Introduction

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is one of the government organisations respected by the larger Indian public. For a young country like India, having a space programme is significant. The citizens not being against it at large is a cherry on top. But this was not always true. Only recently have space activities and ISRO become known in households. Until 2008, when Chandrayaan 1 was launched, all I remember about ISRO was learning facts about which satellite was launched this month for my general knowledge class in school. It was not inspiring but rather an extra piece of knowledge to be crammed in.

ISRO, on the other hand, has been achieving great heights since its inception by Dr. Vikram Sarabhai in the year 1969. Dr. Sarabhai was a visionary. His imprints are left in a wide variety of industries in India. Space is the biggest one, as recognized by him being the father of the Indian space program. He wanted our space program to help improve the daily lives of common citizens by providing communication, weather updates, etc. This is why ISRO, though not much younger than NASA, never ventured into space exploration until 2008 with Chandrayaan-1.

Mr. Praful Bhavsar is the author of these lines in Dr. Sarabhai’s biography: Vikram Sarabhai: The Man and the Vision. I have always focused on the words ‘encourage young people to go abroad.’ He created an atmosphere for these students to return. ISRO is no longer doing that. As an aerospace student from India, studying in the US, I am always asked if I would work for ISRO, and my answer is no. There are many factors to it. Having explained them many times, I felt it was better to write them out to the community, and I hope it will start the debate to bring change. There have been some debates in the past, but those seemed fueled by emotion rather than rationality.

ISRO has improved in many aspects in the past few years since I thought about writing this article in 2021. The website has readily accessible information on how to join and the various pathways. The social media presence has improved considerably, though it fizzles down from time to time. ISRO recognizes past achievements and celebrates them on social media. There have been considerable improvements in space contests for all students from middle school to undergraduates. ISRO’s collaboration with other space agencies and international conferences has also increased. All these positives make me hopeful for the future at ISRO.

Joining ISRO

Let's start by asking how one can join ISRO. There are multiple options depending on your education level. As an aerospace engineering student, I would only talk about STEM jobs. I am aware of the following pathways to ISRO:

• On-campus placements in IIT, NIT, and IIST

• ICRB Examination

• Vacancies at different centers

• PhD scholars’ live register

• Post-doctoral fellowships at PRL, IIST, etc.

As mentioned on the FAQ page on the ISRO website, ISRO only hires based on requirements. If ISRO requires a combustion engineer to work on solid motors, they will hire for that post. While this is good, the problem arises when they hire without considering the applicant’s background. Especially during campus placements, you could have spent your 4-5 years of bachelor’s building a profile in rocket propulsion design, but then been hired to do mechanical failure analysis. Similarly, the ICRB examination doesn’t consider your background profile either.

I don't know about the vacancies at different centers as advertised on the website, but these seem to be only for technical assistant/scientific assistant posts with a diploma, a BSc., or an equivalent degree. I haven’t looked into this option in depth.

The PhD scholars’ live register, while a good idea at its base, has its own flaws. Scholars are expected to register on the portal and then await the possibility that someday they will be contacted by ISRO for a job. What are you expected to do in the meantime? If someone starts another job and is contacted after 2-3 years, why should they leave their existing job to join ISRO?

Finally, the post-doctoral fellowships are done right. I do not have any major gripes with these opportunities. However, what are these fellows expected to do once the fellowship period ends? I could not find any future career for post-doctoral fellows to join ISRO. These fellows would have the highest experience and should be added to ISRO’s career progression line. This brings us to the next point: career progression.

Career Progression

ISRO’s website clearly states the career progression strategy. Let’s look at the one for the Scientist/Engineer position.

You can only be promoted to a higher post based on years at ISRO. Sure, there are reports and interviews, but you are still constrained by years. A person could work with minimal effort and get promoted after 4/6 years. There is no motivation for a good performance. A friend of mine, who joined ISRO through campus placement, said that 80% of the work is done by 20% of the motivated workforce.

In this current economy, people change jobs within 2-3 years for promotion to a higher salary tier. All my colleagues from IITs are used to this. Young professionals want rewards for their motivation and hard work, not for their loyalty to staying at a company for their entire career. ISRO must start hiring at any tier and change its old career progression model. A professor with years of experience should be able to join at a higher tier, and a motivated scientist with higher performance should be able to be promoted more efficiently.

Language Alienation

Most ISRO centers are located in southern India. There are many good reasons for this, like the vicinity of the coastal region for launch. India’s diversity of languages is vast. Each smaller region within a state speaks a different dialect of various languages. Most of the center's workforce is populated by locals. They would interact in the local language.

While working on my master’s thesis, I visited Vikram Sarabhai Space Center (VSSC) several times. I realized that I never needed to know the local language while working. Everyone could easily communicate with each other for work. The problem arose during lunch and tea breaks. Everyone seemed to talk to each other in the local languages, and I felt alienated. It felt like I would never be able to get close to my colleagues.

I understand that ISRO is not responsible for this. I don’t think there is a simple solution to such a large, nationwide problem. Hopefully, with more regional centers, everyone in the country will have a possible center at which to work. One reason this alienation is amplified is related to my next concern: secrecy.

Secrecy

ISRO is a public organization run with taxpayers' money. It is also one of the few civil space agencies in the world. I understand space has defense uses, and international concerns always highlight secrecy for important missions. However, ISRO is too secret.

Whenever I visited ISRO, we could not take any of our devices (mobile or laptop) inside. Moreover, the group we visited only had access to the internet on one device. I am primarily a modelling and simulation engineer. While writing any code, I must be referring to forums like Stack Overflow 100s of times daily. No internet access bars me from doing that. This is only one of the many problems that arise with this secrecy.

I do not understand the point behind this level of security. I have visited NASA centers as a foreign national with all my devices on me. Of course, there are limits to when you can take pictures. You are not allowed to enter any building or room without keycard access. Therefore, they maintain a level of security, but ISRO goes beyond what is necessary. It borders on being too restrictive.

Indian Space Ecosystem

While these three points: no interest/resume-based recruitment, slow career progression, and unwarranted secrecy, have made me averse to joining ISRO, there are a few more overall space research and industry ecosystem issues that need to be addressed.

The Indian Space Ecosystem, for a long time, only consisted of ISRO and industries partnered with ISRO. With InSpace and the government push since 2020, now, we have a lot of startups in space technology and education. One key component still missing is research and development at universities and other national labs. Especially in the field of planetary science, universities need to learn from the astrophysics community and build a similar network of labs and research groups. A rich interconnected ecosystem with industry, startups, universities, and national labs is really important for the growth of a healthy individual, as these provide more job opportunities, and they all build on each other.

ISRO, in recent years, has also made advances towards this ecosystem development, along with a push towards start-ups. There are many more conferences in India, such as GLEX and the Indian Space Congress. The RESPOND basket and Research Areas in Space documents are being updated regularly. Hopefully, this means ISRO is serious about research and development with academia, as my experience of working with ISRO in academia during my master’s was not very good.

Improvements

To conclude the article, I do believe ISRO has improved on a lot of fronts in the past few years, but there is so much more room for improvement.

Recruitment

The biggest need of the hour is to change the recruitment structure. The ISRO workforce is already depleting. Programs like NASA’s Pathways and recruitments at higher levels based on experience need to be implemented. While there are now competitions like CANSAT and Rocketry which promote students to learn rocket science, if you are going to recruit based on an exam, they are not going to help.

