolios including the Minister of State for Personnel, Atomic Energy and Space. He said that in the last nine years under Prime Minister Modi, India has traversed unlimited "space", according to a Personnel Ministry statement. Singh said, Defence and Space sectors are intertwined and both of them got an enabling milieu from the Prime Minister for its faster and indigenous growth by .

Allocate satellite spectrum administratively to help space industry: ISpA

Industry body ISpA has requested sector regulator Trai to have comprehensive outlook and allocate satellite spectrum by administrative methods to help the nascent space industry grow and be globally competitive. Indian Space Association (ISpA) said that the Department of Telecom's (DoT) reference presupposes that satellite spectrum should be allocated through auction, while world over spectrum is allocated for satellite communication use through administrative process. "The terms of reference laid down by the DoT to Trai presuppose that the method of assignment of spectrum needs to be auctioned. This, we submit, brings a bias to the whole consultation process," ISpA Director General AK Bhatt said on Wednesday. DoT in September 2021, had sought recommendation from the Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on frequency bands, spectrum block size, reserve price and quantum of spectrum to be auctioned and associated conditions for auction of spectrum for space-based communication ...

Industry upbeat as space policy to raise private sector play, funding

More than 1,500 micro small and medium enterprises, over 140 startups and rising investor interest, the Indian Space Policy 2023 is set to be a fillip for the space sector

Nelco withdraws satcom permit application; may apply under New Space Policy

Tata group satellite services firm Nelco has withdrawn application for offering personal satellite communication services to consumers in the country and plans to apply for a new licence under New Space Policy, a top company official has said. Nelco has withdrawn the application for Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellite (GMPCS) licence, which it had earlier submitted to the department of telecommunications (DoT). The company plans to apply for a relevant permit after going through the contours of the New Space Policy. "The company has all licences required to provide all satellite services permissible in the country and the company will apply for relevant permit after going through the contours of the New Space Policy and outcome of consultation paper floated by telecom regulator Trai," Nelco, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer PJ Nath told PTI on Wednesday. The GMPCS licence at present allows licence holders to provide satellite phone services in India. "We

Top Headlines: Mankind's quality assurance, India in space economy and more

Business Standard brings you the top headlines at this hour

Space start-up Skyroot conducts long duration test of its cryogenic engine

Private space tech start-up Skyroot Aerospace has achieved a major milestone by successfully test-firing a fully 3D-printed cryogenic engine for 200 seconds, the company said on Tuesday. The endurance test of 'Dhawan-II', using Skyroot's indigenously developed mobile cryogenic engine test pad, was carried out at Solar Industries propulsion test facility in Nagpur. It demonstrated impressive performance results, the Hyderabad-based company said in a statement. The achievement follows the November 2022 launch of Vikram-S, which made Skyroot the first Indian private company to send a rocket into space. The Dhawan-II engine builds on the foundation laid by Skyroot's first privately developed fully-cryogenic rocket engine, the 1.0 kN thrust Dhawan-I, which was successfully test fired in November 2021. "This is a major milestone for our cryogenic propulsion programme, which will enhance the payload capacity of Vikram series of space launch vehicles making them more modular so as to meet

Challenge to Elon Musk and OneWeb: Satellite rivals plan to merge

Should the union succeed, SES SA and Intelsat SA would create Europe's largest satellite company. They're both domiciled in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, one of the world's smallest countries

Policy vacuum

Govt must frame rules for space communication

James Webb Space Telescope captures swirling sand clouds on distant planet

Scientists have observed swirling motions of clouds of sand in the atmosphere of a distant planet, having a 22-hour day and orbiting two stars over a 10,000-year period. The international team of researchers, including those from the University of Exeter, UK, made the discovery using data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The researchers used the state-of-the-art telescope to study the motions of the clouds which were bringing hotter material up and pushing colder material down on the planetary mass companion VHS 1256 b, about 40 light-years away from Earth. Identifying for the first time the largest ever number of molecules at once on a planet outside our solar system, the team also discovered clear detections of water, methane and carbon monoxide with Webb's data, and found evidence of carbon dioxide. The study is published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. "This result speaks to the incredible combination of capabilities that is offered by JWST, and a huge amou

Indian space startup Pixxel bags US contract for hyperspectral imagery

Bengaluru-based space startup Pixxel has bagged a five-year contract for supplying technical hyperspectral imagery to United States' National Reconnaissance Organization (NRO). The Virginia-based NRO also awarded six study contracts for commercial hyperspectral imagery to five other companies -- BlackSky Technology, HyperSat, Orbital Sidekick, Planet, and Xplore. "The entire team here at Pixxel is excited to begin this journey with the NRO. We are fully committed to this fantastic opportunity to offer our imaging capabilities to the organisation, its partners, and the US geospatial intelligence community," Chief Executive Officer, Pixxel Space Technologies, Awais Ahmed, told PTI. He said Pixxel will provide technical hyperspectral imagery (HSI) remote sensing capabilities through modelling and simulation and data evaluation using its currently on-orbit pathfinder systems and future constellations. Ahmed said Pixxel will demonstrate its capabilities through end-to-end tasking, ...

UK govt powers up Rolls-Royce's plan to build N-reactor on moon

The UKSA said it wanted to establish a new power source to support systems for communications, life-support and scientific experiments on the Moon

NASA-SpaceX Crew-6 astronauts dock safely at ISS after hour-long delay

NASA-SpaceX's Crew-6 astronauts arrived safely at the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, after a 26-hour journey

Space telescope finds massive galaxies formed within 600 mn yrs of Big Bang

Astronomers have discovered what appear to be massive galaxies dating back to within 600 million years of the Big Bang, suggesting the early universe may have had a stellar fast-track that produced these monsters. While the new James Webb Space Telescope has spotted even older galaxies, dating to within a mere 300 million years of the beginning of the universe, it's the size and maturity of these six apparent mega-galaxies that stun scientists. They reported their findings Wednesday. Lead researcher Ivo Labbe of Australia's Swinburne University of Technology and his team expected to find little baby galaxies this close to the dawn of the universe not these whoppers. While most galaxies in this era are still small and only gradually growing larger over time, he said in an email, there are a few monsters that fast-track to maturity. Why this is the case or how this would work is unknown. Each of the six objects looks to weigh billions of times more than our sun. In one of them, the

3,500 students participate in India's first hybrid sounding rocket

Martin Foundation in association with Dr APJ Abdul Kalam International Foundation and Space Zone India successfully completed the project known as Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Satellite Launch Vehicle Mission 2

ISRO conducts initial trials of human space mission crew module recovery

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Indian Navy carried out initial recovery trials of the crew module as a part of the former's human space mission tests