Tag: India

The space agencies of India and Australia agree to cooperate in recovering Gaganyaan

9:23 am

India’s space agency ISRO yesterday announced that it has signed an agreement with the Australian Space Agency (ASA) to work together in doing ocean recovery of India’s Gagayaan manned capsule.

The IA [Implementation Agreement] enables the Australian authorities to work with Indian authorities to ensure support for search and rescue of crew and recovery of crew module as part of contingency planning for ascent phase aborts near Australian waters.

Apparently ISRO anticipates the possible need for capsule ocean recovery near Australia should there be a launch abort shortly after liftoff.

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SpaceX successfully completes two launches today

11:40 am

SpaceX successfully completed two launches today, one from each coast.

First in the early morning the company sent 20 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. The first stage completed its 20th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. Of the 20 satellites, 13 were configured for direct-to-cell service.

Next, SpaceX launched GSAT-20, a geosynchronous communications satellite for India’s space agency ISRO, which hired SpaceX because the satellite was too heavy for its own rockets. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, with the first stage completing its 19th flight, successfully landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. Of the two fairings, one completed its fifth flight while the second completed its first flight.

If we include the afternoon launch yesterday by SpaceX from Kennedy, the company did three launches from three locations in less than 24 hours. And it hopes to launch again tomorrow, this time flying Starship/Superheavy on its sixth test orbital flight, launching from the company’s launchpad in Boca Chica. I have embedded the live steam here.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

117 SpaceX
53 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 135 to 79, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 117 to 97.

With these two launches today, the all-time global record for successful orbital launches in a year, set only last year at 213, has been broken, and there are still about five weeks left in 2024.

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ISRO head unveils new timeline for major missions

10:06 am

The head of India’s space agency ISRO, S. Somanath, yesterday unveiled a new timeline for several of that nation’s major missions, both manned and unmanned.

The new timeline is as follows:

  • 2025: NISAR: a joint Indian-American radar orbiter, long delayed
  • 2026: Gaganyaan-1, India’s first manned orbital mission
  • 2028: Chandrayaan-4, an unmanned sample return mission to the Moon
  • 2028: Chandrayaan-5, a joint lander-rover to the Moon

The last project will be done in partnership with Japan, with India building the lander and Japan the rover.

2028 will be a very busy year for India in space. The Indian government had previously announced that ISRO would launch in 2028 the first module of its space station as well as a Venus orbiter.

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September 23, 2024 Quick space links

4:23 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

  • ULA is prepping Vulcan for its second launch

    • Target launch date is October 4, 2024. The launch will put a dummy payload into orbit, but it will, if successful, also certify Vulcan for operationals paying launches for the U.S. military.

 

 

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Indian government approves major space projects, including new rocket, missions to the moon, space station, Venus

3:54 pm

The cabinet of Modi government in India today approved a whole range of major space projects for the next decade, including a sample return mission to the moon, the building of the first module of that country’s space station, an orbiter to Venus, and the development of a new more powerful but reusable rocket.

The lunar sample return mission, dubbed Chandrayaan-4, is targeting a launch about three years from now, and will be shaped to provide information leading to a manned lunar mission by 2040.

The cabinet also approved the development of the first module of its proposed Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS), targeting a 2028 launch date with the full station completed by 2035. This approval also included a plan for manned and unmanned missions leading up to the launch of that first module.

Under the programme eight missions are envisaged — four under the ongoing Gaganyaan programme by 2026, and development of BAS-1, and another four missions for demonstration and validation of various technologies by December 2028.

The Venus Orbiter is now targeting a 2028 launch.

The new launch rocket, dubbed the Next Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV) will aim for reusability and be 1.5 times more powerful than the India’s presently most powerful rocket, the Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM-3). The program to develop this new rocket however appears overally long (8 years) with relatively little flight testing (3 flights).

Overall, this government space program will likely energize India’s new commercial aerospace industry, as the Modi government is also attempting to shift as much of this work to private companies, rather than have its space agency ISRO do the work.

