Tag: India

India rocket startup Agnikul raises $26.7 million in new private investment capital

9:01 am

The new colonial movement: The Indian rocket startup Agnikul has now raised an additional $26.7 million in private investment capital, bringing its total cash on hand now to about $40 million.

The company hopes to complete the first suborbital launch of its Vikram-S rocket in mid-November. If successful, it will be the second private rocket startup in India to do it, joining Skyroot, which did its first suborbital test flight last year. Both companies plan orbital versions of these rockets, and are also likely bidding to take over the SSLV (Small Satellite Launch Vehicle) rocket from India’s space agency ISRO. The Modi government is offering to literally give it to a private company to operate for profit.

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India schedules Gaganyaan launch abort test for October 21st

8:40 am

India’s space agency ISRO has now scheduled the first unmanned launch abort test of its Gaganyaan manned capsule for October 21, 2023.

The test Crew Module (CM), according to the statement, will be akin to the pressurized module that’ll hold crew members during their ascent to space — this version, however, will be unpressurized. It will be launched via a single-stage liquid rocket specifically developed for this mission that will simulate an abort scenario; the true CM, by contrast, will ride atop a 143-foot-tall (43.5-meter) Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM3) rocket with a solid stage, liquid stage and cryogenic stage. The latter recently received human safety certifications, R. Hutton, project director of the Gaganyaan mission, said during a conference last month.

At present ISRO is targeting 2024 for the first manned mission, but that target date remains very uncertain.

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India’s government confirms its policy to transition to private enterprise in space

9:47 am

Capitalism in space: In a presentation at the International Astronautical Congress in Baku yesterday, one high official from India confirmed the Modi’s government’s new policy to shift is space industry from government-controlled to privately-run.

“A transition is happening in India. We are moving from ISRO [India’s space agency] being the sole player in the space sector to the private sector taking on a more meaningful role,” Pawan Goenka, chairman of the Indian National Space Promotion Authorization Center (IN-SPACe), said at a forum at the 74th International Astronautical Congress in Baku, Oct. 5.

The Indian government approved the Indian Space Policy 2023 in April this year, which follows a number of developments in recent years. “What the Indian Space Policy did was take everything to do with space — satellite communication, remote sensing, space operations, transportation, navigation, everything — and put it into one comprehensive document only 12 pages long,” Goenka said. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words will sound very familiar to regular readers of this webpage. It describes what NASA has been doing for the past decade, and sums up precisely the recommendations put forth in my 2017 policy paper, Capitalism in Space.

IN-SPACe, the agency Goenka heads, has been tasked with fulfilling this task, and is thus in a direct turf war with ISRO, the space agency that has controlled all of India’s space effort for a half century. How that turf war will play out remains uncertain, though at present IN-SPACe and the Modi government appear to be winning.

It would likely help India’s private industry if the Modi government would make public that 12-page policy statement. So far it has either not released the text, or if it has it has made it impossible for me to find it.

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India successfully tests upgraded upper stage engine for manned mission

9:49 am

India’s space agency ISRO has now successfully completed full power static fire engine tests of a more power version of the upper stage engine used by the most powerful version of its GSLV rocket, the LVM3, thus preparing it to launch that nation’s first manned mission, dubbed Gaganyaan.

On September 22, 2023, this test was conducted at the state-of-the-art test facility located at IPRC, Mahendragiri. During this test, the CE20 engine operated at the coveted 22-tonne thrust level for a duration of 670 seconds. Both the engine and the testing facility performed flawlessly, meeting all the performance parameters.

ISRO is still targeting 2024 for the first manned mission, but that target remains somewhat uncertain, though less so as one-by-one the agency completes these performance tests successfully.

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India’s Aditya-L1 solar telescope initiates some science observations

9:18 am

According to India’s space agency ISRO, its Aditya-L1 solar telescope has begun science observations with one instrument, even as it continues its journey to its final position at L1, one million miles from the Earth.

The activation of STEPS occurred on September 10, 2023, at a distance exceeding 50,000 km from Earth. This distance equates to more than eight times the Earth’s radius, placing it significantly beyond the Earth’s radiation belt region. Following the successful completion of essential health checks for the instrument, the data collection process continued until the spacecraft had travelled beyond the 50,000 km mark from Earth.

All units of STEPS are currently operating within normal parameters. A graphical representation illustrates the measurements, showcasing fluctuations in the energetic particle environment within Earth’s magnetosphere, which were collected by one of the instrument’s units.

It is expected Aditya-L1 will reach L1 in January, where it will begin round-the-clock observations of the Sun, in parallel with NASA’s Soho telescope, which has been at L1 since the 1990s.

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23 Indian companies bid for ownership of ISRO’s SSLV rocket

10:39 am

In the Modi government’s push to transition its aerospace industry from one controlled by its space agency ISRO to one that is controlled by no one and is instead a competitive commercial market owned by private companies, it had recently proposed transferring ownership of ISRO’s SSLV rocket to a private company, and requested applications from private companies interested in doing so.

It now appears that twenty-three Indian companies have entered their names in the hat.

Chairman of Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) Pawan K Goenka said that they are keen to see how the private sector uses the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) technology. “There has been a tremendous response, 23 companies have (so far) shown interest in applying for this technology. Of course only one of them will get it,” he said.

IN-SPACe, an autonomous nodal agency under the Department of Space (DOS), formed in 2020 to promote, enable, authorise and supervise non-government entities (NGEs) to undertake space activities, had in July floated an Expression of Interest (EoI) for transfer of technology (ToT) of SSLV with the last date to respond to it being September 25.

