Tag: isro news

  • Space News Weekly Recap: India’s first personal spaceflight, ISRO Mars return, and extra

    ISRO’s plans for Mars return

    During a presentation on ISRO’s future missions, Anil Bharadwaj, Director of the Ahmedabad-based Physical Research Laboratory, introduced that the house company deliberate to ship a probe to the pink planet.

    According to the preliminary plans charted out by the Indian house company, it’s going to construct a lunar lander and rover that shall be put into orbit by a Japanese rocket, with a touchdown deliberate close to the south pole of the Moon. “The rover will then travel to the permanent shadow region of the moon which never sees sunlight,” Bhardwaj mentioned, stories PTI.

    Inspired by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the Mumbai-based Space Aura Aerospace Technology Pvt Ltd firm has begun to construct an area capsule measuring 10 ft x 8 ft, which might carry six vacationers apart from the pilot into house at a time. (Representational picture)
    Space Aura needs to ship house vacationers in balloon-propelled capsule

    Mumbai-based Space Aura has begun constructing an area capsule that measures 10 ft by 8 ft, capable of carry six vacationers and a pilot into house, based on PTI. The firm offered a prototype, named SKAP 1, throughout a science throughout an area convention held in Dehradun.

    The house capsule will reportedly be propelled by a balloon crammed with helium or hydrogen fuel, which might take it to as much as 25 kilometres above sea degree. At this peak, house vacationers can witness the Earth’s curvature and the blackness of house for round 1 hour, based on CEO Akash Porwal.

    ISRO’s Small Satellite Launch Vehicle pictured right here forward of its unsuccessful launch on August 7. India doesn’t but have a reusable rocket. (Image credit score: ISRO handout / PTI)
    ISRO’s first runway touchdown experiment of reusable launch car

    ISRO says it’s prepared for the primary runway touchdown experiment of its Reusable Launch Vehicle. (RLV) PTI stories that the RLV wing physique shall be carried to an altitude of three to 5 kilometres by helicopter and launched 4 to 5 kilometres away from the runway with horizontal velocity.

    If all goes based on plan, the RLV will glide, navigate in the direction of the runway and land autonomously utilizing its touchdown gear. New programs like touchdown gear, parachutes, hook beam meeting, a radar altimeter and pseudolite have reportedly already been developed and certified.

    The mission will assist the corporate take a look at its programs in house. (Source: @SkyrootA)
    India’s personal launch car’s maiden launch

    The Indian Express reported that Hyderabad-based Skyroot’s Vikram-S launch car is all set to go on its first flight between November 12 and November 16, from the spaceport in Sriharikota. The mission is known as “Prarambh” and can carry three business satellites into sub-orbital flight.

    “The Vikram-S rocket is a single-stage sub-orbital launch vehicle which will carry three customer payloads and help test and validate technologies in the Vikram series space launch vehicles,” mentioned Naga Bharath Daka, COO and co-founder of the corporate to The Indian Express.

    Artist’s impression of the James Webb Space Telescope in house. (Image credit score: NASA GSFC/CIL/Adriana Manrique Gutierrez)
    NASA works round JWST glitch

    NASA scientists had run right into a technical glitch with the James Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-Infrared instrument earlier this 12 months. Mission engineers have recognized the difficulty and have outlined new operational procedures to permit JWST to proceed science observations regardless of the glitch.

    The difficulty was with a grating wheel mechanism that helps Webb’s “medium-resolution spectroscopy” (MRS mode). Engineers found that the mechanism was exhibiting indicators of elevated friction. MRS mode was placed on maintain for some time until the engineers devised the brand new operational procedures.

    NASA engineer’s have secured the Artemis 1 mission’s SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft to guard them from the storm. (Image credit score: NASA / Twitter)
    Artemis 1 delayed, once more

    Tropical storm Nicole compelled NASA to as soon as once more postpone the scheduled launch date of its Artemis 1 mission. This time, the launch was shifted from November 14 to November 16. In the in the meantime, the Artemis 1 mission stack, which incorporates the SLS rocket and the Orion spacecraft, was left on the launch pad to climate the storm.

    According to the American house company, the SLS rocket can face up to speeds near 136 kilometres per hour or 74.4 knots. It can also be designed to endure heavy rains. To defend the Orion spacecraft, all of its hatches had been secured to make sure that water doesn’t enter.

    Through a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, three totally different moments in a far-off supernova explosion had been captured in a single snapshot by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA, ESA, STScI, Wenlei Chen (UMN), Patrick Kelly (UMN), Hubble Frontier Fields/Handout by way of REUTERS)
    Hubble captures stellar demise

    In a uncommon prevalence, the Hubble Space Telescope was capable of seize three pictures which documented a supernova in “blow-by-blow” element, based on a Reuters report. The distant star is about 530 instances the dimensions of our Sun and is about 11.5 billion years away. The pictures had been found throughout a assessment of Hubble’s archival knowledge from 2010.