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Pragyan data confirms theory that the Moon’s surface was once largely covered with molten lava oceans

10:03 am


Vikram as seen by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Click for interactive map. To see the original
image, go here.

Data from India’s Pragyan lunar rover that landed in the high southern latitudes of the Moon in August 2023 has now confirmed the theory that the Moon’s surface was once largely covered with molten lava oceans.

Santosh Vadawale, an X-ray astronomer at the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, India, and his colleagues analysed radiation data collected by the APXS [one of Pragyan’s instruments], and used this information to identify the elements in the regolith and their relative abundances, which, in turn, revealed the soil’s mineral composition. The team found that all 23 samples comprised mainly ferroan anorthosite, a mineral that is common on the Moon. The results were reported in Nature today.

“It’s sort of what we expected to be there based on orbital data, but the ground truth is always really good to get,” says Lindy Elkins-Tanton, a planetary scientist at Arizona State University in Tempe.

Previous landers obtained similar results. However, the Chandrayaan-3 samples are the first from the subpolar region: previous landers visited equatorial and mid-latitude zones. Together, this suggests that the composition of the regolith is uniform across the Moon’s surface.

These results are no surprise, but they confirm the global nature of the Moon’s early molten history. More important, they demonstrate that India now has the capability to send landers and rovers to other planets that are also capable of doing real research.

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India completes third and last test launch of its SSLV rocket

8:57 pm

India today successfully completed the third and last test launch of its Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV), lifting off from its Sriharikota spaceport and carrying an experimental satellite designed to test a number of new technologies.

This launch is three-plus years late. It was originally to take place no later than 2021, but India’s space agency ISRO shut down entirely during the COVID panic, putting a halt on the rocket’s development. This delay also badly damaged ISRO’s attempt to grab the smallsat launch market. While it hid in basements in fear of a virus comparable to the flu, companies on the U.S. pushed to grab that market. Whether it can now grab its own market share is unclear, but the increased regulatory burdens that have appeared in the U.S. in the last three years gives it an opportunity.

This was India’s third launch in 2024, so the leader board in the 2024 launch race remains unchanged:

81 SpaceX
33 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 96 to 51, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 81 to 66.

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India now has its own private company building space station modules

9:45 am

Even as India’s space agency ISRO gears up to build its own government space station, a Indian startup is proposing to build and launch its own commercial space station inflatable module, capable of carrying “6 to 16 personnel.”

The company, AkashaLabdhi, says it is negotiations with SpaceX for a launch target in 2027.

Founded in 2023, AkashaLabdhi has prepared its prototype model of the habitat called ‘Antariksh HAB’, according to a report by The Times of India. Antariksh HAB contains features such as an expandable shell that ensures ‘exceptional orbital debris and radiation protection’, the company says on its website. According to AkashaLabdhi, the design has multiple purposes besides space habitation. It can be used for microgravity experiments, satellite maintenance, orbital logistics storage. The company also hopes to see its usage for space tourism, armed forces operations among others.

“With a forward-looking perspective, this adaptable habitat holds potential for long-term lunar surface exploration,” the company said on its website. Built with several layers, the structure is meant to reach its intended orbit of 1,100 km. AkashaLabhi CEO Siddarth Jena told TOI on Wednesday that the structure will take about seven days to fully inflate, once it reaches its desired destination.

How real the plans of this company is unknown. That it exists at all and is proposing such ambitious plans illustrates however the capitalism in space revolution that is going on in India. The country has the technical capabilities to do such things, and is now free to go ahead due to the policies of the Modi government that has forced ISRO to provide aid and support, rather than control everything.

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Blue Origin expands deal to fly citizens free on New Shepard

9:16 am

Blue Origin, in partnership with a non-profit, has expanded its program to fly citizens free on suborbital flights of New Shepard, adding India and what it calls “the small island developing states (SIDS)” to the recently announced deal to fly a Nigerian.

