Welcome to Indian Space News, your go-to source for the latest updates on India’s space program, including ISRO missions. Our blog covers everything from satellite launches to space exploration missions, and we’re dedicated to bringing you accurate and up-to-date information about the Indian Space Research Organisation. Whether you’re a space enthusiast or just curious about the latest developments in Indian space technology, you’ll find something of interest here. Join us
Sivan, likewise the secretary, Branch of Room, encouraged the new alumni to take up 'determined danger' in their life as it might protect them from 'supreme disappointment'.
"As India keeps on zeroing in on financial development, it needs to guarantee that ecological harm is restricted by embracing green advancements.
ISRO has made space grade lithium-particle batteries and this innovation is helpful for mass appropriation of electric vehicle", he noted.
On the green fuel, Sivan stated, "Even in the rocket propulsion, ISRO is creating green propulsion for its human space flight mission.
In future, all the propulsion stages may receive green propulsion," he said.
As per ISRO, polar satellite dispatch vehicle (PSLV) a confided in workhorse of the space researchers - is a four phase rocket loaded up with fuel which pushes the rocket to guarantee that the satellite it conveys is put in the planned circle.
GSLV or a geo-writing material dispatch vehicle (GSLV) is a three phase rocket with a cryogenic upper stage.
The Bengaluru-settled space organization had intended to dispatch its lady human space flight mission 'Gaganyaan' by December 2021.
In any case, early this month, ISRO demonstrated that it is probably going to be deferred by one year because of the effect of Coronavirus pandemic.
Tending to understudies through virtual stage, the ISRO boss urged them to face up determined challenge as it would protect them from 'supreme disappointment.'
"You may fizzle, yet every disappointment would give a significant exercise.
I can say with extraordinary certainty that India's space program has been based on awesome disappointments and every disappointment has brought about enhancements in our framework", he said.
Chandrayaan-2 Mission's Initial Data Released: ISRO
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The Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) has delivered the main arrangement of information from the eight instruments on board India's second lunar mission Chandrayaan-2. The orbiter, which has finished sixteen months around the moon in lunar circle, was dispatched on July 22, 2019 and embedded into the lunar circle on August 20.
On finish of one year of the orbiter being in space, Isro had said that the shuttle was 'sound', execution of subsystems were typical, and there was satisfactory locally available fuel to stay operational for around seven years.
Here is all you require to think about the orbiter:
- Chandrayaan-2, depicted as the most intricate mission ever embraced by Isro, cost not exactly a large portion of the financial plan of Hollywood blockbuster 'Vindicators Endgame'. The complete expense of the mission is assessed at 124 million US dollars, while the film has an expected financial plan of near 356 million US dollars.
The mission made India the fourth country after the United States, Russia and China to land a rocket on the Moon.
- Chandrayaan-2 comprised of three missions clubbed together – the orbiter that would hover around the moon, the Vikram lander that was to make a delicate arriving close to the south pole of the moon, and the Pragyan meanderer that was to investigate the lunar surface and notice water ice. The lander and meanderer were demolished during the endeavored arriving in September, 2019.
The lander of Chandrayaan 2, 'Vikram', was named after the pioneer of India's space program, physicist Dr Vikram Sarabhai.
- The information from seven out of the eight instruments was gathered by the Indian Space Science Data Center at Karnataka's Byalalu, where it was set up in the Planetary Data System 4 (PDS4) design for public delivery prior to being peer-surveyed deductively. It was then delivered through the PRADAN entry facilitated by ISSDC at https://pradan.issdc.gov.in
On completion of one year of the orbiter being in space, Isro had said that the spacecraft was ‘healthy’, performance of subsystems were normal, and there was adequate onboard fuel to remain operational for about seven years.
Chandrayaan-2
The Chandrayaan-2 mission was successfully launched on 22nd July 2019 at 14:43 hrs by GSLV MkIII-M1 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota. After a series of Earth bound manoeuvres, the spacecraft entered into Lunar Transfer Trajectory (LTT) on August 14th. Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) manoeuvre was performed on August 20th, thereby Chandrayaan-2 was successfully inserted into the elliptical orbit around the Moon. This was followed by a series of Lunar bound orbit maneuvers for reducing the orbit to circular polar orbit around the Moon.