“Technology transfer is something we are working on very aggressively, because we really want to see how ISRO’s technology is leveraged by private sector. A lot is happening in that area and the biggest one is of course SSLV technology transfer, where we are transferring the launch vehicle lock, stock, and barrel completely to the private sector,” Goenka said.

As there is still several weeks left before the deadline, it is possible other companies will submit offers. Whichever company gets the rocket will immediately become a significant player in the global launch market, able to offer a very cost effective rocket for commercial launches. It will certainly be able to match Rocket Lab right off the bat.

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Engineers had Vikram do short flight hop prior to shutting down

8:36 am

Indian engineers revealed today that prior to putting the Vikram lander to sleep for the long lunar night, they had the lander use its rocket engines to do a short up and down flight. From the first link:

“On command it (Vikram lander) fired the engines, elevated itself by about 40 cm as expected and landed safely at a distance of 30 to 40 cm away,” ISRO said in an update on ‘X’.

Before doing the hop engineers stored Vikram’s instruments and rover ramp, then redeployed them afterward to gather a tiny bit of new data before putting everything into hibernation.

The hop test proved that Vikram’s engines could be restarted even after being on the Moon for almost two weeks, and thus could potentially be used on a future sample return mission. It also suggested a future mission could choose to change its landing site periodically by use of its landing engines.

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Engineers place Pragyan into sleep mode

9:26 am

With lunar sunset looming, engineers have completed all work on both the lander Vikram and the rover Pragyan and have prepared Pragyan as best as possible to survive the long 14-Earth-day long lunar night.

Currently, the battery is fully charged. The solar panel is oriented to receive the light at the next sunrise expected on September 22, 2023. The receiver is kept on.

All data from Vikram’s instruments has been transmitted back to Earth, through the rover. It appears that the mission has been using the rover has the main communications relay, not the lander. It also appears there is no expectation of the lander surviving the lunar night.

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Pragyan rover moves more than 300 feet away from Vikram

11:01 am

Map of Pragyan's traverse
Click for original image.

India’s space agency ISRO today released a map, shown to the right, that shows the entire traverse so far completed by its Pragyan rover in the Moon’s high southern latitudes. It has so far traveled more than 100 meters, or 300 feet, and continues to operate as planned.

The part of the traverse just south of the Vikram lander is where the lander filmed the rover doing several quick maneuvers and a 360 degree spin as engineers tested its operation before heading out on a longer journey. The rover’s image of the crater that the rover avoided, though released first, was actually taken afterward, after the rover had moved to the west.

Lunar sunset is in two days. Though engineers are preparing both Vikram and Pragyan for hibernation during that long lunar night, neither was designed to survive that extreme environment.

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India successfully launches its first solar observation satellite

11:44 pm

India’s space agency ISRO tonight (September 2, 2023 in India) successfully used its PSLV rocket with six strap-on boosters to place in orbit its first solar observation satellite, Aditya-L1, lifting off from its coastal Sriharikota spaceport.

The spacecraft will eventually maneuver itself to the L1 point about one million miles closer to the Sun, where it will make continuous observations of the star’s visible hemisphere, using seven different instruments. Its observations will supplement those of the SOHO solar observatory (also located at the L1 point), which was launched in 1995 and is long overdue for replacement, or at least some redundancy.

For India, this was the seventh launch in 2023, which ties its previous annual launch high achieved in both 2016 and 2018. The country however has three more launches tentatively scheduled for this year, though none has as yet a specific launch date.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

60 SpaceX
38 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

In the national rankings, American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 69 to 38. It also leads the entire world combined, 69 to 62, while SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world (excluding American companies) 60 to 62. SpaceX however has launches scheduled for September 2nd and 3rd, so these numbers are likely to change.

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Vikram takes movie of Pragyan rover as it roves

9:30 am

Pragyan as seen by Vikram
Click for movie.

Using one of Vikram’s lander cameras, engineers have produced a short movie of India’s Pragyan rover as it rotated to avoid a small crater about ten feet ahead.

The picture to the right is from that 16-second movie, near its end. It appears that the engineers operating Pragyan were unhappy with almost any route ahead from its present position, as they rotated Pragyan almost 360 degrees, and even attempted forward motion at one point and then resumed rotation.

It is not clear if any of the craters visible in this picture are the crater that caused the detour. The movie however does provide a sense of scale. Pragyan is small, but it is able to maneuver easily using its six wheels.

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Both Vikram and Pragyan functioning as planned on the Moon

9:29 am

Pragyan on the Moon
Click to see full movie.

According to tweets from India’s space agency ISRO, both the Vikram lander and the Pragyan rover are functioning as planned on the lunar surface, with the rover successfully activating its two science instruments.

The image to the right, taken by Vikram, shows the rover as it completed its roll down the ramp onto the lunar surface. This is a screen capture from a movie showing that roll down, which you can see by clicking on the picture. Since then it has moved another 26 feet from the lander.

I must add once again that Vikram did not land “on the south pole”, as too many so-called news organizations have been falsely claiming. It landed at about 69 degrees south latitude, quite a distance from that pole, in a flat region with no permanently shadowed craters. It is not specifically looking for water, though its instruments might help explain the orbital data that suggests there are areas on the surface of the Moon where hydrogen is somehow present.

If so many news outlets can’t seem to get these very basic facts about this mission correct, one must ask what else do they get wrong routinely? I don’t ask, because I always assume their information is wrong, check it constantly, and find repeatedly that they get numerous basic facts incorrect, especially when it comes to reporting on politics.

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