Space

The future is out there

Tim Marshall's book sets out the dangers of the growing belligerence of astropolitics and the future race for space

Top Headlines: Mankind's quality assurance, India in space economy and more

Business Standard brings you the top headlines at this hour

Space start-up Skyroot conducts long duration test of its cryogenic engine

Private space tech start-up Skyroot Aerospace has achieved a major milestone by successfully test-firing a fully 3D-printed cryogenic engine for 200 seconds, the company said on Tuesday. The endurance test of 'Dhawan-II', using Skyroot's indigenously developed mobile cryogenic engine test pad, was carried out at Solar Industries propulsion test facility in Nagpur. It demonstrated impressive performance results, the Hyderabad-based company said in a statement. The achievement follows the November 2022 launch of Vikram-S, which made Skyroot the first Indian private company to send a rocket into space. The Dhawan-II engine builds on the foundation laid by Skyroot's first privately developed fully-cryogenic rocket engine, the 1.0 kN thrust Dhawan-I, which was successfully test fired in November 2021. "This is a major milestone for our cryogenic propulsion programme, which will enhance the payload capacity of Vikram series of space launch vehicles making them more modular so as to meet

Challenge to Elon Musk and OneWeb: Satellite rivals plan to merge

Should the union succeed, SES SA and Intelsat SA would create Europe's largest satellite company. They're both domiciled in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, one of the world's smallest countries

Policy vacuum

Govt must frame rules for space communication

James Webb Space Telescope captures swirling sand clouds on distant planet

Scientists have observed swirling motions of clouds of sand in the atmosphere of a distant planet, having a 22-hour day and orbiting two stars over a 10,000-year period. The international team of researchers, including those from the University of Exeter, UK, made the discovery using data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The researchers used the state-of-the-art telescope to study the motions of the clouds which were bringing hotter material up and pushing colder material down on the planetary mass companion VHS 1256 b, about 40 light-years away from Earth. Identifying for the first time the largest ever number of molecules at once on a planet outside our solar system, the team also discovered clear detections of water, methane and carbon monoxide with Webb's data, and found evidence of carbon dioxide. The study is published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. "This result speaks to the incredible combination of capabilities that is offered by JWST, and a huge amou

Indian space startup Pixxel bags US contract for hyperspectral imagery

Bengaluru-based space startup Pixxel has bagged a five-year contract for supplying technical hyperspectral imagery to United States' National Reconnaissance Organization (NRO). The Virginia-based NRO also awarded six study contracts for commercial hyperspectral imagery to five other companies -- BlackSky Technology, HyperSat, Orbital Sidekick, Planet, and Xplore. "The entire team here at Pixxel is excited to begin this journey with the NRO. We are fully committed to this fantastic opportunity to offer our imaging capabilities to the organisation, its partners, and the US geospatial intelligence community," Chief Executive Officer, Pixxel Space Technologies, Awais Ahmed, told PTI. He said Pixxel will provide technical hyperspectral imagery (HSI) remote sensing capabilities through modelling and simulation and data evaluation using its currently on-orbit pathfinder systems and future constellations. Ahmed said Pixxel will demonstrate its capabilities through end-to-end tasking, ...

UK govt powers up Rolls-Royce's plan to build N-reactor on moon

The UKSA said it wanted to establish a new power source to support systems for communications, life-support and scientific experiments on the Moon

NASA-SpaceX Crew-6 astronauts dock safely at ISS after hour-long delay

NASA-SpaceX's Crew-6 astronauts arrived safely at the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, after a 26-hour journey

Space telescope finds massive galaxies formed within 600 mn yrs of Big Bang

Astronomers have discovered what appear to be massive galaxies dating back to within 600 million years of the Big Bang, suggesting the early universe may have had a stellar fast-track that produced these monsters. While the new James Webb Space Telescope has spotted even older galaxies, dating to within a mere 300 million years of the beginning of the universe, it's the size and maturity of these six apparent mega-galaxies that stun scientists. They reported their findings Wednesday. Lead researcher Ivo Labbe of Australia's Swinburne University of Technology and his team expected to find little baby galaxies this close to the dawn of the universe not these whoppers. While most galaxies in this era are still small and only gradually growing larger over time, he said in an email, there are a few monsters that fast-track to maturity. Why this is the case or how this would work is unknown. Each of the six objects looks to weigh billions of times more than our sun. In one of them, the