Be more Open

It is high time now. With the Gaganyaan program and more international collaborations like NISAR and LUPEX, ISRO needs to learn from other organizations and improve outreach. Being a secret organization under the broad brush of ‘security’ is not acceptable. We are one of the few space agencies that have a very rich history. Let’s start to share it. Make more documentaries and content to share historical milestones. Share information for all upcoming missions and those in development. Also, make sure they are well-made with good graphics and rendering. Otherwise, no matter how many certificates you give away for ISRO merchandise, everyone would wear NASA t-shirts only.

Involve the different communities

Planetary Science, Planetary Defense, Astrophyics, Heliophysics, Earth Science, Space Domain Awareness, Space Law, Space Architecture, Space Technology, … the list keeps getting longer. There are so many subfields that all come under the purview of the Indian Space Research Organization. Let’s build these communities. Have regular conferences to share research and ideas while building networks.

ISRO has achieved major milestones despite all these issues creeping into the system. If we can manage to overcome them, India has the potential to take the lead in space science and technology research and development.

Read more

• Why India's R&D Dreams Are Falling Behind: Funding Aside, Here’s A Look Inside The System

• ISRO Can Reach The Moon But Still Can't Afford To Hire From IITs

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India is returning to Space: The Second Indian Astronaut after Rakesh Sharma, Shubhanshu Shukla, is flying onboard SpaceX's Dragon capsule. He is piloting the Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The mission, currently scheduled for June 11th, 2025, marks an important milestone in India’s space history. However, there is a controversial sentiment within the space community because ISRO/India paid for a seat on this mission. This has resulted in limited coverage by the Indian media. I, on the other hand, believe an Indian in space deserves a lot more attention. So, as a self-proclaimed aerospace nerd, I am going to share my thoughts and some highlights on the Ax-4 mission.

Mission Details

Axiom Space has taglined the mission: “realize the return”, as three of the four crew members are realizing the return to space for their respective countries. Ax-4 mission will be the second human space mission for each of India, Poland, and Hungary, while also being their first mission to the International Space Station.

India’s last human spaceflight happened back in 1984 in a collaboration with Roscosmos onboard Soyuz T-11.

The mission is stated to launch on June 11th with upto 14 days stay at ISS. Pilot Shubanshu Shukla will be performing many experiments on behalf of ISRO as well as part of the ISRO-NASA collaboration to increase our understanding of life and humans in space.

Along with Shubanshu Shukla, Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair is another Indian astronaut who has trained as a backup crew member. Both of them would bring a wealth of experience for India’s Gaganyaan programme with its first stated flight in 2027. The Indian Astronaut Cadre was trained in Russia under an agreement with Roscosmos. Now, with this mission, Shubanshu Shukla and Prasanth Nair are receiving training from NASA and SpaceX. Such collaborations to start our Human Space Programme remind me of ISRO’s early days, where we got assistance from the USA, France, and Russia.

Why is it Important?

While the Space Community acknowledges the experiments and the experience gained, the lack of engineering is one of the reasons for the muted engagement on the mission. For a space programme that has only recently started venturing beyond low-earth orbit, everyone is more excited by the ‘firsts’ and new technologies.

The community is forgetting why we are exploring all these new avenues: SCIENCE!

In India, everyone talks about new technologies and building industries, which can be seen through programmes like ‘MADE IN INDIA’ and ‘STARTUP INDIA’. Science, research, and development get overlooked too often. While Ax-4 may be the second Indian space mission, it is our first micro-gravity experiments mission. The science itself would have long-term ripples in the scientific community. While I haven’t researched the experiments and their implications to share them in detail, I can safely say that any science has the potential to trigger scientific discoveries. Just look at a small experiment onboard Chandrayaan-1 that triggered the current Lunar age as we know it by discovering traces of water.

Along with science, another equally important aspect of the Axiom-4 mission is INSPIRATION!

Rakesh Sharma inspired my Dad and his generation, including Shubhanshu Shukla. Kalpana Chawla, even when she wasn’t an Indian citizen, while she ventured into space, inspired me and my generation. Now, Shubhanshu Shukla will be the face of Indian Space for kids and students. Seeing a person who looks and talks like them in space would enable so many to start dreaming of the stars. Forget all the experience and science, just this fact is enough of a reason to cover this mission in detail. I will try my best to do so because I strongly believe that the Human Space Programme’s most significant implication is towards galvanizing hundreds of young minds, which is the need of the hour for our fast-growing space industry.

All the very best to Shubhanshu Shukla and the Axiom 4 crew for their mission.
Ad Astra!

EDIT: The mission has been delayed after a leak was found during the pre-launch check-up.

First Launch of 2022: PSLV-C52 launched successfully

ISRO finally had another launch after a long wait. PSLV-C52 launched successfully with EOS-04 and two other ride-sharing satellites. EOS-04 is a radar-imaging satellite designed to provide all-weather images for agricultural applications. The satellite is replacing RISAT-1 which became non-operational after a defragmentation event in September 2016.

The secondary payloads included INSPIREsat-1 and INS-2TD. INSPRIREsat-1 is a joint mission between the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado, National Central University (NCU) in Taiwan, and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. It has two scientific instruments: Compact Ionospheric Probe (CIP) and Dual-zone Aperture X-ray Solar Spectrometer (picoSIM). INSPIREsat-1 is alive and active.

INS-2TD is a technology demonstrator satellite from ISRO. It is a precursor to the India-Bhutan Joint Satellite which may launch later this year.

ISRO last launched GSLV-F10 in August 2021 which failed to insert the payload EOS-03 into the orbit. Before that, the last successful launch was back in February 2021, almost a year back. Hopefully, with this successful launch of PSLV, the space agency will bring back the launch frequency to normal.

Being a nighttime launch, a lot of ISRO fans in southern India captured the launch at their own homes. Many of these pictures and videos are surfacing on social media. As I don’t have the right to share their pictures, I wouldn’t. You can find a lot of them at #PSLVC52 hashtag.

Dr Unnikrishnan Nair S assumes charge as the Director of VSSC, Thiruvananthapuram

The senior scientist S Unnikrishnan who is also the director of Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC), Bengaluru has taken charge of the office of the director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC). He mentioned SSLV, Chandrayaan-3, and Gaganyaan as main priorities for the year.

Budget for Department of Space in 2022-2023 session

The Union Budget was announced and the budget for the Department of Space got reduced when compared to last year. The total budget announced is Rs 13700 crores while last year it was Rs 13949 crores. Check out this informative video on the same by Gareeb Scientist.

Gaganyaan Updates

Source 1, Source 2

• There will be two test missions to establish crew abort and escape systems. This mission will be performed a test vehicle (TV) which is a new rocket system designed for test demonstrations only.

• The test vehicle will also be used to test air-breathing propulsion and reusable rocket technology.

• The first uncrewed missions after successful testing of the crew abort system will be performed early next year.

• The first of the two relay satellites needed for Gaganyaan may also launch in this financial year.

Other ISRO updates and News

• Aditya-L1 mission to launch in the second half of this year. If not launched during this time, the next window presents itself in March 2023.

• RLD-TD landing and Inflatable aerodynamic decelerator mechanism to be tested this year.

