Tag: India

India’s SSLV new smallsat rocket fails during static fire test

9:20 am

According to sources inside India’s space agency ISRO, a static fire test of the first stage of its new Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) rocket was a failure, and that the planned April inaugural launch will likely be delayed.

“Oscillation was noticed after 60 seconds into the test and nozzle was blown out near the bucket flange where it’s attached with the motor at around 95 seconds”, sources in the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency said. It was supposed to be tested for a total duration of about 110 seconds, officials said.

The Indian Space Research Organisation had targeted to launch the first development flight of SSLV (D1) in April and may now in all probability have to revise this schedule.

Fixing the problem and repeating the test will likely delay the first launch by six months at least.

SSLV is being designed by ISRO to compete against companies like Rocket Lab in the emerging smallsat market and is thus much cheaper and faster to assemble and launch.

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India & Russia successfully launch satellites

11:04 pm

Both India and Russia today successfully launched satellites into orbit.

For India it was their first launch in 2021. Their PSLV rocket put into orbit a Brazillian satellite for studying Earth resources. The launch also included 18 other cubesats.

Russia in turn used its Soyuz-2 rocket to launch a new generation weather satellite for studying that country’s remote Arctic regions.

SpaceX had also planned another Starlink launch but aborted the countdown with just over a minute to go. They plan to try again tomorrow.

The 2021 launch race:

5 SpaceX
4 China
3 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Virgin Orbit
1 Northrop Grumman
1 India

The U.S. still leads China 8 to 4 in the national rankings.

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India officially delays both its manned mission and next lunar lander

9:47 am

The new colonial movement: India has now officially delayed the launch of both its manned mission Gaganyaan as well as its next lunar lander/rover Chandrayaan-3.

They hope to launch an unmanned test Gaganyaan mission before the end of this year, but the manned mission will not occur until after a second unmanned mission scheduled very tentatively in the 2022-2023 time frame.

As for Chandrayaan-3, they had initially hoped to launch it last fall, but they panic over the coronavirus that shut down their entire space industry for a years has now apparently pushed that launch back ’22, a delay of more than a year.

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India is targeting ’21 for first unmanned test launch of manned system

9:07 am

The new colonial movement: According to Indian government officials, the first unmanned test flight of their Gaganyaan manned capsule will occur before the end of 2021.

The first unmanned launch is slated for December 2021. The Gaganyaan is a crewed orbital spacecraft expected to carry three astronauts into space for at least seven days. The spacecraft is likely to consist of an orbital module which will have a service and a crew module. The mission is estimated to cost around Rs 10,000 crore. The GSLV Mk-III, now called LVM-3 (Launch Vehicle Mark-3), will be deployed for the launch.

The new name for the rocket helps distinguish it from the GSLV Mk-II, a smaller version aimed mostly at commercial customers.

India also hopes to launch a new smallsat rocket in ’21, as well as its next lunar lander/rover, Chandrayaan-3. The country’s space effort will also be attempting to recover from its shutdown in 2020 due to the Wuhan virus panic.

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Indian private company test fires its own solid rocket motor

9:00 am

Capitalism in space: Skyroot Aerospace, an Indian private company, has successfully test fired its own privately-built solid rocket motor, as part of an effort to develop its own private rocket dubbed Vikram, with its first launch set for December ’21.

The solid rocket motor is for either the rocket’s second stage or for strap-on boosters. The company has already successfully tested the first stage engines.

The most interesting quote from the story however is this:

Founded by former scientists of the Indian Space Research organization (ISRO), Skyroot has raised $4.3 million till now and is in process of raising another $15 mn in 2021. In the past the company has raised investments from: Mukesh Bansal (Founder Myntra, CureFit), Solar Industries (India’s largest explosives manufacturer and renowned Space & Defence Contactor), Vedanshu investments and a few other Angel investors.

The Modi government has been making a strong effort to mimic the transition that NASA has gone through in the past decade whereby it shifts from having all its spacecraft and rockets designed, built, and owned by the government to having the government act merely as the customer buying those products from privately-run and independent companies. Like NASA, there has been strong resistance to this change within India’s government bureaucracy. Skyroot’s success, including its foundation by former ISRO engineers, is a very good sign that they are overcoming that resistance.

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India successfully completes second launch in 2020

8:42 am

Using its PSLV rocket India today successfully placed a communications satellite into orbit.

This was only the second launch by India in 2020. At the start of the year ISRO had predicted they would complete as many as twelve launches. Instead, their panic over COVID-19 shut them down.

The leader board for the 2020 launch race presently stands unchanged, though a SpaceX rocket is on the launchpad and might lift-off in the next 90 minutes. [UPDATE: SpaceX has stood down and will try again tomorrow.]

33 China
24 SpaceX
14 Russia
6 ULA
6 Rocket Lab

The U.S. still leads China 39 to 33 in the national rankings.