The non-profit, dubbed Space Exploration and Research Agency (SERA), has purchased one seat on each of the next half dozen flights, and will only charge passengers $2.50 for the ticket.

In an unprecedented move, SERA will allow people around the world to vote on which citizens will take the approximately 11-minute journey. Anyone living in one of the program’s partner nations can apply to secure a seat. Applicants must be proficient in English, at least 18 years of age, and meet Blue Origin’s parameters for height, weight, physical fitness, and citizenship.

Five of the seats will be allocated to specific nations, and candidates will be voted on by citizens of those nations. The sixth will be open to anyone within a SERA-partnered country and chosen through a global vote. Remaining seat assignments will be announced later this year.

Overall, this continues the PR stunt nature of Blue Origin’s suborbital New Shepard, which apparently does not have enough business to fill its passenger manifest, and thus is arranging these give-aways. While the gesture is nice, it would be far better if the company got its orbital rocket off the ground and actually began flying real cargos and passengers into space.

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A second Indian rocket startup completes suborbital launch

9:34 am

Agnikul's first suborbital test launch
Yesterday’s launch. Click for original image.

The Indian rocket startup Agnikul Cosmos yesterday successfully completed a suborbital test launch, flying a prototype stage using a single 3-D printed engine that lifted off from India’s Sriharikota spaceport on its eastern coast. From the first link:

All the mission objectives of this controlled vertical ascent flight were met and performance was nominal. The vehicle was completely designed in-house and was powered by the world’s first single piece 3d printed engine and also happens to be India’s first flight with a semi cryo engine.

The company claims this launch took place at its privately built launchpad, but that pad is located south of ISRO’s Sriharikota spaceport. Did it shift the launch back to Sriharikota, or are the reports incorrect? It is not clear.

Another Indian rocket startup, Skyroot, completed a similar suborbital test launch in November 2022, and has since followed this up with static fire tests of the upper stage of its Vikram-1 rocket.

Both companies hope to complete their first orbital launches before the end of 2025.

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ISRO completes second drop test runway landing of its own mini-reusable shuttle

8:56 am

Pushpak about to land
Click for original image

India’s space agency ISRO yesterday successfully completed the second runway landing of its own mini-reusable shuttle, dubbed Pushpak, after the vehicle was dropped from a helicopter at an altitude of 2.8 miles.

This mission successfully simulated the approach and high-speed landing conditions of RLV returning from space. With this second mission, ISRO has re-validated the indigenously developed technologies in the areas of navigation, control systems, landing gear and deceleration systems essential for performing a high-speed autonomous landing of a space-returning vehicle. The winged body and all flight systems used in RLV-LEX-01 were reused in the RLV-LEX-02 mission after due certification/clearances. Hence reuse capability of flight hardware and flight systems is also demonstrated in this mission. Based on the observations from RLV-LEX-01, the airframe structure and landing gear were strengthened to tolerate higher landing loads. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted sentences I think are the most significant. ISRO is pushing hard for reusability.

The concept of this spacecraft is somewhat comparable to the X-37B, though all the engineering can be applied to larger shuttles that can carry cargo and humans in and out of orbit. At the moment however Pushpak is simply an engineering test prototype, not yet ready for orbital flights. For example, the landing gears are too large and cannot be retracted, something unacceptable for orbital flights.

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India’s Vikram lander disturbed the lunar surface the least of all landers

9:29 am

According to an analysis of images taking before and after landing, engineers have concluded that India’s Vikram lander disturbed the lunar surface the least of all landers, due to its use of multiple smaller landing engines.

Presenting the new findings at LPSC on Monday, [ISRO scientist Suresh K] attributed the intriguingly short dust plume to the lack of a central engine on the spacecraft, which resulted in a lower engine thrust during descent. Starting its “rough braking phase” at an orbit of 18.6 miles (30 kilometers) above the lunar surface, when the spacecraft reached 0.4 miles (0.8 kilometers) above its targeted landing area, it switched off two of its four 800-newton engines such that two diagonal engines remained operational all the way until touchdown. The mission used the “least powerful engine till date,” [Suresh] K said. “We’ve observed very less disturbance on the surface.”