• Technology Demonstration Satellite, TDS-01 to be launched on PSLV-C54 in March end. (Source)

• The annual report (2020-21) for NewSpace India Limited was released.

• ISRO successfully disposes of the INSAT-4B satellite after mission completion on 24th January 2022. The satellite was launched in 2007 for DTH and communication services.

• Department of Space demonstrates entanglement based quantum communication over 300m free space along with real-time cryptographic applications

Leave a comment

Scientific Articles and Papers

Development of NavIC synchronized fully automated inter-building QKD framework and demonstration of quantum secured video calling

Adarsh Jain, Abhishek Khanna, Jay Bhatt, Parthkumar V. Sakhiya, Shashank Kumar, Rohan S. Urdhwareshe, Nilesh M. Desai, Development of NavIC synchronized fully automated inter-building QKD framework and demonstration of quantum secured video calling, Optik, Volume 252, 2022, 168438, ISSN 0030-4026, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijleo.2021.168438.

Postulating exoplanetary habitability via a novel anomaly detection method

Jyotirmoy Sarkar, Kartik Bhatia, Snehanshu Saha, Margarita Safonova, Santonu Sarkar, Postulating exoplanetary habitability via a novel anomaly detection method, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 510, Issue 4, March 2022, Pages 6022–6032, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab3556

TOI article explaining the research.

Newspace India

• EntherealX: a new space tech startup developing a medium-lift launch vehicle with tentative plans to test the first one by 2026. They have named their vehicle, Razor Crest Mk-1. Check out their website here: https://www.etherealx.space/

• Space tech startup funding increased by 198% y-o-y in 2021. Pixxel, Dhruva Space, Astrome, Agnikul, and Skyroot were amongst who raised the highest funds. While this influx of funding is good, it still may not be enough with new startups coming up and the mature ones requiring a lot more in upcoming phases. The government is planning to allow Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into the space sector which could help the booming space startup ecosystem in the country.

• Reliance Jio’s satellite unit applies for a satellite communication services license.

• Pixxel selects Dawn Propulsion for their imaging constellation. Dawn is a Netherlands and New Zealand based company providing in-space satellite propulsion.

• Dhurva Space has been performing deployer tests in thermovac in the past week. @DhruvaSpace

• Space Tech Startup SatSure close a $5 million round

• Hyderabad: Anurag University students to launch satellite soon

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Podcasts and Discussions

Drawing parallels between European and Indian support systems for NewSpace startups

Lucie talks about her experiences from moving from a traditional space agency setting to supporting young companies trying to conduct NewSpace activities in Europe. We talk about parallels with India and the differences in these ecosystems.

Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka at Skyroot on their ambition to launch a rocket a day

In this conversation, Pawan and Bharath talk about their aspiration to be a launch vehicle provider of choice, with the ability to launch a rocket a day, on-demand.

New Web Series on lives of Dr Homi Bhabha and Dr Vikram Sarabhai: Rocket Boys

Sony Liv premiered a new series on the lives of Dr Bhabh and Dr Sarabhai. I have only watched a couple of episodes are like it so far. While it may not be historically very accurate, it is made well to create a buzz in the general public and therefore make more people aware of the rockets boys of India. What are your views comment below?

Leave a comment

Job Openings

• Pixxel (LinkedIn)

• Skyroot (LinkedIn)

• Agnikul (LinkedIn)

• Kawa Space

Special thanks to r/ISRO subreddit which is my major source to reach all these articles and news.

It has been a long while since I wrote any Antariksham issue or any blog. I got busy with some personal work and numerous weeks passed. Having lost the consistency, I didn’t know how to start again and what updates to cover. With the new year, I will start to cover the Indian Space Ecosystem biweekly through Antariksham and posts on other topics sometime in the remaining weeks. Hopefully, this run will be uninterrupted and I can now manage to write regularly every issue. Wish me luck!

This issue covers all updates starting from January 14, the day Shri S. Somanath took charge as Secretary, Department of Space.

ISRO News

Shri. S Somanath assumes charge as Secretary, Department of Space

Shri. S. Somanath assumed charge as Secretary, Department of Space and Chairman, Space Commission on January 14, 2022. This stint in his career starts after serving as the Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananathapuram, for the past four years. Before that, he also served as the Director of Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), Valiamala, for two and half years. <Source>

The new Chairman met Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh and discussed the status of future space missions. <Source>

ISRO Chairman presented at brief about the forthcoming missions during the next three months. He mentioned a RICAT-1A PSLV C5-2 scheduled for February 2022, OCEANSAT-3, INS 2B ANAND PSLV C-53 to be launched in March 2022 and SSLV-D1 Micro SAT in April 2022.

WION conducted an interview with the chairman.

Covid19 at SDSC-SHAR

Regional media reports suggest 91 people were diagnosed with COVID19 in Sriharikota yesterday and 142 were diagnosed today. SDSC-SHAR is apparently still operational with 50% staff strength but missions are likely to be further delayed <Source>

Meanwhile, Chairman S Somanath said that they have created a bio-bubble at Sriharikota and are devising strategies to minimize travel and contacts for developing parts for future missions. <Source>

Gaganyaan Updates

Qualification testing of VIKAS Engine for Gaganyaan Programme

ISRO conducted a qualification test for High Thrust VIKAS Engine to be used in the Gaganyaan program on January 20. The test for carried out to verify the robustness of the engine beyond its operating capacity. <Source>

No unmanned Gaganyaan this year

Union Minister Jitendra Singh said that the first Gaganyaan uncrewed flight is now stated for early 2023. <Source>

Talk by Dr. A S Kiran Kumar on ‘ISRO Exploration Missions’

The talk covers India’s exploration missions like the Chandrayaan series, Mars Orbiter Mission, AstroSat, XPOSAT, Aditya-L1, and Disha.

Other ISRO updates and News

• PSLV C52 / EOS-4 (aka RISAT-1A) launch is aimed at 14 February 2022 reports regional media. <Source> The satellite has already reached SDSC-SHAR. <Source>

• Chandrayaan-3 rocket GSLV-Mk3 is reported ready and waiting for the CY-3 stack (Lander and Propulsion Module). Earlier, the propulsion module was supposed to just undertake the journey to the moon while now, it will provide a communication relay between the lander and earth station. <Source>

• GSAT-24, a dedicated satellite for TataSky developed by ISRO and owned by NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) <Source> is undergoing advanced testing. It’ll be shipped to Arianespace for launch in the 1st quarter of 2022-23. <Source>

• Announcement of Opportunity (AO): Soliciting proposals for AstroSat Twelfth AO cycle observations. ISRO has opened AO for AstroSat Observation Time Proposals. <Source>

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Scientific Articles and Papers

The Near Ultraviolet Transient Surveyor (NUTS): An ultraviolet telescope to observe variable sources

Ambily, S., et al. "The Near Ultraviolet Transient Surveyor (NUTS): An ultraviolet telescope to observe variable sources." arXiv preprint arXiv:2201.02684 (2022).

Discussion on the subreddit by the Principal Investigator (PI) of the project.