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India’s space agency signs deal with private Indian smallsat company

9:28 am

The new commercial division of India’s space agency ISRO, dubbed the Department of Space (DoS), has signed a development deal with a new private Indian smallsat startup, Agnikul Cosmos, that has plans to build a rocket that will launch from Kodiak, Alaska in ’22.

More information here.

The agreement is designed to provide technical support to the company. Initially the company had only planned to launch from an ISRO launch facility in India. It now appears they are widening their goals to include an U.S. site as well, probably to encourage sales to American satellite companies.

Their rocket, 3D printed, also appears very small, and targets the smallest size smallsat market.

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India’s first mission to Venus delayed a year

10:19 am

The new colonial movement: During a NASA planetary science conference on November 10th, an official of India’s space agency ISRO revealed that they have been forced to delay their first mission to Venus, dubbed Shukrayaan, till 2024.

T. Maria Antonita of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) detailed the status of the mission to scientists drafting a new 10-year plan for NASA’s planetary science program. Shukrayaan will be India’s first mission to Venus and will study the planet for more than four years.

ISRO was aiming for a mid-2023 launch when it released its call for instruments in 2018, but Antonita told members of the National Academies’ decadal survey planning committee last week that pandemic-related delays have pushed Shukrayaan’s target launch date to December 2024 with a mid-2026 backup date (optimal launch windows for reaching Venus occur roughly 19 months apart).

It appears they are using this extra time to consider a larger launch rocket, which would allow them to increase the orbiter’s capabilities.

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India successfully completes first launch in 2020

9:10 am

For the first time in 2020 India has launched a rocket, successfully placing ten satellites into orbit using its PSLV rocket.

The primary payload was an Indian Earth resource satellite dubbed EOS-1.

When the year started ISRO, India’s space agency, had predicted it would complete twelve launches in 2020, which would have been a record for their nation. Then the panic over COVID-19 set in, and they canceled everything for months on end. This long stand down will likely cause delays in all their long term programs including their effort to launch their own astronauts on their own rocket in their own capsule.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race remain the same:

28 China
19 SpaceX
12 Russia
4 ULA
4 Europe (Arianespace)
4 Rocket Lab

The U.S. remains ahead of China 30 to 28 in the national rankings..

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U.S. court orders India’s s space agency ISRO to pay $1.2 billion

11:21 am

A U.S. court has ordered Antrix, the commercial arm of India’s space agency ISRO, to pay $1.2 billion to Devas, a private company with operations in both India and the United States, for a contract they canceled arbitrarily in 2011.

This is a very complicated story going back many years. ISRO’s Antrix and Devas had agreements beginning in 2005 to work together to develop commercial satellites, with Antrix building the satellites and Devas commercializing bandwidth. In 2011 the India government cancelled the contracts unilaterally.

On February 25, 2011, Antrix issued a termination notice to Devas, which among other things stated that the policy decision was of the central government, acting in its sovereign capacity is the event of force majeure, which was an occurrence on February 23, 2011, PTI report said. “The scope and duration of the said decision cannot be anticipated. It is likely to be indefinite. It is not possible for Antrix to take any effective step to resume the obligations under the agreement,” Antrix was quoted as saying.

One of the reasons for the cancellation were accusations that payoffs were occurring between officials at both Antrix and Devas to make the deal happen.

Devas has been fighting in numerous courts for years to get compensation for that cancellation.

ISRO can probably ignore this U.S. court decision, except that if it does it will make it very difficult, if not impossible, for ISRO to do any work in partnership with the U.S., such as in the Artemis program. As soon as they try to do so, Devas will slap a lien on that operation, demanding payment.

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India’s Mars orbiter confirms global dust storms speeds atmosphere loss

9:54 am

India’s Mars orbiter Mission (MOM) has confirmed that the periodic Martian global dust storms act to accelerate the loss of the red planet’s atmosphere.

The U.S. orbiter MAVEN found the same thing during the 2018 global dust storm. Moreover, the two orbiters focused on observing different hemispheres (MOM in the morning and MAVEN in the evening), and bot got comparable results.

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Due to Wuhan panic, India might launch no rockets in 2020

10:21 am

The new colonial movement: Due to Wuhan panic, it is now possible that India’s space agency ISRO will launch no rockets in 2020, delaying all until 2021.

ISRO’s launch calendar has been heavily impacted by the pandemic, and there has been no launch from its spaceport, Sriharikota, this year. In fact, the only ISRO launch this year was G-SAT 30, but it was carried by a French rocket, Ariane, which took off from French Guiana on January 17. Although officials confirm that there may be around three to four launches before the year is over, they admit that the deadlines of several launches planned for the latter half of this year may slip into the next calendar year. This could have a cascading effect on the next year’s plans, too.

The article outlines in detail the status of many of India’s space projects, all of which seem stymied by the lock down restrictions that have been imposed. It also notes how other countries, such as China and the U.S., have not allowed the epidemic to shut them down as drastically.

India had hoped to complete a record twelve launches in 2020.

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