ESA to provide ground station communications support for India’s manned Gaganyaan missions
The new colonial movement: The European Space Agency (ESA) has now signed an agreement with India’s space agency ISRO whereby ESA will provide ground station communications support for India’s manned Gaganyaan missions.
The first unmanned test flights are planned for next year, with the first manned Gaganyaan mission targeting 2026.
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The new colonial movement: The European Space Agency (ESA) has now signed an agreement with India’s space agency ISRO whereby ESA will provide ground station communications support for India’s manned Gaganyaan missions.
The first unmanned test flights are planned for next year, with the first manned Gaganyaan mission targeting 2026.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either. IMPORTANT! If you donate enough to get a book, please email me separately to tell me which book you want and the address to mail it to.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
This is a good deal on India’s part.
It could also presage other forms of cooperation between India and Europe as the two have broadly complementary space programs. With Gaganyaan, India will have manned spaceflight capability years before Europe could – if, indeed, it ever decides to develop any such. But Europe does have a more powerful launch vehicle – Ariane 6 – than anything the Indians have now or might have sooner than roughly a decade hence. And the Indians intend to build a LEO space station while Europe has built, and continues to build, space station modules only for others and not – thus far — for itself. Europe also has companies that intend to field space station cargo resupply vehicles with downmass capability relatively soon. By throwing in together, ISRO and ESA could build a bigger and flossier LEO space station sooner than either could do so on its own and would also, in combination have all the ancillaries needed to operate it.
This also gives India more consistent access to their crews. I was fascinated to read about the early Russian / US partnership on Mir as they prepared to build the ISS and how due to the stations construction they only had comms while it passed certain points in the US and Russia via Ham Radio.
India having ground station relay in Europe will give them much longer communication windows than if they just had communications when passing over India.
I am wondering however, if StarLink won’t soon be leveraged by space agencies around the world as an existing low latency / high bandwidth communications channel with radios to ground stations being more of a backup system.
Your point about Starlink is a good one. But one should never count overmuch on the obviousness and goodness of an idea to carry the day when governments are involved.