Common Bulkhead Tank Design for Cryogenic Stage of an Indian Launch Vehicle

Singh, Y., Singh, H., Sahu, P., & R, M. (2022). Common Bulkhead Tank Design for Cryogenic Stage of an Indian Launch Vehicle. Defence Science Journal, 72(1), 3-9. https://doi.org/10.14429/dsj.72.17239

A study on the solar coronal dynamics during the post-maxima phase of the solar cycle 24 using S-band radio signals from the Indian mars orbiter mission

Richa N Jain, R K Choudhary, Anil Bhardwaj, Umang Parikh, Bijoy K Dai, Roopa M V, A study on the solar coronal dynamics during the post-maxima phase of the solar cycle 24 using S-band radio signals from the Indian mars orbiter mission, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2022; stac056, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac056

There is also a research article and a Twitter thread by Astro_Neel explaining the paper. Even Dr. Kiran Kumar talked about this in his talk mentioned above. <Article, Twitter Thread>

Newspace India

Skyroot Aerospace raised $4.5 million

Hyderabad-based space tech startup Skyroot Aerospace raised $4.5 million via bridge round to its Series-B fundraise. <Source>

Earth and Space Exploration Program 2022

Register for ESEP 2022 by 5th February to visit, stay and work in a Mars-like environment in Kutch, Gujarat, India. The program aims to support research related to astrobiology, help monitor climate change, inspire students to pursue STEAM education, and spread awareness in India.

Know More

IN-SPACe is preparing a list of ex-ISRO staff to help space startups

TOI reported that a circular has been issued by the Department of Space to all ISRO centers to consolidate a list of retired/resigned personnel along with their willingness to be approached by non-governmental entities. This list will later be shared with aspiring startups. IN-SPACe would not assist in recruiting ex-ISRO personnel but just provide contacts. <Source>

Leave a comment

Podcasts and Discussions

National Space Science Symposium NSSS 2022

NSSS 2022 hosts scientific sessions and guest lectures in the field of planetary sciences, astrophysics, and space exploration. The event is scheduled from Jan 31 to Feb 4. The sessions can be watched live on YouTube. The complete schedule can be found at the following link: http://www.cessi.in/nsss/content/images/NSSS_2022_schedule.pdf

Experiences from UNispace Nanosatellite Assembly & Training (UNNATI) by ISRO

Aazzah talks about her experience of participating in the UNispace Nanosatellite Assembly & Training (UNNATI), a program by ISRO which intends to provide a hands-on training program for engineers from developing countries on building nanosatellites. <Link>

Launching India’s first privately built satellite

Farhan talks about the story behind ExseedSat and his experiences of working within the space industry to launch India's first privately built satellite.

Farhan is a co-founder of Exseed Space which created history on December 4, 2018, by launching India’s first privately owned satellite into space. Hitching a ride on the Elon Musk-led SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, the satellite shot for the stars! The satellite, Exseed SAT 1, was built in just 18 months by a team of eight scientists, including the founders. <Link>

Job Openings

• Pixxel (LinkedIn)

• Skyroot (LinkedIn)

• Agnikul (LinkedIn)

• Kawa Space

Special thanks to the r/ISRO subreddit which is my major source to reach all these articles and news.

ISRO News

A small video on the upcoming NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar, NISAR mission

Gaganyaan Updates

ISRO successfully performed a hot test of the Gaganyaan Service Module Propulsion System on a System Demonstration Model (SDM). Gaganyaan astronauts will be travelling in a space capsule with two modules, the crew and the service modules. The crew module is where astronauts reside and perform their tasks during the whole journey, while the service module provides essentials like water and water etc. The service module will also feature the five thrusters needed to propel the whole capsule. This test is one of the first in many to confirm the working of these thrusters.

Indian astronaut trainees from the Indian Air Force (IAF) recently completed the Russian segment of their training. Their next leg will be starting this week at IAF. Following the two weeks of training, they will travel across India for other theory and academic training. Finally, the astronauts will travel back to Russia for tailoring measurements of their flight suits.

Chandrayaan 2

While the Vikram Lander failed during the landing attempt exactly two years ago, the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter produces a lot of scientific data. Indian Scientists have published numerous papers on CY-2 orbiter payload data (previous Antariksham editions). ISRO has announced an AO asking the scientific community to utilize the Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter Payloads data for scientific analysis. The deadline for the submission of the proposal is 31st October. More details for the same can be found here.

ISRO is also organising a Lunar Science Workshop to release more of Chandrayaan-2 data from 6 to 7 September on its Youtube Channel. Details of the various sessions can be found here.

Three entities submit bids for building five end-to-end PSLVs.

Three entities have submitted proposals to Newspace India Limited (NSIL) for performing end-to-end production of five PSLVs in one year. The bids are in response to the Request for Proposals submitted by NSIL earlier this year. In 2019, NSIL had asked Expression of Interests for producing PSLVs from the industry, for which five entities had responded. Now, only three of them have submitted their proposals. A consortium of HAL and L&T, another one of Adani-Alpha Design, BEL and BEML, and finally BHEL has big as a single firm. ISRO-NSIL will give the contract to one of the entities by the end of the year.

Other ISRO updates and News

• The Trisonic Wind Tunnel coming up in VSSC will likely be operational by February 2022. The settling chamber sections have been travelling from Mumbai to Trivandrum for the better part of the year. The cargo is expected to reach VSSC on Sunday night after circumventing a roadblock that delayed it for a few days.

  

• INSPIRESat-1, the first satellite of a multi-university program between Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder in the US, National Central University, Taiwan, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Trivandrum will be launching onboard PSLV later this year.

• ISRO making minor tweaks to GSLV for Gaganyaan, more emphasis on manufacturing process

Scientific Articles and Papers

Outburst of Cepheus X-4 pulsar inspected with AstroSat

Report

Mukerjee, Kallol, and H. M. Antia. "Studies of Cepheus X-4 during 2018 outburst observed with AstroSat." arXiv preprint arXiv:2107.03608 (2021).

Researchers Discover Three Super-massive Black Holes Merging Together in Our Nearby Universe

Article, Press Release

Yadav, Jyoti, et al. "A triple active galactic nucleus in the NGC 7733–7734 merging group." Astronomy & Astrophysics 651 (2021): L9. DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202141210

Dielectric Constant Estimation of Lunar Surface Using Mini-RF and Chandrayaan-2 SAR Data

A. Kumar et al., "Dielectric Constant Estimation of Lunar Surface Using Mini-RF and Chandrayaan-2 SAR Data," in IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, DOI: 10.1109/TGRS.2021.3103383.

IISc, ISRO develop a device for bio experiments in space

Article

Kumar, Aloke, et al. "Bacterial Growth Induced Biocementation Technology,‘Space-Brick’-A Proposal for Experiment at Microgravity and Planetary Environments." bioRxiv (2020).

Other Articles

• Ladakh based engineer first Indian to be inducted as Honorary Member of the International Astronomical Union

• Gravitational-wave Observatory on Moon for Cosmology: A Wild Ambition

Newspace India

ACOEA completed Earth and Space Exploration Program 2021 at Ladakh

After two weeks, 20 explorers at 4500 m above sea level, completed the Earth and Space Exploration Program 2021 by Amity University's Center of Excellence in Astrobiology. They studied the effects of changing climate on ice, snow and water, trained to hunt for signs of life by studying tough microbes and plants growing in conditions similar to what Mars had billions of years ago, when it was drying up, just like Ladakh today. The program is one of the first to achieve the mission of setting up a research station at the site within 3 years.

