ISRO has an opportunity to be the one-stop shop for satellite manufacturing, and Alpha Design is just the booster it needed.
The entire process being autonomous when the lander has to fire its engines at the right times and altitudes, use the right amount of fuel, and scan of the lunar surface for any obstacles or hills or craters before finally touching down.
India has made a good beginning in the area of satellite navigation but still there is a long way to go.
India's second mission to the moon will be launched on Monday at 2.43 pm after its initial launch on July 15 was called off owing to a "technical glitch."
Once ISRO masters the technology to send humans into space, the next step will be experimenting with technologies allowing humans to live in space.
ISRO chairman A S Kiran Kumar talks of what's on and what lies ahead for the Indian space agency.
All spacecraft parameters are normal, the Bengaluru headquartered space agency said after the maneuver on the spacecraft.
On Monday, ISRO scientists will run a test of the Mars orbiter satellite's main engine and make a small course correction. This is crucial because the engine has been idle for nearly 10 months. T E Narasimhan reports
India will boldly go to Venus for the first time and re-visit the Red Planet very soon.
Rediff.com takes a look at spacecraft that have successfully made it to Mars.
The Propulsion Module (PM) of Chandrayaan-3 has been moved from an orbit around the Moon to an orbit around Earth, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has said, terming the operation a unique experiment.
Vikram (with rover 'Pragyan' housed inside) is expected to touch down on the lunar surface on September 7, between 1.30 am and 2.30 am.
There will be two more orbit manoeuvres to make the spacecraft enter into its final orbit passing over the lunar poles at a distance of about 100 km from the Moon's surface.
Hours before Chandrayaan-2's 'Vikram' module's proposed soft landing on the Lunar surface, Indian Space Research Organisation chairman K Sivan said on Friday things are progressing as per plan for the much-awaited event.
Dr P K Menon, Chief Scientist and CEO, Optimal Synthesis Inc, who worked with Dr A P J Abdul Kalam early on in his career, recalls what it was like working for his first boss.
It has already tasted success with the moon mission and Mangalyaan. Is man in space the next frontier for ISRO?
ISRO chairman K Sivan said the proposed soft-landing was going to be a 'terrifying' moment.
All spacecraft parameters are normal, the Bengaluru headquartered space agency said after the maneuver.
I suggest we build a Vigyan Mandir (Temple of Science) with the ambience of a place of worship, so that it becomes a destination for pilgrims. We should embed on its walls bronze plaques describing each scientist mentioned here along with about a dozen of our ancient mathematicians, recommends Professor Kalyan Singhal, historian of science and technology.
'India must close the missile technology gap with both China and Pakistan as early as possible, or else the credibility of India's nuclear deterrence will remain suspect,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
'It is a blessing in disguise that they could find the glitch before the launch.' 'If this was not found, the entire mission would have been lost.'
'Well begun is half done, today there are more hits than misses by the Modi government in its support towards science in India,' says Pallava Bagla.
'The India-France relationship has been that of the elites of two countries, who appreciate each other's philosophical traditions -- whether it is ancient Indian civilisation and Sanskrit texts or the French tradition of Rene Descartes, Albert Camus, (Jean-Paul) Sartre... This is a drawback. It doesn't create the buzz, the excitement necessary for a relationship. We need more people-to-people contact, especially among students,' says former Ambassador to Paris, Rakesh Sood.
The Mars mission is overwhelmingly irrelevant to space science and won't advance the frontiers of knowledge. It will divert attention from the real technological challenges facing the Indian space programme, and will further distort our science and technology priorities, says Praful Bidwai.
The nine-second de-orbiting or retro-orbiting manoeuvre was executed at 3.42 am using the onboard propulsion system.
Some time before December 31, 2017, Bengaluru based Team Indus aims to land a vehicle on the moon.
'My wife was asked to get out of an autorickshaw because she was married to me. My children were targeted and branded a traitor's children. In spite of the Supreme Court and the NHRC having cleared my case, the state government is yet to close it. Local politicians are behind this. Why can't they close the case, give me compensation, accepting gracefully that they have wronged me?' Dr S Nambi Narayanan, the scientist who was accused and then exonerated in the 1994 ISRO spying case, speaks to Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier about his continuing travails and his recent meeting with Narendra Modi.
'I will say all this happened because of ignorance coupled with arrogance,' says G Madhavan Nair.
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