You can read their paper here [pdf].

Finding ways to reduce the dust kicked up during landings will be critical for the early missions to the Moon, before landing pads can be constructed. This research suggests that when Starship lands, it should use only its outer engines, and gimbal them sideways, in order to reduce the dust thrown up around it.

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India names four astronauts, three of whom will fly on its first manned mission

9:38 am

Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India today revealed the four astronauts training for its first manned mission, dubbed Gaganyaan and targeting a launch next year.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced the names of four pilots who are undergoing training for the country’s maiden human space flight mission ‘Gaganyaan’. The pilots are – Group Captain P Balakrishnan Nair, Group Captain Ajit Krishnan, Group Captain Angad Pratap, and Wing Commander S Shukla.

Though all four are training for the mission, only three will fly. The mission itself will orbit the Earth for three days. More information about each man can be found here. All have already received astronaut training in Russia.

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ISRO: Upper stage engine of largest rocket now approved for Gaganyaan manned mission

8:59 am

India’s space agency ISRO today announced that it has completed engine tests of the upper stage engine of its LVM rocket, a variation of its GSLV rocket and its most powerful, that will be used on its Gaganyaan manned orbital mission presently scheduled for launch in 2025.

In order to qualify the CE20 engine for human rating standards, four engines have undergone 39 hot firing tests under different operating conditions for a cumulative duration of 8810 seconds against the minimum human rating qualification standard requirement of 6350 seconds.

Before the 2025 manned mission, ISRO plans four more launch abort tests (one has already taken place) and three unmanned Gaganyann orbital demo missions. Two of those unmanned demo flights are scheduled for this year.

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India proposes to send its own helicopter to Mars

10:11 am

India has now considering adding its own helicopter to its next Mars mission, dubbed the Martian Boundary Layer Explorer (Marble).

While ISRO’s rotorcraft is still in the conceptual stage, the agency envisions a drone that can fly as high as 100 meters in the thin Martian air. Along with the Marble instrument suite, the drone is expected to carry various sensors, including temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed, electric field, trace species, and dust sensors.

Whether this mission will include a lander, rover, or orbiter as well is very unclear, which suggests strongly the entire mission profile is presently very much undecided as yet.

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Japan and India successfully complete launches

11:18 am

Japan and India today completed launches of different rockets, one on its first successful test launch.

First, early this morning Japan’s new H3 rocket successfully reached orbit for the first time, on its second attempt. The first attempt had problems, first with a launch abort at T-0 when the solid-fueled strap-on boosters failed to ignite. On the launch attempt the upper stage failed. Today’s launch was a complete success, placing a dummy payload into orbit.

Japan’s space agency JAXA however needs to learn how to run a launch in a professional manner. Minutes prior to launch an announcer began a second-by-second countdown, and continued this for minutes after the launch. Not only was this unnecessary and annoying, it made the real updates impossible to hear. India used to do this in its first few live streams, but quickly recognized the stupidity of it. In addition, the person translating the updates clearly knew nothing about rocket launches, so her translations were tentative and often completely misunderstood what had just happened.

All of this makes JAXA look like a second rate organization, which might also help explain its numerous technical failures in recent years.

About twelve hours later, at mid-day in India, India’s space agency ISRO successfully launched its GSLV rocket, placing a commercial radar environmental satellite into orbit.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

15 SpaceX
8 China
2 Iran
2 Russia
2 Japan
2 India

American private enterprise still leads the entire world combined in successful launches 17 to 16, with SpaceX trailing the entire world combined (excluding American companies) 15 to 16.