Agnikul Cosmos partners with German EOS for 3D printing

German 3D printing technology company EOS and Indian launch vehicle startup Agnikul Cosmos have partnered to 3D print rocket engines for their Agnibaan rocket. A blog post by Agnikul founder Srinath mentions:

We will also install an EOS M400–4 printer in our facilities and will take EOS’ Additive minds technical support in advancing 3d printing of rocket engines all the way to space qualification — one could call it going to TRL 9!

Launch your own suborbital spacecraft

Space Kidz India is hosting a new program called FunSat. You can purchase equipment from the company, learn how to assemble the spacecraft and then the Space Kidz team will launch it onboard their sounding rocket. More details here.

Other Updates

• Star Labs announced Exodus Orbitals as their first customer for a planned launch in 2023.

• SSERD Outreach Programme 2021

Podcasts and Discussions

• International Space Conference from September 13- October 4. Register here.

• Clubhouse Space Clubs: Small Steps & Giant Leaps, every Friday and Space Smurfs, regular discussions

• MISSION ISRO S02: The story of our first multi-purpose satellite INSAT-1A.

• MISSION ISRO S02: Journey of INSAT-1B launched onboard Shuttle Challenger Mission STS-08.

• Read more about how the podcast was produced here.

• NewSpace India Podcast: Starburst starting an India chapter to support space entrepreneurs locally

Abhi, who is leading Starburst's efforts to support Indian space entrepreneurs to grow and mature, talks about their roadmap and support system which they plan to build locally in India.

• Interesting Talk on Manufacturing Processes for Space Materials: Make In Space - Talk by Dr P V Venkitakrishnan, Former Director, CBPO, ISRO, Streamed live on 30th July

• Recording of a Google Meet of ex-ISRO scientists who worked on APPLE satellite mission: COMMEMORATING 40 YEARS landmark of APPLE, Streamed live on 19th June

Job Openings

• Internship at Manastu Space Technologies

• Research Supervisors at SSERD

• Assistant Professor/ Research Assistant at Amity Centre of Excellence in Astrobiology

• Pixxel

• Skyroot

• Kawa Space

• Dhruva Space

• Engineering Graduate, Technician and Trade Apprentices for the year 2021-22 at Space Applications Centre, ISRO

• Junior Research Fellows at India's first Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project at Amity University, Mumbai

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GSLV-F10 Mission Failure

After a wait of more than 1.5 years, GISAT-1, dubbed EOS-3, finally lifted off from Sriharikota onboard GSLV-F10 on August 12. The Cryogenic Upper Stage engine did not ignite around 5 to 6 minutes into the flight, and the mission could not be accomplished.

The lift-off and first two stages performed normally before the technical anomaly prevented the third stage from igniting. This indicates there is some problem with the CUS engine. The issue could be of two types, in processes or technical design.

Process means that the various processes undertaken to develop and test the engine may have damaged the engine, resulting in the failure. This type of issue can be corrected in a faster and easier way. A technical design flaw will instead mean that a longer time frame is needed.

There is another alert, though. As GSLV Mk3, a separate launch vehicle uses a CUS engine as well. The problem can affect future launches of some important missions like Chandrayaan 3 and Gaganyaan. GSLV-Mk3 uses an entirely different engine than its Mk2 brother. Therefore, if there is a design flaw, it won't affect GSLV-Mk3. But if a fault is found in the processes, it may affect future missions of both launch vehicles.

In any case, GSLV-Mk2 is still vital to the future missions of the space agency. Indian Data Relay satellites IDRSS-1 and IDRSS-2, navigation satellite IRNSS-1J and joint NASA mission NISAR are all expected to launch onboard GSLV-Mk2. This failure would result in some delay for all these missions. As IDRSS satellites are an essential part of the overall Gaganyaan ecosystem, this failure has indirectly impacted the mission.

ISRO has formed a Failure Analysis Committee (FAC), which is expected to submit a report within a month. Let's hope details of this report will be made public.

ISRO Merchandise, some more launched

Two companies had already launched their merchandise, as reported in the last Antariksham. 1947Ind. is offering ISRO apparel consisting of T-shirts and Hoodies. Indic Inspirations offers scaled models, mugs, jigsaw puzzles and more. A few more companies have launched their products now.

Ankur Hobby Center has some science kits and DIY model kits of ISRO rockets and satellites. These are very aptly prices that will be affordable for a large section of the Indian audience.

Rocketeers launched some postcards, bookmarks and mugs while they offer model rocket kits. They are the only company in India to provide rocket kits.

While not an official sponsor, Bombay Watch Company has released a new collection commemorating the fifty years of Indian Space Exploration. The series called apogee is a collection of space-themed high-end watches starting at around Rs 68,000. This article features all the details of the watch.

"The caseback features 3D-embossed satellite orbiting the Earth, an image of Aryabhatta – first Indian indigenous satellite – along with text celebrating five decades of Indian Space Exploration."

BRICS Space Agencies leaders signed an agreement for cooperation in Remote sensing satellite data sharing

On August 18, 2021, a meeting of the heads of the space departments of the BRICS countries was held virtually.

The event was attended by Dmitry Rogozin, Director General of the State Corporation Roscosmos, President of the Brazilian Space Agency Carlos Augusto Teixera de Moura, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization Dr K. Siwan, Head of the Chinese National Space Administration Zhang Kejian, Executive Director of the South African National Space Agency Dr Valanathan Munsami, representatives of the foreign affairs agencies of the BRICS countries.

During the meeting, the heads of space agencies signed an agreement on cooperation in the exchange of satellite data for Earth remote sensing. The agreement will facilitate cooperation between the space agencies of the BRICS countries in the creation of a virtual constellation of remote sensing satellites and data exchange, which will help solve such problems as climate change, environmental protection and elimination of the consequences of natural man-made disasters.

source, translated by Google, ISRO statement

Other ISRO Updates and Articles

• Confirmation of Alpha Particle Spectrometer (APS) for the upcoming ISRO-JAXA mission to study the volatile transport on the Moon - source_1, source_2

• Possibility of a lander mission for Mars, a couple of talks mentioned the concept in the past few days. Links to talks are below.

• Indian Planetary and Space Missions
  It also mentions a new milestone achieved by CLASS payload onboard Chandrayaan-2 orbiter: CLASS payload is so sensitive that it could record K-alpha (Kα) spectral peak of Oxygen, something that it was never originally intended to detect.
  ISRO's first asteroid mission would probably be a fly-by mission en route Venus or Mars

• NRSC User Interaction Meet (UIM) 2021

• VSSC Director S Somanath presentation on 'Reaching the sky: Indian Launch Vehicles'. Two sections: Historical overview and Upcoming Capabilities

• A trisonic wind tunnel is being constructed at VSSC, Thumba. The settling chamber for the same will be moved from Kollam to Thumba in a week-long coordinated road trip.