    Hubble was capable of seize these pictures because of a phenomenon of gravitational lensing. The immense gravitational drive exerted by a galaxy cluster in entrance of the supernova labored like a lens, bending and magnifying the sunshine from the supernova behind it.

    This photograph supplied by NASA reveals a Northrop Grumman cargo ship about to be captured by the International Space Station’s robotic arm on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022. The capsule delivered greater than 8,000 kilos of provides to the International Space Station on Wednesday, regardless of a jammed photo voltaic panel. (NASA by way of AP)
    Cygnus reaches ISS with one photo voltaic panel

    A Cygnus spacecraft was capable of carry a number of tons of provides to the International Space Station regardless of a jammed photo voltaic panel. When one of many photo voltaic panels of the spacecraft was jammed, flight controllers tried to open it many instances to no avail. Finally, missions groups determined to go forward with out the second photo voltaic panel because the flight was managing to attract sufficient energy with only one.

    Space station crew took footage of the spacecraft because it approached to know what went unsuitable. According to Reuters, a chunk of particles from the Antares rocket which launched the spacecraft had grow to be lodged within the photo voltaic panel’s mechanism throughout liftoff. This was what prevented the second panel from deploying.

    Image credit score: NASA
    NASA completes LOFTID demonstration

    NASA efficiently accomplished the Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID) mission, which demonstrated expertise that would someday assist land people on Mars. The Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (HIAD) expertise was developed by the house company over greater than a decade.

    The whole HIAD system is foldable, packable and deployable, which implies that it takes up much less house on rockets in comparison with inflexible options. This additionally permits the design to be scalable. The massive dimension of the system additionally implies that it creates extra drag and begins the deceleration course of greater within the environment than typical options.

    Artist’s illustration of NASA’s CAPTONE spacecraft. (Image credit score: NASA Ames Research Centre/ Twitter)
    NASA’s CAPSTONE about to enter lunar orbit

    NASA says its CAPSTONE CubeSat is scheduled to enter the Moon’s orbit on November 13. The microwave-sized CubeSat weighing round 25 kilograms is designed to check a novel lunar orbit known as a close to rectilinear halo orbit, (NRHO) which could be very elongated and is situated at a exact stability level between the gravities of the Earth and the Moon.

    This orbit might assist future long-term missions like Gateway maintain a lunar orbit by spending a minimal quantity of vitality. Apart from the orbit, the CAPSTONE mission additionally demonstrates a key software program expertise— the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System (CAPS). CAPS makes use of a spacecraft-to-spacecraft navigation resolution that permits it to find out its location in house with out counting on monitoring from Earth.

  • Industry partnership in house sector: Private corporations ship flight-grade methods to Isro

    With a thrust in direction of privatisation of the house sector, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has thrown open the doorways for its RF (radio frequency) methods and electromagnetic actuator manufacturing to personal gamers via a government-owned, company-operated (GOCO) system. According to a launch, SFO Technologies from Thiruvananthapuram and Hical Technologies from Bengaluru have delivered flight-grade methods to the house company.

    With the shifting mandate of the house company specializing in scientific missions and growing new applied sciences, the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) selected the GOCO mannequin for these two methods. Earlier, the centre had efficiently tried the same mannequin for floor therapy of varied components.

    The RF packages and actuation methods are among the many most advanced in a launch automobile and their manufacturing is equally difficult. Making an RF system includes intricate frequency tuning, advanced integration and rigorous testing whereas making actuation methods requires advanced mechanical and electrical integration. Hence, these have predominantly remained an in-house exercise for Isro.

    RF methods are used for telemetry and telecommand features of an area mission. Three RF packages had been recognized for realization via the GOCO facility: Programmable S-Band Transmitter (PSBT), Solid-state C-Band Transponder and Digital Telecommand Receiver (DTCR). After coaching of the business companions, the work on the RF methods started in August final yr.

    Electromechanical actuators are used to regulate and information launch autos to make sure correct thrust management by alignment of nozzles in desired instructions. Twelve kinds of electromechanical actuators for PSLV, GSLV and GSLV Mk-III had been recognized for manufacturing in GOCO mode. Again, after coaching the business companions, the manufacturing started final January and the actuators began rolling out by August the identical yr.

