Nerves gave way to smiles at the spaceport in Sriharikota as delays and an anomaly-triggered 'hold' forced Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientists to revise the launch schedule of a test vehicle carrying payloads related to the country's ambitious human space flight mission, Gaganyaan which soared into skies after initial hiccups.
The Indian Space Research Organisation said it successfully carried out an "extremely challenging" controlled re-entry experiment of the decommissioned orbiting Megha-Tropiques-1 (MT-1) satellite.
The Crew-3 astronauts will spend approximately six months aboard the space station conducting new and exciting scientific research in areas such as materials science, health technologies, and plant science to prepare for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and to benefit life on Earth.
Bharti Group-backed OneWeb on Monday said it has entered an arrangement with the commercial arm of ISRO, NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), to launch its satellite in India from 2022.
A suspected Chinese spy balloon, said to be the size of three buses, was spotted over the United States' airspace, the Pentagon has said, a development that has further strained the already tense bilateral ties as Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday abruptly postponed his key visit to Beijing.
China may launch the country's first space laboratory module at the end of this week with hectic last minute preparations in full swing.
ISRO will now conduct further testing of VELC and its eventual integration with the Aditya-L1 spacecraft, it said in a release.
Taiwan had shifted its purchases of large military platforms and systems, like fighter jets and naval vessels, to smaller lethal anti-ship and surface-to-air-missiles, reported The Singapore Post citing local media.
The 6-metre tall launch vehicle Vikram-S is named after Vikram Sarabhai, the father of the country's space programme and lifted off at 11.30 am.
Bharti will invest an additional $500 million (over Rs 3,700 crore) into OneWeb, to become the largest shareholder in the satellite communications company that billionaire Sunil Mittal-run Bharti Group along with the UK government had rescued from bankruptcy last year. The investment is a result of exercise of a 'call option' by Bharti. On completion of the transaction and with Eutelsat's $550 million investment, Bharti will hold 38.6 per cent. The UK government, Eutelsat and SoftBank will each own 19.3 per cent, OneWeb said in a statement.
Bharti group-backed OneWeb and New Space India Limited, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation, have entered into an agreement that will help ensure OneWeb completes its satellite launch programme. The first launch with New Space India is expected in 2022 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota. The launches will add to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications firm OneWeb's total in-orbit constellation of 428 satellites -- 66 per cent of the planned total fleet -- to build a global network that will deliver high-speed, low-latency connectivity.
The Indian Space Research Organisation has released the first images of India's heaviest rocket, referred to as "Bahubali" days before it ferries India's Chandrayaan-2 into space. India's most ambitious space mission yet, Chandrayaan-2, which aims to place a robotic rover on the moon, will be launched on July 15 at 2:51 am. Here's all you need to know about the rocket.
Chari, 43, will serve as the commander while NASA's Tom Marshburn will be pilot and ESA's Matthias Maurer will serve as a mission specialist for the SpaceX Crew-3 mission to the ISS, which is expected to launched next year.
The mission objective is to ensure data continuity of ocean color and wind vector data to sustain the operational applications.
The Department of Space (DoS) plans to realise entirely-built rockets -- GSLV-Mk III and SSLV -- from Indian industry partners, in addition to PSLV, according to a top official of its commercial arm NSIL.
ISRO's first mission in 2023 and SSLV's sequel saw a strange coincidence--it was launched at 9.18 am, the same time its predecessor lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here on August 7, 2022 but could not deliver due to orbit anomaly and flight path deviation.
Skyroot Aerospace has become the first private company in India to give wings to the Indian space programme, after the sector was opened to private players by the Centre in 2020.
The entire engine, Agnilet, is one piece of hardware from start to finish and has zero assembled parts, reports T E Narasimhan.
Bharti Global and UK government-led OneWeb on Friday announced the launch of 36 communications satellites and said it aims to offer high-speed internet from its constellation of satellites in India by mid-2022. The recommencement of satellite launches by OneWeb comes within weeks of billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal-run Bharti Group along with the British government taking over as the new owners of the broadband satellite communications company, which emerged from bankruptcy. The Low Earth Orbit (LEO) broadband satellite communications company on Friday launched the 36 satellites from a Soyuz launch vehicle, which began from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, in Russia.