• ISRO's cryogenic conundrum

• How Overwork Took Its Toll on Vikram Sarabhai

Papers

Chandrayaan-2 orbiter payload IIRS detects water on the Moon

Chauhan, Prakash, et al. "Unambiguous detection of OH and H2O on the Moon from Chandrayaan-2 Imaging Infrared Spectrometer reflectance data using 3 μm hydration feature." Current Science (00113891) 121.3 (2021). https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/121/03/0391.pdf

Abstract:

"Imaging Infrared Spectrometer (IIRS) onboard Chandrayaan-2 is designed to measure lunar reflected and emitted solar radiation in 0.8–5.0 μm spectral range. Its high spatial resolution (~80 m) and extended spectral range is most suitable to completely characterize lunar hydration (2.8–3.5 μm region) attributed to the presence of OH and/or H2O. Here we present initial results from IIRS reflectance data analysed to unambiguously detect and quantify lunar 3 μm absorption feature. After pre-processing and data-reduction, a physics based thermal correction analysis of IIRS reflectance spectra has been done using co-located temperature measurements. Hydration absorption was observed at all latitudes and surface types with varying degrees for all pixels in the study area and its absorption depth shows distinct variability associated with mineralogy, surface temperature and latitude."

Articles:

• ISRO-SAC instrument finds presence of hydroxyl and water molecules on Moon

• Isro's Chandrayaan 2 orbiter discovers water molecules on Moon's surface

  Moon Monday

  Moon Monday Issue #40

  Highlight Researchers supporting one of China’s primary spacecraft makers have announced they are working on a lander for crewed Moon missions. The Chinese language announcement references a Xi Jinping speech but doesn’t quote Xi as announcing a national plan to send Chinese astronauts to the Moon. Previously, China had hinted about their crewed lunar ex…

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  5 years ago · Jatan Mehta

NewSpace India

• Bellatrix made it to the Forbes Asia '100 to Watch' list.

• Spend time exploring and finding what you love doing: Interview with Awais Ahmed, CEO & Co-Founder Pixxel Inc.

Podcasts and Discussions

• ISRO, CII to organise an international conference on space from Sept 13-Oct 4

• Webinar Alert: A guide to selecting an ADCS for a small satellite mission. Register here.

• Clubhouse Space Clubs: Small Steps & Giant Leaps, every Friday and Space Smurfs, regular discussions

• Mission ISRO Podcast Season 02 released.

• Read more about how the podcast was produced here.

Anecdotes of an Aerospace Nerd

Space Talks with Gaurav Vaz - Producer of Mission ISRO Podcast

ISRO will celebrate its 52nd anniversary this year on Independence Day. In its rich history of 50 years, the agency has achieved numerous milestones. Working for the betterment of society through remote sensing and communication satellites was not widely recognised until it undertook planetary missions to the Moon and Mars. These missions fueled a wides…

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5 years ago · 1 like · Aerospace Nerd

• Early days of ISRO as told by Project Director for APPLE: In the latest episode of the NewSpace India podcast, Vasagam talks about his experiences in ISRO starting from time spent in MIT planning India's first GEO communication satellite to then managing it as its project director.

Job Openings

• Pixxel

• Skyroot

• Kawa Space

• Dhruva Space

• Engineering Graduate, Technician and Trade Apprentices for the year 2021-22 at Space Applications Centre, ISRO

• Junior Research Fellows at India's first Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project at Amity University, Mumbai

Finally, Bollywood made a movie inspired by the Mars Orbiter Mission, but there are even more exciting stories in the archives. ATS Studios with Spotify realised this gap, and a podcast was born. Mission ISRO is "one of the more comprehensive histories of ISRO", as the producer Gaurav Vaz said.

About the company: All Things Small

Gaurav Vaz is the co-founder and COO of All Things Small, a media company aiming to tell true stories. The company started back in October 2019. A bunch of people who never worked together had an idea - "creating content, which is true stories focused or non-fiction focused, coming out of the Indian subcontinent, and being told to the world."

Their one-line vision was ready, but they did not decide on the format of the content. They did not want to be restricted by format or by platform. The aim was to build the skill and ability to tell incredible stories from India in whatever format works best.

The space story was best told as an audio podcast because of difficulty in the recreation of the past. Similarly, they made other podcasts that were difficult to adapt in a video format. The first project they started was fiftytwo.in - A long-form written publication where a story is published every week from India. Some of these stories later got adapted to audio-visual formats.

Creating Podcasts and eventually Mission ISRO

When Gaurav and his colleagues started podcasting in India was still very new, and it still is hasn't taken off. To a large extent, the field was dominated by conversational podcasts where many people came together to discuss something. ATS studios wanted to tell narrative stories which are well-researched. Fortunately, the month they started, someone put them in contact with Spotify, India. Spotify wanted to do a podcast, stars aligned themselves.

ATS went and pitched 30-40 ideas. The first one which saw the light of the Sun was Special Mission. Special Mission is truly special. Gul Panag narrates untold stories from the Indian Armed Forces in Hindi. Then came another podcast named Maha Bharat, with Dhruv Rathee. Here, the idea was to help Indians understand India through simple civics lessons. What does President do? What is RBI's role in controlling inflation? These are some of the questions answered. It is an ongoing podcast with 50 episodes when I wrote this article.

Finally, the third podcast, Mission ISRO, was made. Gaurav had this idea of telling a space story. He had read an article regarding the all-women team involved in Mars Orbiter Mission, and then there is a podcast named 13 minutes to the moon narrating the stories from Apollo 13. All these inspired him towards telling the story of ISRO, and Spotify agreed.

Meanwhile, Sidin Vadukut, co-founder and CEO of the company, roped in Harsha Bhogle. He knew Harsha from Twitter and reached out to him with the idea. It turns out, Harsha was looking for some non-cricket project at the time. He was really excited and came onboard. It all fell together, just like the serendipitous story of ISRO.

Anecdotes of an Aerospace Nerd

Mission ISRO with Harsha Bhogle: The Serendipitous Story of Indian Space History

Welcome to the review of the Spotify Original Series: Mission ISRO with Harsha Bhogle. Chandrayaan-1 and Mangalyaan missions put India's flag on the Moon and around Mars. Both were ISRO's maiden attempts and both were successful. While they started a new chapter in India's space program. Suddenly, ISRO began to be known by the common man. In 2019, Chandr…

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5 years ago · Aerospace Nerd

Researching the Story

I have tried my best to research the story of ISRO. There are a few books, but apart from that, there is nothing. Gaurav credits Archana Nathan for the research. Archana, who's also the writer of the series, did a project with ATS studios, after which she joined as a full-time employee. She started working on Maha Bharat and later researched and interviewed a bunch of people for Mission ISRO. A lot of scientists agreed. Asif Siddiqui, a space historian, proved quite helpful. Amruta Shah had written the biography of Dr Sarabhai. All these resources were quite useful.

Alongside the research, ATS studios roped in a few screenplay writers. There was Devaiah Bopanna, who is a co-founder. He had been a comedy writer and advertising copywriter in the past. This team of writers helped structure the linear story of ISRO. You cannot just tell a story as this happened, and then this happened and then that. Listeners will lose interest. So, they had a masterclass in how you take a linear sequence of events and tell it as an engaging story.

Seasons of Mission ISRO

Season One narrates the story from the start of the Indian Space Programme to Rakesh Sharma's spaceflight. It is the struggle of how a country, which is just born literally. All warring territories, princely states agreed to work together and formed a democratic government. We have a constitution, and we have poverty, and we don't have food, and we have to figure out what the country is supposed to do. And then there's this audacious plan of putting together a space mission. So season one had this cool underdog theme to it. There's this country that is struggling. Three people come together with this ambitious plan and overcome many obstacles to reach from zero to one. While Rakesh Sharma's flight wasn't an ISRO mission, it is the most memorable moment for many Indians. So, an Indian in space saying "Saare Jahan Se Acha" became a nice culmination for Season One.