On September 2nd, Vikram lander separated from the Orbiter and de-orbiting maneuver was performed to reduce the orbit to 35 km x 101 km. Vikram landing was attempted on 7th September and it followed the planned descent trajectory from its orbit of 35 km to around 2 km above the surface. Communication with lander and ground station was lost. All the systems and sensors of the Lander functioned excellently until this point and proved many new technologies such as variable thrust propulsion technology used in the Lander. However, the Orbiter is healthy and all the payloads are operational.
Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter is currently in a 100 km x 100 km orbit around the Moon, carries 8 experiments for studies ranging from surface geology and composition to exospheric measurements that would continue to build upon the understanding from previous lunar missions.
Chandrayaan-2 Large Area Soft X-ray Spectrometer (CLASS) is an X ray fluorescence (XRF) experiment on board Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter to map the elemental abundances of the major rock forming elements on the lunar surface. The operating energy range 0.8 keV to 15 keV covers the XRF lines from Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Ti and Fe as well as Na, Cr etc which may be detected. The spatial resolution is 12.5 km x 12.5 km from a 100 km orbit. In order to convert the XRF line flux to abundances, the incident solar spectrum is measured simultaneously with the X ray Solar Monitor (XSM) payload onboard Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter."
Solar X-ray Monitor (abbreviated as XSM)
XSM is a scientific instrument on-board the orbiter of Chandrayaan-2 mission. XSM, along with another instrument CLASS, comprise a scientific experiment known as remote X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. It provides the measurement of soft X-ray spectrum from Sun, which is used for the quantitative analysis of the Lunar X-ray fluorescence measurements by CLASS to obtain estimate of the elemental composition of Lunar surface on global scale. XSM instrument employs Silicon Drift Detector (SDD) to cover the X-ray energy range of 1-15 keV with a spectral resolution of better than 180 eV at 5.9 keV. XSM also incorporates an innovative moving mechanism in order to cover the wide range of intensities of X-rays during large solar flares. Apart from providing support to CLASS experiment, the high cadence X-ray spectral measurements during wide range of Solar flare classes will be useful in improving our understanding of the Solar corona.
The Imaging Infra-red Spectrometer (IIRS)
IIRS is an imaging hyperspectral instrument studying for mineralogy of lunar surface (including the hydroxyl signature). IIRS operates in the 800 - 5000 nm spectral range with about 256 contiguous bands. It has 80m ground sampling distance (GSD) and 20km swath at nadir from 100km orbit altitude. Optical design is based on the TMA as fore-optics and Offner (convex multi-blazed grating) based spectrometer. Focal plane array (FPA) is HgCdTe (MCT) based actively cooled to 90K, having 500 x 256 pixels format with 30μm pixel size.
The dual frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (DFSAR)
SFSAR a microwave imaging instrument, is configured with L-band (1.25GHz) and S-band (2.5GHz) SAR systems with resolution capability from 2m to 75m (slant-range). It is designed to operate in fully- polarimetric and hybrid-polarimetric modes to enable unambiguous detection of water-ice on the lunar poles. The unique combination of simultaneous L- and S-band polarimetric SAR operation is expected to provide quantitative estimation of water-ice over the lunar-poles.
Chandrayaan-2 Dual-Frequency SAR
SAR is bringing out lunar surface and sub-surface physical characteristics by operating in various modes, such as: High resolution with 2m slant-range (one-order better than previously flown lunar-radars), Full-polarimetric mode (first-ever in any planetary mission), L-band hybrid-polarimetry (first L-band operation on the Moon).
An Orbiter high resolution camera (OHRC)
is a very high spatial resolution camera operating in visible panchromatic (PAN) band. OHRC’s primary goal is to image landing-site region prior to landing for characterization and finding hazard-free zones. Post landing operation of the OHRC will be for scientific studies of small-scale features on lunar surface. Ground sampling distance (GSD) and swath of OHRC (in nadir view) are 0.25m and 3km respectively, from 100 km altitude.
Terrain Mapping Camera-2 (TMC-2)
TMC 2 is a follow-on of the TMC onboard Chandrayan-1 TMC-2 payload is configured to provide panchromatic images (0.4μm to 0.85μm) in 5m spatial resolution and stereo triplets (fore, nadir and aft views) from 100 km circular orbit around moon for preparing detailed 3-D map or Digital Elevation model (DEM) of the complete lunar surface (especially the smaller objects like craters, riles, flow structures, smaller graben forms). DEM derived from TMC-2 will be used for detail morphometric analysis of lunar surface.