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India deorbits a defunct satellite early, in a controlled manner

9:20 am

India’s space agency ISRO yesterday successfully deorbited its defunct Cartosat-2 satellite, using the satellite’s leftover fuel to bring it down in a controlled manner, about three decades sooner than its orbit would have decayed naturally.

The satellite was launched in 2007 to provide detailed ground images of India, and completed its mission in 2019. As noted in ISRO’S press release:

ISRO opted to lower its perigee using leftover fuel to comply with international guidelines on space debris mitigation. This involved reducing collision risks and ensuring safe end-of-life disposal, following recommendations from organizations like the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN-COPOUS) and the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC).

While such actions are a good thing, that governments in India and Europe are suddenly making a big deal about it now — after almost 3/4s of a century of inaction — is not for those reasons, but to lay the political groundwork for allowing the international community, led by the UN, to impose new regulations on all space efforts, both government and private.

Be warned. They are the government, and they are here to help you.

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India’s proposed space station now has a name: Bharatiya Antariksh Station

9:56 am

Though no money has yet been allocated to build it, and India’s space agency ISRO has only begun design work, it has now apparently decided to name the space station the Bharatiya Antariksh Station.

They tentatively hope to launch a test module in 2028 to do unmanned rendezvous and docking tests, with assembly beginning in 2028 and completed by 2035.

None of this schedule is certain of course. ISRO has been proposing this space station since 2017. Nothing has ever come of those plans.

Only now does this seem more likely, with India’s effort to shift its space effort from a government-owned and run program to a competitive commercial industry.

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India to do 19 launches through March 2025

9:41 am

India's planned launches through March 2025

According to India’s space bureaucracy IN-SPACe, that nation has planned as many as 19 launches through March 2025.

The image to the right shows the manifest that IN-SPACe released. That agency is tasked with encouraging India’s private and independnt space industry, and it claims that 30 missions in total are planned, with half by commercial companies. This number however includes payloads and suborbital test missions, not just orbital launches. Based on the manifest to the right it appears that 19 of these missions are launches, with six being entirely private launches. One of those private launches, the first of Agnikul’s commercial Agnibaan rocket, will be suborbital.

It thus appears that in 2024 India hopes to complete 14 orbital launches. If so, this would double that nation’s previous record of seven launches in a single year. This schedule is very aspirational, with those six entirely commercial launches likely not all happening as planned.

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Japan and India team up for unmanned lunar lander mission

9:42 am

Japan and India are now partnering to put a lander/rover on the Moon in 2025, dubbed LUPEX.

Set tentatively for 2025, LUPEX will be launched on JAXA’s H3 launcher, with a 350-kg rover developed by the Japanese agency. ISRO is developing the lander. The instruments will be on the lander and the rover. Initial feasibility studies and the lander’s configuration have been completed. The rover will sample the soil with a driller and the samples will be analysed using equipment on the rover,

Unlike the previously successful lunar landers from both countries (India’s Chandrayaan-3 and Japan’s SLIM), LUPEX is being designed to survive the 14-day-long lunar night, with a mission that is aiming to last three to six months.

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Private company in India aims to build its own manned capsule and astronaut training facility

9:27 am

A private company in India, Astroborne Aerospace, is now developing its own commercial manned capsule as well as a commercial astronaut training facility, targeting as customers Earth-based tourists as well as those hoping to fly in space.

The capsule, dubbed Airawat, will seat six, and will be designed for suborbital flights, similar to Blue Origin’s New Shepard capsule. The training facility will be on a four-acre site the company is presently negotiating either a lease or purchase from the local government.

The company says it has obtained investment capital, but also says that money will arrive next month.

Whether this deal is real or not is actually irrelevant. Its existence illustrates the underlying enthusiasm in India for private commercial space, now that the Modi government has ended the monopoly on all space activities by its space agency ISRO.

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India and France sign deal to partner selling flights on their rockets

9:21 am

India and France have apparently signed a deal to not compete in selling flights on their biggest rockets, but instead work together to keep prices under their control.

