These famous personalities have all managed to stir up a hornet's nest this past year!
'China pumps in a lot more money than what we do. China's space budget is close to $5 billion while it is hardly $1 billion for us.' 'We manage the programmes within the constraints of our budget. The main difference is we prioritise.'
Utilising his visit to Fiji, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday acknowledged the role played by this tiny South Pacific Island nation in the success of India's Mars mission in the very first attempt and offered to make it the hub for regional collaboration in space.
Ahead of his India visit on February 24-25, Trump said that India has not treated his country 'very well' on the trade front and indicated that a 'very big' bilateral deal with New Delhi may not be signed before the American presidential election in November.
There were nervous moments...we knew we were taking a risk, but in the end we succeeded and I'm extremely happy, says S Arunan, project director, Mars Orbiter Mission in an interview with Rediff.com.
We take a look at the amazing things that Scott Kelly experienced as he hovered 400 kilometres above the earth zipping around it at 17 thousand miles per hour for nearly an year.
The ongoing experiments on Moon, Mars and elsewhere could translate into better crop yields and hardier plants that could thrive in inhospitable parts of the world, says Devangshu Datta.
The 52-year-old and two Russian cosmonauts touched down in Kazakhstan after a three-hour flight from the ISS.
The Announcement of Opportunity (AO) is for space experiments by institutions in the country, and the last date for receiving the proposals is May 19, 2017, the Bengaluru-headquartered ISRO said.
The Indian-American astronaut will fly the first space capsules built by private companies, SpaceX and Boeing.
Connecting with people is the first step to creating greater awareness for the brand and that in turn, believes ISRO chief K Sivan, will translate into the institution becoming a place that people want to work in.
'This time he spreads more than his arms. He finds wings,' declares Sukanya Verma.
She survived an assassination attempt and won a Nobel Prize. Now, 17-year-old activist Malala Yousafzai has an asteroid named after her.
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has returned the best colour and the highest resolution images yet of Pluto's largest moon, Charon, which show a surprisingly complex and violent history.
The Philae lander on Wednesday separated from the Rosetta orbiter and became the first spacecraft to achieve a soft landing on a comet.
When the universe is your workspace, the sky is the limit, and there's no such thing as a glass ceiling. Divia Thani Daswani meets the women behind Mangalyaan
In a technology that can bring down costs significantly of launching satellites, India will test a reusable launch vehicle in September.
China is all set to send on Thursday the first three crew members to its under-construction space station which is expected to be Beijing's eye in the sky and will rival the ageing International Space Station (ISS).
Three Chinese astronauts on Thursday entered the country's new space station after their spaceship successfully docked with it, just over seven hours after the launch from the Gobi Desert, in a major milestone for the Communist giant's space exploration plans and its bid to become a leading space power.
'Our culture, our history, our achievements are great and we should start celebrating them.' 'I am glad our movies are doing that and Mission Mangal is doing that.'
In his first interview, after the launch of MOM in Mars orbit, ISRO chief K Radhakrishnan spoke to T E Narasimhan about the mission and the way forward.
'Space is dangerous and there will be many failed attempts as we try to use mankind's ingenuity to take the next evolutionary step.'
'In a part of the world where the government tells people what not to eat and what slogans to shout and not shout, it is beneficial to develop a mentality that is science minded and therefore open-minded.' 'That is possibly why the space programme has always had support from all sides of the political divide,' says Aakar Patel.
'The ultimate satisfaction of helping in the country's space programme is the bigger achievement attracting women to space research -- and they are so good at it!'
Ice? Volcano? Or Alien life? The discovery of two bright spots on Ceres -- the dwarf planet in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter that happens to be the largest body in that asteroid belt -- has baffled scientists and space enthusiasts.
Godrej and some other firms are frustrated at what they say is the slow execution of projects and lack of government support, which are hampering India's efforts to compete with China and Russia as a cheaper option for launching satellites.
As US businessmen and investors await Prime Minister Narendra Modi's US visit, the investor community and the industry leaders said the success of 'Mangalyaan' goes on to prove India's growth story based on 'frugal innovations'.
Industry analysts were broadly excited at the prospect, but sceptical that it could produce a working model at a mass-market price that soon.
The Martian proves to be a light, pleasant watch, says Raja Sen.
'If Chandrayaan 1 had a launch with GSLV, we need not have an orbiter for Chandrayaan 2.' 'We could have gone straight round the moon and landed on the moon.'
The Chang'e-4 spacecraft scripted history on Thursday when it made the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon.
Hard to believe that some of these surreal places do exist.
'The unique achievements have been made by engineers from small towns who have had a non elite upbringing and who have grown with the programme,' says R Aravamudan, one of the pioneers of the Indian space programme.
Rediff.com gathers digs deep, to bring you interesting facts about the Democrat and the former White House First Lady.
As millions of passengers stream through Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur International Airport, heading off on holidays or returning home to loving families, all Hassan Al Kontar can do is watch. And wait. Stuck at the airport since March 7, 2018 that's all Kontar has been able to do. The airport has become his home. And for all those who wonder what it must be like to live at an airport, the stranded 36-year-old tells us via Twitter exactly what his story is and what's happening to him.
'In our textbooks, we never had chapters where a woman does something. We had one Rani Laxmibai chapter, the rest only the men did. We have been trained like that but, now, things have to change.'
We sorted through countless photographs taken around the world to come up with the top photos of 2019. Together these images tell the story of the year -- capturing moments of hope and heartbreak, triumph and tragedy.
In some ways, Elon Musk's vision is even bolder and more transformative than that of Steve Jobs, says B S Prakash.
Thirty-four years after he traveled to space, Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih that he looks forward to Gaganyan, India's first manned space mission in 2022.
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