CHACE 2 is a quadrupole mass spectrometer based payload in the orbiter segment of the Chandrayaan 2 mission of India. The scientific objective of this instrument is to study the neutral composition of the tenuous lunar exosphere. The CHACE-2 instrument, apart from having a quadrupole mass filter, also has a Bayard Alpert gauge to measure the total pressure. CHACE-2 derives its heritage from the MENCA payload aboard the Mars Orbiter Mission.
The Dual Frequency Radio Science (DFRS)
DFRS experiment aboard Chandrayaan-II uses communication channel between Orbiter and ground in Radio Occultation mode to study the temporal evolution of electron density in the Lunar ionosphere. It consists of a highly stable 20 MHz EMXO source, having a stability of the order of 10-11, which generates two coherent signals at X (8496 MHz), and S (2240 MHz) band of radio frequencies. The coherent radio signals, transmitted simultaneously from satellite, and received at ground based deep station network receivers would be used to study temporal and spatial variations in the Lunar ionosphere. the major science objectives of the experiments include, (a) to study the variations in the ionosphere/ atmosphere at Moon , (b) to explore if the Ionosphere at Moon is omnipresent or has episodic appearances and, (c) to confirm the source of the ions in the lunar ionosphere, whether dusty or molecular ions. According to the experiment, every two hours we will get one ingress and then one egress observations.
Under the public authority's new space area controller, IN-SPACe, the private startup has consented to an arrangement with ISRO for its first little satellite dispatch vehicle, Agnikul; ISRO, then, reported a deferred in its Gaganyaan monitored space mission.
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India in Space This Month: First Private Indian Space Shuttle, ISRO Gaganyaan Delayed
Agent picture. (Photograph: ISRO)
India is one of the significant individuals from space missions around the globe, with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) driving the country to spearhead Mangalyaan and Chandrayaan space missions as of now. Normally, there is critical interest in this area, and this month, two significant updates have come from the space area in India. The first relates to India's first private space startup concurrence with ISRO, while the second attests to the effect that the Covid pandemic has had across businesses as ISRO declared a deferral in its preliminary missions for Gaganyaan – India's first human spaceflight venture.
Agnikul and ISRO's agreement
Recently, on December 3, Chennai-based startup Agnikul Cosmos declared that it has consented to a non-exposure arrangement with India's headspace association, ISRO, to help build up the country's first secretly created and worked little satellite dispatch vehicle. The last mentioned, which the startup calls Agnibaan, will pick up a significant edge by drawing specialized ability from ISRO, alongside ISRO's offices, in its undertakings.
The declaration is the first of its sort after the Indian government opened up the space area for private players and set up IN-SPACe, an administrative body that will administer privately owned business support in India's space area. The Agnibaan dispatch vehicle will work just for little satellite dispatches and uses a semi-cryogenic motor at its center. Its satellite payloads can reach out a limit of 100kg, and it can send these satellites in low-Earth circles somewhere in the range of 160km and 1,000km above Earth.
A Bloomberg-Quint report expresses that Agnikul has just raised $4 million, or near Rs, 30 crores, from different speculators across two financings adjusts. It additionally expresses that ISRO, alongside the startup, will cooperatively pursue building up the Agnibaan dispatch vehicle and prepared it for dispatch as ahead of schedule as 2022.
ISRO Gaganyaan delay
While Agnibaan's 2022 dispatch course of events came as a lift for the startup, ISRO itself has reported that the Covid-19 pandemic has caused a postponement in its Gaganyaan mission's at first focused on dispatch timetable. ISRO boss K. Sivan expressed to the PTI that Gaganyaan is among one of its key missions that are being postponed because of Covid-19. Among other ISRO ventures that are confronting a deferral because of Covid-19 is Aditya-L1, India's first mission to the sun.
Sivan has expressed that while the first of the two uncrewed preliminary missions for Gaganyaan was booked for December 2020, that is presently being rescheduled to "some time one year from now end, or the ensuing year." This basically implies that the main preliminary mission for Gaganyaan may now be embraced just some time in 2022. The underlying course of events spread out for Gaganyaan focused on the main preliminary dispatch in December 2020, trailed constantly preliminary mission in June 2021.
The principal human spaceflight mission under Gaganyaan was required to make history and take off before the finish of 2021. That course of events currently looks set to be postponed until at any rate the finish of 2022, or even past. Such deferrals, however, are not unnatural in the space area. Given the affectability of these activities, combined with the requirement for ultra high accuracy designing, space missions frequently observe certain defers that expand well past only one year.