Aditya-L1 is meant to observe the corona, which are the outer layers of the Sun, extending to thousands of kilometres.
According to sources in the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency, under the Department of Space, delivery of hardware by the industry was hit due to the lockdown imposed in several States to contain the pandemic in recent months.
India is only the fourth country to acquire such a specialised and modern capability after the United States, Russia and China.
Officials of the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency said the first and second waves of the pandemic have "severely affected" the Gaganyaan programme.
The Gaganyaan project has the objective of demonstrating human space flight capability to Low Earth Orbit with three crew members in orbit and safely recovering them after the mission.
The balloon, which was being used by the People's Republic of China in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States, was brought down above US territorial waters.
Bharti Global is planning to put up more satellites and has set a stiff deadline to launch commercial Internet services by October in the UK, Alaska, northern Russia and northern Europe.
Billionaires are not only eyeing a profit as they push mankind out into the stars.
It appears India will be among those nations consigned to being among the watchers and not participants of this crucial phase, observes Aakar Patel.
He said the country now possesses the capability to strike satellites in outer space with centimetre-level accuracy and precision.
Indian Space Association (ISpA) chairman Jayant Patil has said that the executive council will debate whether it can include more telecom companies as founding members. The response came after some leading telcos said that they had been asked to be core members but preferred to be inducted as founding members. The key founders of the ISpA include the Bharti group through two companies (OneWeb and Airtel), L&T, Nelco, Walchandnagar, Alpha Designs and MapmyIndia.
The Gaganyaan mission aims to send a three-member crew to space for a period of five to seven days by 2022 when India completes 75 years of Independence.
In four years from now, you can holiday in space too.
India will be the fourth country after the United States, Russia and China to send humans to space.
A 48-hour countdown began on Monday for the launch of record 20 satellites, including India's latest earth observation Cartosat-2 Series Satellite, onboard PSLV C-34 from Sriharikota on June 22.
Billionaire and Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra along with top Silicon Valley investors Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan are backing space tech start-up Agnikul as part of a new funding round. Chennai-based Agnikul said, on Thursday, that it has raised $11 million in Series A funding round led by Mayfield India. It is the largest funding round for a private Indian space technology company in the country. Existing investors pi Ventures, Speciale Invest and Artha Venture Fund also invested in this round.
A rare bonhomie among three private telecom companies in raising tariffs coming on the back of a bailout package by the government may have helped the telecom sector avert a crisis but the challenges haven't ceased to exist as the industry faces a cash-guzzling task of rolling out 5G networks in the coming months. The sector that provides direct and indirect employment to millions is projected to see Rs 1.3 lakh crore to Rs 2.3 lakh crore of investments in the coming years in creating robust infrastructure and building telecom and network products that have been incentivised by the government through PLI and other initiatives. After years of cut-throat competition and the apex court ruling on payment of past statutory dues left some players in the lurch, billionaire Sunil Mittal's Bharti Airtel and struggling Vodafone Idea almost in tandem raised tariffs, taking the plunge they had long been talking about.
Discussing the prospect of more reform earlier this month, telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced a delay in the 5G spectrum auction. India's telecom sector regulation has to be benchmarked with the global best, he said. It's another matter that many countries have either introduced or are about to roll out 5G services that will enable cutting-edge tech in diverse areas. For India, too, it will mean a lot for healthcare, robotics and unleashing a new chapter in Digital India perhaps.
'Two nations would continue to pursue shared interests in space that includes collaboration on safety and security in space'
The four test pilots of the Indian Air Force, chosen for India's manned mission to space, have been undergoing training at the Yu.A. Gagarin Research and Test Cosmonaut Training Centre near Moscow since February.
"The first lesson from the Indian ASAT is just the simple question of why did they do that. And the answer should be, I think to all the committee looking at it, is that they did that because they are concerned about threats to their nation from space," US Strategic Command Commander General John E Hyten told members of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.
His remark comes days after National Aeronautics and Space Administration raised concerns about the spread of debris from the Anti-Satellite Test test India conducted on March 27.
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