Under the terms of the MoU [memorandum of understanding], NSIL’s [the commercial space division of India’s government] heavy-lift launch vehicle, LVM-3, and Arianespace’s Ariane-6 will be at the forefront of this joint endeavor.

The article at the link provides no information at all about the specifics of this deal. I am simply guessing that is it designed to control prices, especially because France by itself does not own the Ariane-6 and thus can not award launch contracts for it. All it can do is convince India to not charge less for its comparable LVM rocket (a variation of its GSLV rocket). If so, it is a bad deal for India, which can easily undercut any price that Arianespace can charge for the expensive Ariane-6. It will drive business from India, since other companies (such as SpaceX, ULA, and hopefully Blue Origin in the near future) will be under no obligation to match Ariane-6’s high cost.

It is also possible that the deal is simply an empty political gesture, timed during the visit to India by France’s President Emmanuel Macron. Its vague language suggests this. It gives Macron a photo op, but as an MOU it leaves India under no long term obligation.

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Indian satellite startup opens new satellite factory

9:04 am

Capitalism in space: The Indian satellite startup Pixxel has opened a new factory in Bengaluru in southern India, where it expects to ramp up satellite production in the coming years.

Bengaluru-based space data company Pixxel inaugurated its first spacecraft manufacturing facility in Bengaluru on Monday. The new facility holds significance as it targets to launch six satellites this year and 18 more by 2025, further advancing its mission of building a “health monitor” for the planet.
Spread across 30,000 square feet, the facility, at its full capacity, is equipped to handle more than 20 satellites simultaneously that can be turned around within a timeframe of six months, making possible a total of 40 large satellites per year.

The company says that its “…total customer base is divided into three divisions as of now – 40 per cent agriculture, 30 per cent resource companies, and 30 per cent government. Pixxel expects 85 per cent of the revenue to be generated from its commercial side and the rest from the government’s side by 2025.”

For India’s government and its space agency ISRO, Pixxel’s existence signals the sea-change in its policies, similar to what has been happening in the U.S. with NASA. In the past ISRO would have built the satellites. Now it is buying them from the private sector in India. That shift bodes well for India’s space industry, and will likely make it a major player in space in the coming years.

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India completes first launch of 2024

8:50 am

India’s space agency ISRO early today completed the first launch of 2024, its PSLV rocket placing an X-ray telescope into orbit along with ten payloads on its fourth stage, which is functioning as an orbital tug. Most appear [pdf] to be experiments that will remain on board, but one is an amateur radio smallsat that might be released.

As this is the only launch so far in 2024, India leads the race. It will certainly not remain the leader.

My annual global launch report for 2023 will be published tomorrow, after the holiday.

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NASA to fly Indian astronaut to ISS next year

9:52 am

During meetings in India between NASA and ISRO officials, instigated by administrator Bill Nelson’s visit this week, the mission details for the flight of an Indian astronaut to ISS in 2024 are now being worked out.

A Nasa delegation led by Nelson held a meeting with minister of state for science & technology Jitendra Singh on Tuesday. “I had a discussion with the minister on what the Indian astronaut would do on the space station. And the two of us talked about the fact that things that are important to India in scientific research, the Indian astronaut ought to have that as a choice to do. If there is a particular part of research that he or she would be interested in, then I want to encourage that,” Nelson later said at a media interaction. “Nasa will help train the Indian astronaut to fly to ISS by end of 2024. Those details are being worked out. Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) will announce that,” Nelson said.

Though this plan for NASA to fly Indian astronaut to ISS next year was first announced in June, it was overshadowed by India’s decision at that time to sign the Artemis Accords.

It is also important to recognize that the real arrangements are all being done by others, that Nelson and the India government officials are merely there to get their faces on television.

If this flight happens as planned, next year could be very exciting for India’s manned space program, since it also hopes to fly its own manned mission at that time.