Taking everything into account, 2022 has all the earmarks of being a possibly fundamental year for India in space, where the two its first human spaceflight and its first private spaceflight may occur.
The nation may launch its first crewed Gaganyaan in 2023.
GAGANYAAN MISSION ISRO
So far, sending humans into space has been limited to the space programs of only three countries: the U.S., Russia (inheriting that of the former Soviet Union), and, joining them in the 21st century, China. But a fourth is poised to follow: the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), India's space exploration agency.
ISRO isn't afraid to dream big. The agency's head, K. Sivan, has talked about space stations and moonwalks. ISRO hopes that the long arc toward those goals can begin with its first program of crewed missions, Gaganyaan (derived from Sanskrit, meaning "sky-vehicle"). But Gaganyaan's timetable remains murky — largely thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Certainly, all the pieces are coming into place. ISRO's first four would-be space travelers recently spent about a year in Russia, familiarizing themselves with old Soyuz capsules and simulating spaceflight conditions in centrifuges and pressure chambers. Now, they've returned to India, where they'll begin training on the Gaganyaan capsule itself. To ensure that its space travelers are in good health, ISRO unveiled an agreement with its French counterpart in April. India and France have a long history of space cooperation, and France has plenty of space medicine knowledge that it has previously brought to programs like the International Space Station.
"It is only logical that Indian flight medical professionals train and learn from the French," Mukund Kadursrinivas Rao, chief executive of the Centre for Spatial Analytics and Advanced GIS in Bangalore, India, told Space.com.
ISRO hopes that such international partnerships will help build up the technology it needs to send up humans for the long term. To wit, ISRO has unveiled Indian space food and a humanoid robot for uncrewed flights. Rao says that, closer to home in India, ISRO has tested other key aspects of Gaganyaan, such as its launch abort and re-entry systems.
But looming over all of it is the tragic specter of COVID-19; India is now reopening after a debilitating second wave of the disease. ISRO had dedicated some of its resources to helping the country's strained healthcare system supply liquid oxygen and medical equipment. In the meantime, many of the agency's employees had to stay at home. "That was a difficult step, I think," Rao said, explaining that it disrupted important tasks like assembling and testing the spacecraft, activities that need to be done in person.
"There are also many industries contributing to the missions, and they too would be affected," Rao said. Plans called for the Gaganyaan program to kick off with two uncrewed test launches, the first set for December 2021. That date has come and gone; now, it appears the first launch will occur near the end of 2022, with the second coming in 2022. After that, the third Gaganyaan mission would carry ISRO's historic first spacefarers to orbit. At least some Indian government officials wanted that crewed launch to take off in August 2022, around the 75th anniversary of modern India's independence. But a government minister recently said it won't happen before 2023.
A one-piece that remains is ensuring that the spacecraft — and the spacefarers on board — are never out of contact with controllers on Earth. ISRO's ground stations are concentrated in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia. To patch in the rest of the globe, ISRO is planning to launch a pair of data-relay satellites. Such spacecraft will be crucial even for the uncrewed missions, according to Rao.
Gaganyaan isn't ISRO's only project to face delays. ISRO's next moon mission, Chandrayaan-3 — which seeks to put a rover on the moon after its last attempt crashed on the lunar surface in September 2019 — was scheduled to take off later in 2021. Now, it seems to have slipped into 2022.
VYOMANAUT
Indian astronauts will be called vyomanauts.
The Indian Space Agency, ISRO, may not be the most well-known space agency across the world. However, even with a small budget and a late start compared to other countries, its achievements have been remarkable. From sending 104 satellites in a single rocket to inserting a probe in a Martian orbit on their first attempt, India is quickly becoming a global player in the space scene. And whereas space agencies like NASA or ESA have budgets of billions of dollars, ISRO has successfully completed interplanetary missions at a fraction of the price.
Next up for ISRO is the ambitious Gaganyaan mission, which will be India’s first manned space venture. So, what exactly does ISRO hope to achieve with the Gaganyaan mission? Will this be the forerunner of bigger and better things?
we will investigate the details of the Gaganyaan mission, and what the Indian Space Agency hopes to achieve in the future. Rakesh Sharma is the first and the only Indian citizen to travel in space up until this point. He was a part of the Soyuz T-11 mission, which was a collaboration between ISRO and the Soviet space program all the way back in 1984. During this mission, he stayed aboard the Salyut 7 space station, a tiny space station that existed back in the 1980s. Since then, there have been plans for further manned missions from India itself.