3,500 students participate in India's first hybrid sounding rocket

Martin Foundation in association with Dr APJ Abdul Kalam International Foundation and Space Zone India successfully completed the project known as Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Satellite Launch Vehicle Mission 2

ISRO conducts initial trials of human space mission crew module recovery

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Indian Navy carried out initial recovery trials of the crew module as a part of the former's human space mission tests

Global space economy to reach $1 trn in coming years: Ex-Isro chief

Former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) A S Kiran Kumar on Tuesday said the global space economy would reach USD 1 trillion-mark in the coming years which would provide a huge opportunity for the country's youth. Kumar was speaking at the third convocation of Karnavati University at its campus in Uvarsad village of Gandhinagar district as the Guest of Honour. "Space economy, expected to grow to USD one trillion in coming years, is beckoning India to build on its current technological capability and become a significant player and benefit in the process," the former ISRO chief said. India is transforming itself from a space-capable country to a country with space technology capacity and this would bring huge opportunities for the country's youth, he said. India is one of the few countries with end-to-end capability of building rockets, satellites and payloads despite the fact that "technology and its access were denied or restricted" to it in the early ...

Truck-sized asteroid misses Earth, passes closer than some satellites

Asteroid 2023 BU whizzed past without incident and back out into space

Three major launches in next 3 months, says ISRO chairman S Somanath

The Indian Space Research Organisation has planned three major rocket launches in the next three months, its chairman S Somanath said here on Wednesday

Richard Branson's Cosmic Girl fails to put UK into orbit; Virgin sinks 30%

For Virgin Orbit the failure represents a more material setback, with the stock plunging close to 30 per cent in after-hours US trading

The sun to moon: India's space sector is gearing up for an eventful 2023

This year will see missions to study the sun and the moon, and a raft of startups are gearing up to take India's space initiatives forward

South Korea conducts test flight of solid-fuel space vehicle successfully

South Korea on Friday successfully conducted a test flight of a solid-fuel space launch vehicle, the defence ministry said, nine months after its first test of the homegrown rocket.

IN-SPACe inks pact with deep tech startup to develop satellite QKD products

The Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bangaluru-based deep tech startup QNu Labs to develop indigenous Satellite QKD (quantum key distribution) products. With this MoU, QNu Labs, with the support of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and IN-SPACe, aims to demonstrate unlimited distance Satellite QKD based quantum secure communication, according to a joint statement on Tuesday. Terrestrial QKD systems have the limitation of requirement of repeaters every 100-150 kms, which is a big hindrance in creating a large-scale Quantum Secure Network, it was noted. "With Satellite QKD capability, India holds the potential to become a world leader in creating Quantum Secure Communication Network", the statement said. "The outcome of this collaboration shall ensure that India leads the future of global quantum communication networks that will involve a combination of the quantum-satellite constellation,

K-pop star among 8 to join Japan tycoon Yusaku Maezawa's moon trip

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said Friday that K-Pop star T.O.P. will be among the eight people who will join him on a flyby around the moon on a SpaceX spaceship next year. The Japanese tycoon launched plans for the lunar voyage in 2018, buying all the seats on the spaceship. He began taking applications from around the world in March 2021 for what will be his second space journey after his 12-day trip to the International Space Station on the Soyuz Russian spaceship last year. The eight people Maezawa selected for his dearMoon project are T.O.P., who debuted as a lead rapper for the K-Pop group Big Bang; American DJ Steve Aoki; filmmaker Brendan Hall and YouTuber Tim Dodd, also of the United States. The other four are British photographer Karim Illiya, Indian actor Dev Joshi, Czech artist Yemi AD and Irish photographer Rhiannon Adam. American Olympic snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington and Japanese dancer Miyu were chosen as backups. T.O.P.'s real name is Choi Seung-hyun. The ...