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Eutelsat-OneWeb gets license approval in India

9:21 am

Less than two weeks after SpaceX obtained regulatory approval to offer its Starlink system in India, Eutelsat-OneWeb (newly merged) has now gotten its own approval.

Eutelsat-OneWeb is half owned by an Indian investment firm, so it is no surprise it obtained this approval soon after SpaceX. The two companies will now be competing aggressively for business in this giant country, whose technological capabilities has been renewed in recent years by the abandonment of a socialist/communist government for a leadership focused on encouraging freedom, capitalism, and competition.

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India now plans robotic lunar sample return mission

9:58 am

Following the successful landing of Vikram on the Moon, officials of India’s space agency ISRO have announced it is considering a much more ambitious follow-up, Chandrayaan-4, that will not only land on the lunar surface with a much larger rover, it will also dig up some samples and return them to Earth.

The spacecraft will travel to the moon, land, collect samples, and then connect to another module in space. The module will then return to Earth orbit. As the two modules approach Earth, they will separate, with one part returning to Earth and the other will keep orbiting the planet. Desai described the mission as ambitious, stating, “Hopefully, in the next five to seven years, we will meet the challenge of bringing samples from the moon.”

For return to Earth, Desai said that the mission would need two launch vehicles containing four modules (Transfer module, Lander Module, Ascender Module and Re-entry module). RM and TM would be Parked in the lunar orbit and two will go down from which Ascender Module will get separated from lander module and would collect the sample.

If India does this mission, while also completing its first manned mission during that time frame, it will place itself in direct competition with China and the U.S., and in fact will be getting close to matching both in capabilities.

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November 16, 2023 Quick space links

3:10 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who notes it has been “a slow news day. I guess everyone is waiting to see SpaceX launch.” For me this has been good, as the day has mostly been tied up with doctors (nothing serious).

 

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India releases on-board camera views during its Gaganyaan launch abort test

9:46 am

India’s space agency ISRO today released the on-board camera views taken during its Gaganyaan launch abort test on October 21, 2023.

The test was a complete success, and the footage shows each step clearly, from launch to stage separation to deployment of parachutes.

ISRO is still targeting 2024 for the first manned Gaganyaan mission, which will carry two to three astronauts into orbit for three to seven days. To meet that target however will require a lot of fast work, as the agency intends to fly three separate unmanned orbital missions of the Gaganyaan capsule prior to putting humans in it. More likely the manned mission will happen in 2025.

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Gaganyaan abort test flight flies successfully after short delay

10:13 am

When I went to bed last night India’s Gaganyaan abort test flight had been cancelled due to a launch abort at T-0, with the live stream ending and an expectation that engineers would need at least another day to fly.

When I woke up it turned out that ISRO behaved more like SpaceX than a government agency. It quickly figured out what was wrong, recycled the countdown, and two hours later successfully flew the test of its launch abort rescue system for its manned Gaganyaan capsule.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully executed the Test Flight Abort Mission, for the Gaganyaan mission on Saturday after the first test flight was aborted at 8:45 am due to a problem in the engine ignition. ISRO Chief S Somanth said the planned lift off the TV-D1 rocket could not happen following an anomaly that will be analysed. He said that the engine ignition of the TV-D1 rocket did not happen over time.

The space agency then said that the errors have been identified and corrected and the second launch was scheduled for 10:00 Hrs today.

And at 10 am, ISRO successfully launched the test vehicle from Sriharikota today. Chairman Somanath expressed happiness and said, “I am very happy to announce the successful accomplishment of Gaganyaan TV-D1 mission”.

The test rocket launched, the abort system separated from the rocket as planned, the capsule was released from the abort system, its parachutes then opened, and the capsule then safely splashed down in the Bay of Bengal about ten miles off the coast, where it was recovered successfully.

ISRO plans a second launch abort test prior to flying the actual manned mission, but at this moment it appears very close to being ready for a manned mission in 2024, its present goal.

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