  • PSLV lifts off with 600-kg Brazilian satellite tv for pc, 18 others

    The Indian Space Research Organisation’s workhorse rocket system, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), delivered its 53rd profitable mission on Sunday by launching Amazonia-1, a 637-kg business distant sensing satellite tv for pc for the Brazilian area analysis company INPE, and 18 co-passenger satellites.
    ISRO chairman Okay Sivan described the launch of the Amazonia-1 satellite tv for pc on the PSLV-C51 and its insertion right into a solar synchronous orbit as being “precise” on the finish of a 17.23-minute launch sequence on the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh on Sunday morning.
    Former Brazilian astronaut and Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation, Marcos Cesar Pontes, who was current on the launch with scientists from INPE, mentioned the profitable launch marks a “new era for Brazilian industry for satellite development in Brazil”.
    The Amazonia-1 distant sensing satellite tv for pc is the primary satellite tv for pc designed, developed and launched by the Brazilian area analysis company and is meant to observe deforestation and agricultural actions within the Amazon area in Brazil.
    The satellite tv for pc has been beneath growth in Brazil for almost 20 years.
    “We have been working on this satellite for many years and this is the culmination of all the efforts. The satellite has a very important mission for Brazil — first of all, to monitor the country, the Amazon and bio reserves in the country,” the minister Cesar Pontes mentioned after the launch.
    “India and ISRO feel extremely proud and honoured to launch the first satellite designed, integrated and operated by Brazil,” the ISRO chairman Okay Sivan mentioned.
    The launch on Sunday was additionally the primary full-fledged business satellite tv for pc launch for New Space India Limited (NSIL), a business arm of ISRO created in 2019 to commercialise ISRO analysis and capabilities. The NSIL has up to now had three launches involving auxiliary small satellites and the launch on Sunday is the primary involving a main business payload.
    The PSLV-C51 rocket with Amazonia-1 as the primary payload additionally carried 18 small satellites as co-passengers with 5 being Indian satellites and 13 from the US. Four of the co-passenger satellites have been signed for launch by IN-SPACe, ISRO’s small satellites facilitation company, and 14 have been signed up by NSIL for business launch.
    Among the 5 Indian small satellites launched on the PSLV-C51, three are UNITYsats constructed by college students from the Jeppiaar Institute of Technology, Sriperumbudur, G.H. Raisoni College of Engineering, Nagpur, and Sri Shakti Institute of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore, and a fourth one referred to as the Satish Dhawan Sat (SDSAT) was constructed by the agency Space Kidz India.
    The UNITYsats will present radio relay companies whereas the SDSAT, a nano satellite tv for pc, will examine radiation, area climate and exhibit long-range communication tech, ISRO mentioned.
    “These satellites are a result of the new space reforms announced by the government, and ISRO promoted and handheld the teams. I am sure this mission will enthuse other academic institutions and industries to build satellites,” the ISRO chairman mentioned.
    The fifth Indian satellite tv for pc on the launch was the Sindhu Netra, a business payload to exhibit know-how.

    The business small satellites from the US on board the PSLV-C51 have been SAI-1 Nano Connect 2, a know-how demonstrator, and 12 SpaceBEEs for two-way satellite tv for pc communication and knowledge relay.

    The PSLV-C51 launch was the 53rd flight of the PSLV and the third in a brand new energy configuration.

  • ISRO launches PSLV-C51 carrying Brazil’s Amazonia-1 and 18 different satellites

    For the primary time, a Brazilian satellite tv for pc was launched by an Indian rocket from Sriharikota spaceport on Sunday. This additionally marked Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) first launch of 2021.
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    Congratulating the Brazilian crew post-launch, ISRO Chief Ok Sivan mentioned, “In this mission, India and ISRO, feel extremely proud to launch the first satellite designed, integrated by Brazil. The satellite is in very good health. I congratulate the Brazilian team.”
    PSLV-C51 rocket, which is the 53rd mission of PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle), launched Amazonia-1 of Brazil as major satellite tv for pc and 18 co-passenger payloads from the primary launchpad of the Sriharikota spaceport in Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh. The blastoff was scheduled at 10.24 hours from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota, the place the countdown commenced at 08.54 hours on Saturday for the PSLV-C51/Amazonia-1 mission.

    #WATCH ISRO’s PSLV-C51 carrying Amazonia-1 and 18 different satellites lifts off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota pic.twitter.com/jtyQUYi1O0
    — ANI (@ANI) February 28, 2021
    These co-passenger satellites embody Satish Dhawan Sat (SD SAT) from Chennai-based Space Kidz India (SKI). A photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been engraved on the highest panel of this spacecraft. “This is to show solidarity and gratitude for his (PM’s) Aatmanirbhar initiative and space privatisation,” mentioned SKI, which can also be sending up “Bhagavad Gita” in SD (secured digital) card.

    PSLV-C51/Amazonia-1 can also be the primary devoted industrial mission of Bengaluru-headquartered ISRO’s industrial arm NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) which is endeavor it below an association with US-based satellite tv for pc rideshare and mission administration supplier Spaceflight Inc.

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    The 637-kg Amazonia-1, which is the primary Brazilian satellite tv for pc to be launched from India, is the optical earth commentary satellite tv for pc of National Institute for Space Research (INPE).”This satellite tv for pc would additional strengthen the prevailing construction by offering distant sensing knowledge to customers formonitoring deforestation within the Amazon area and evaluation of diversified agriculture throughout the Brazilian territory,” an ISRO assertion mentioned.
    (With inputs from PTI, ANI)