One such mission began in 2006, but the project never took off due to low funding, meaning it never passed the initial planning stages. Fortunately, however, ISRO's success in space science over the past decade has led to a renewed interest in a manned mission.
All going well, this will be the next breakthrough for the space agency. In fact, this goal was confirmed by India’s Prime Minister, as one of his commitments since being in power has been to send Indians to space again by 2022, and this time independently from any other space agency. So, how will they go about doing this? Well, the initial plan is that ISRO’s pride and joy, the GSLV MKIII Launch vehicle, will take the Gaganyaan spacecraft into a low Earth orbit. Gaganyaan will be a fully autonomous spacecraft, designed to carry two or three astronauts into a low earth orbit at 400km altitude for seven days. The spacecraft consists of a crew module, where the astronauts stay; and a service module that contains a variety of support systems. The spacecraft itself will be propelled by two liquid-propellant engines. These two modules combined make up the orbital module, which can provide life-support to the crew for seven days before they splash down in the ocean. This will be an impressive feat, seven days in space is quite a long time for a simple capsule.
Generally speaking, capsules transporting astronauts have only ever needed to make short trips, for instance, the Russians have docked with the ISS in only 6 hours after take-off, and even for longer trips, it takes at most about 2-3 days.
GAGANYAAN flights
To meet the 2022 deadline, ISRO has two unmanned test launches planned for December 2021 and July 2022 respectively. The two unmanned flights will help ensure that everything functions correctly - including the environment control in the modules and to test whether the capsule will remain safe for humans during the duration of the journey.
Dr. V R Lalithambika, director, human spaceflight program, during a unique meeting on Gaganyaan at the International Conference and Exhibition On Space — Ushering The New Era In Indian Space Sector, coordinated by the CII, said on Thursday, "There has been an enormous public interest among young people in the Gaganyaan mission.
GAGANYAAN mission director
GAGANYAAN mission director V. R. Lalithambika
Dr. V R Lalithambika, director, human spaceflight program, during a unique meeting on Gaganyaan at the International Conference and Exhibition On Space — Ushering The New Era In Indian Space Sector, coordinated by the CII, said on Thursday, "There has been an enormous public interest among young people in the Gaganyaan mission.
Indian astronauts will be called vyomanauts.
“vyomanauts”
1. It is a word derived from the Sanskrit language.
2. Sanskrit for sky or space is “ Vyoma “.
3. It was also proposed to call them “ Gagnauts “.
4. Hindi for sky is “ gagan “.
But vyomanauts is accepted by ISRO for calling space travelers from India.
So the accepted term is “ vyomanauts”.
Name of the robot that India sent to space before Gaganyaan
Vyommitra
Vyommitra
Human space flight simply has to be a serious step up in complexity and thoroughness compared to robotic missions, as there’s a lot more at stake should a manned mission fail. Additionally, ISRO has developed a female humanoid robot named “Vyommitra”. This humanoid robot will be a part of both the manned and unmanned missions of Gaganyaan. During the uncrewed missions, Vyommitra can mimic human functions and will record parameters such as blood pressure and heart rate. Vyommitra will also be able to recognize and understand astronauts, and ISRO hopes to see if she can be of help to them during the manned mission. Other space companies see the value in a robotic colleague too. Recently, SpaceX sent an anthropomorphic test dummy named “Ripley” to mimic human functions, similar to Vyom Mitra.
candidates
In January 2020, ISRO shortlisted 4 men who are going to be a part of the Gaganyaan mission. The four candidates have already begun their 12-month training at Gagarin Research & Test Cosmonaut Training Centre, Russia. Now, of course, humanity already has a lot of experience in LEO, so this mission is less of a scientific mission, rather more of a technology demonstration mission.
GAGANYAAN future
However, it is an important first step for ISRO and its future independent missions, which will include Chandrayaan-3, ISRO’s third mission to the moon, and Shukrayaan-1, its first attempt at a mission to Venus. ISRO even hopes to one day build its own space station. So, there we have it, a look at some of the exciting missions that will be coming from India. Personally, I think this is a good thing for the space sector. Competition breeds innovation, and if India can make space travel safe and cheap, it can benefit the world going forward.