Season Two is much more trickier. There isn't that cool underdog theme. The reality is we tried a hundred things, of which some worked, and some did not. All this while ISRO kept growing in capacity and strength, but there weren't any cool, if you may, missions like Chandrayaan or MOM. How do you engagingly tell such a story? You once again cannot narrate linear series of events in progression. Gaurav promises that they managed to find some interesting connections. How they overcome these challenges will be heard starting 15th August. Season two is releasing on Independence Day, which also happens to be the anniversary of the formation of ISRO.

Theme Music

The Indian classical music mixed with tunes of satellite signals and a drum beat to go along, the theme has it all! Gaurav Vaz was a musician before this. He played bass guitarist in a folk band from Bangalore called Raghu Dixit Project. When the podcast idea came about, he reached out to his bandmate Raghu Dixit. He briefed Raghu about the vision of the podcast, the story of hope and ambition. They wanted the music to be a nice mix of Indian Classical because that's what you imagine playing in the 50s and 60s. The rest was Raghu Dixit's magic to give us such a fantastic tune.

A million more stories to be told

ISRO's story is 60 years old, but it took so long for someone to tell it to the mass audience. Gaurav believes that it took so long because there wasn't a good medium to do so until now. Suppose you think about the economics of making such a product. Such a big Bollywood project will incur a lot of costs, and to earn profits, the sensationalisation of the story is essential as it engages a larger audience.

Anecdotes of an Aerospace Nerd

Finally Watched Mission Mangal: A Review | Engaging but Inaccurate

I have been stalling to watch Mission Mangal ever since I watched the trailer on July 20th 2019. While I admire Bollywood to have finally made a movie on the Indian Space Programme, many mistakes and scientific inaccuracies in the trailer itself prevented me from taking the leap. Finally, after completing my Post Graduation, I decided to watch and write…

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6 years ago · Aerospace Nerd

Like ISRO's story, there are thousands and millions of such stories from India that deserve to be told. Now, with formats such as podcasts or docu-dramas on platforms like Spotify, Netflix, Amazon Prime are available, these stories will be told.

The upcoming podcast that ATS studios are working on is called 377, which is the story of how India overturned section 377. The law was used to harass and assault and discriminate against LGBTQ people in India. They have interviewed original petitioners and are hoping to release the podcast within 2-3 months.

Audience Response

With Mission ISRO, ATS Studios didn't dilute things. They keep the scientific terms while explaining them to the layman. If an episode demands 40 minutes, they give it the time in a world where 30-second tiktoks and reels are all the craze that is a big gamble. And they were rewarded for it. Gaurav mentions how the response from the audience has exceeded expectations. Even though the season ended months ago, he still gets tweets and emails from people about how much they love it, how they make their kids sit and listen to it as a family.

I interviewed Gaurav Vaz on 14th July 2021. I am thankful to him for finding time for the interview. You can listen to the raw version on the YouTube link below.

Launch Campaign Starts Upcoming Week

The much-awaited GSLV-F10 mission is scheduled to launch once again after a series of delays since last year. The earth-observation satellite GISAT-1/EOS-03 would be the rocket's primary payload, launching on August 12th, 05:43 IST.

ISRO Merchandise is finally out, with more to come

In the previous two editions of Antariksham, we talked about ISRO merchandise arriving soon. Finally, the wait is over. ISRO released a list of vendors registered with the agency. Two companies already launched their line of products.

1947Ind. is offering ISRO apparel consisting of T-shirts and Hoodies. The designs are pretty good, but the price point is a bit high for the Indian market.

Indic Inspirations offers scaled models, mugs, jigsaw puzzles and more. There is quite a good variety of products listed, and some do seem to be reasonably priced.

Gaganyaan Updates

The latest in Ganganyaan is the possibility of more than two uncrewed spaceflights of the capsule before the first human journey. The Gaganyaan Advisory Committee will make the final decision based on the data from the first two test flights. As TOI reported, ISRO is keeping its options open with many other decisions as well.

The first human spaceflight could be as low as one day to ascertain all system functionality, while the reentry capsule may splash in the Arabian Sea or the Bay of Bengal. Meanwhile, the astronaut candidates will start mission-specific training from this month onwards at various locations across India.

Other takeaways:

1. 40 Indian and foreign ground stations to track Gaganyaan, covering 40% of the entire orbit.

2. The rest, 60%, will be covered by two new IDRSS satellites, at least one of which will be ready next year.

3. Tender launched by ADRDE for aerodynamic study (through wind tunnel testing) of parachutes for Gaganyaan's safe return and splashdown.

A Bhutanese satellite might launch aboard PSLV by year-end.

ISRO is helping train a team of four engineers from Bhutan to build a small satellite based on its INS bus. The first phase of training ended in March 2021, where they understood the design ideologies and finalised the design of the satellite. The satellite will be completed in phase two and finally launched aboard a PSLV later this year.

R Aravamudan, one of ISRO's early pioneers and tracking & telemetry expert, no more

Ramabhadran Aravamudan, a veteran of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), breathed his last, late on Wednesday, at his Bengaluru residence. The following article summarises his life at ISRO quite well: link.

Other ISRO Updates

• The maiden flight of SSLV - Small Satellite Launch Vehicle is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2021. - source

• Chandrayaan-3 is likely to launch in the third quarter of 2022. - source

• ISRO instrumentation team is working at JPL for the NISAR mission. The integrated payload will arrive in India in 2022 to integrate with the spacecraft and launch onboard GSLV-MkII. - source

• Department of Space is seeking comments from Public/stakeholders on draft 'Indian Satellite Navigation Policy-2021 (SATNAV Policy-2021).'

• North-East Space Activities Centre, ISRO conducted a meeting on diverting Brahmaputra water during monsoon to 5902 sq km of the wetland. This change is likely to benefit Assam immensely. - source

• The chairman, ISRO/Secretary, DOS, met with the Director Generals of Israel Space Agency and European Space Agency.

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Papers

Ahumada, T., Singer, L.P., Anand, S. et al. Discovery and confirmation of the shortest gamma-ray burst from a collapsar. Nat Astron (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-021-01428-7

Abstract:

"Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are among the brightest and most energetic events in the Universe. The duration and hardness distribution of GRBs has two clusters1, now understood to reflect (at least) two different progenitors2. Short-hard GRBs (SGRBs; T90 < 2 s) arise from compact binary mergers, and long-soft GRBs (LGRBs; T90 > 2 s) have been attributed to the collapse of peculiar massive stars (collapsars)3. The discovery of SN 1998bw/GRB 980425 (ref. 4) marked the first association of an LGRB with a collapsar, and AT 2017gfo (ref. 5)/GRB 170817A/GW170817 (ref. 6) marked the first association of an SGRB with a binary neutron star merger, which also produced a gravitational wave. Here, we present the discovery of ZTF20abwysqy (AT2020scz), a fast-fading optical transient in the Fermi satellite and the Interplanetary Network localisation regions of GRB 200826A; X-ray and radio emission further confirm that this is the afterglow. Follow-up imaging (at rest-frame 16.5 days) reveals excess emission above the afterglow that cannot be explained as an underlying kilonova, but which is consistent with being the supernova. Although the GRB duration is short (rest-frame T90 of 0.65 s), our panchromatic follow-up data confirm a collapsar origin. GRB 200826A is the shortest LGRB found with an associated collapsar; it appears to sit on the brink between a successful and a failed collapsar. Our discovery is consistent with the hypothesis that most collapsars fail to produce ultra-relativistic jets."

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Singhal, Akshat, et al. 'Deep Co-Added Sky from Catalina Sky Survey Images'. ArXiv:2108.00029 [Astro-Ph], July 2021. arXiv.org, http://arxiv.org/abs/2108.00029.

Abstract:

"A number of synoptic sky surveys are underway or being planned. Typically they are done with small telescopes and relatively short exposure times. A search for transient or variable sources involves comparison with deeper baseline images, ideally obtained through the same telescope and camera. With that in mind we have stacked images from the 0.68~m Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow taken over ten years as part of the Catalina Sky Survey. In order to generate deep reference images for the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey, close to 0.8 million images over 8000 fields and covering over 27000~sq.~deg. have gone into the deep stack that goes up to 3 magnitudes deeper than individual images. CRTS system does not use a filter in imaging, hence there is no standard passband in which the optical magnitude is measured. We estimate depth by comparing these wide-band unfiltered co-added images with images in the g-band and find that the image depth ranges from 22.0--24.2 across the sky, with a 200-image stack attaining an equivalent AB magnitude sensitivity of 22.8. We compared various state-of-the-art software packages for co-adding astronomical images and have used SWarp for the stacking. We describe here the details of the process adopted. This methodology may be useful in other panoramic imaging applications, and to other surveys as well. The stacked images are available through a server at Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA)."

NewSpace India

Pixxel's Satellite Anand to launch soon

The Indian Hyperspectral Imaging startup, Pixxel, expects to launch its first satellite onboard the next PSLV in October. The satellite was initially planned to launch on PSLV-C51 earlier this year, but technical issues delayed the mission.

Anecdotes of an Aerospace Nerd

Understanding the Engineering Behind Pixxel's Anand Satellite Launch Scrub

Pixxel recently announced that their first satellite Anand won't be flying later this month. The company, founded in 2018, aims to launch a constellation of 24 satellites for daily global imaging of the Earth.GareebScientist’s Render of Anand Satellite…

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5 years ago · Aerospace Nerd

Awais Ahmed, founder and CEO, mentioned that the issues had been straightened out, and all testing is complete on the satellite. Meanwhile, another satellite is nearing completion, with a launch expected in December. Pixxel is aiming for 2023 to complete its 36 satellite constellation.

MARS: Mars Amity Research Station tests their MASCOT rover

Mars Amity Surface Characterisation Operations Trainer (MASCOT-1) rover, built by students and researchers at Amity Centre of Excellence in Astrobiology, ACOEA, was tested near a high-alt glacial lake in Ladakh last week.

Other NewSpace India Updates

• Rocketeers India and Spacenova become partners. - source

• Dhurva Space was shortlisted as one of the twelve startups in the Qualcomm Design in India Challenge 2021. - source

• Follow Agnikul's blog on Medium: What really is a "single piece" rocket engine & why do we make these at Agnikul?

• Why We Invested In Digantara - Kalaari Capital

• The Centre receives 27 proposals from private companies to speed up India's space activity.

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Podcasts and Discussions

• ISRO, CII to organise an international conference on space from Sept 13-Oct 4

• Clubhouse Space Clubs: Small Steps & Giant Leaps, every Friday

• Working with Dr Kalam: My Reminiscences By Prof N Sundararajan

• A diplomat's experience of dealing with ISRO and India's space interests: Ambassador Rakesh Sood talks about his career and experiences as an Indian diplomat who handled outer space-related issues.

Job Openings

• Pixxel

• Skyroot

• Kawa Space

• Dhruva Space

• Junior Research Fellows at SPACE PHYSICS LABORATORY (SPL) - VSSC, ISRO

• Junior Research Fellows at India's first Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project at Amity University, Mumbai

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Gaganyaan Updates

While ISRO tested the Vikas engine for the upcoming Gaganyaan uncrewed test flight, the latest headlines state the mission is being delayed still. The first flight earlier said to launch in December 2021 is now being targeted for June 2022 or later. The flight would not test essential life support systems. The primary aim is to test the vehicle performance for the human-rated GSLV Mk-III and reentry profile of the capsule. The capsule would carry some micro-gravity experiments as well.

ISRO Semi Cryogenic Engine Updates

The Indian Space Agency is developing a Semi-Cryogenic Engine in collaboration with Ukraine. A user on Reddit posted the latest google maps images for the test facility, indicating that the Semi-cryogenic Integrated Engine Test Facility (SIET) and Semi-Cryo Test Control Centre (TCC) are "almost ready."

Monthly Summary of Department of Space

The Department of Space used to release a monthly update of the work of DOS until the pandemic stuck. Since then, there were no new updates. Recently, they posted documents for the past year on the ISRO website. The summaries are pretty descriptive of the workings of ISRO in the remote sensing domain. 

ISRO released a new dataset of Chandrayaan-2, unannounced

Various users pointed out the appearance of 11 new images taken by the Orbiter High-Resolution Camera (OHRC) payload along with hundreds of images from the Terrain Mapping Camera-2 (TMC-2) and more. @astro_neel plotted the OHRC images, some of which have a 0.23m/px resolution, on LROC quickmap. You can explore the images and other data on ISRO's Pradan web portal.

NewSpace India Limited Annual Report 2019-20

NewSpace India Limited, the commercial arm of the Department of Space, released its annual report for the year 2019-20. It contains information regarding the mandate, organisation and accomplishments of the company. A key takeaway: "NSIL released Expression of Interest (EoI) for PSLV production through Indian Industry(ies) and received responses. As the next step, release of RFP to the shortlisted parties, is in progress."

TU Delft and IIST sign MoU

The Twitter handle of Netherlands Innovation Network India announced that TU Delft and the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, IIST have signed an MoU to work towards innovations in space. Space IoT, Robotics, Crewed Missions, Health Monitoring & Education, are some areas the two sides will work on.

ISRO Merchandise coming soon

Last week, in Anariksham #13, there was a mention of the company Indic Inspirations Pvt. Ltd. for ISRO merchandise. Now, another company, 1947ind, has announced an MoU with ISRO for clothing apparel. The website for company features coming soon post for the same.

Papers

Science by AstroSat

Indian Scientists detected star-forming galaxies in the "Bootes Void" using AstroSat data. The galaxies were previously unexplored by other platforms.

Divya, P., Kanak, S. and Ananta, P.C., 2021. The Ultraviolet Deep Imaging Survey of Galaxies in the Bootes Void I: catalog, color-magnitude relations and star formation. arXiv preprint arXiv:2107.01774.

NewSpace India

• Earth and Space Exploration Program 2021 kicked off on Monday as part of Mars Amity Research Station, MARS. The program features two crews, 6 science groups, 3 regions and over 20 organisations.

• Manastu Space is to unveil its products soon, according to a video posted on their YouTube channel.

Podcasts and Discussions

• ISRO, CII to organise an international conference on space from Sept 13-Oct 4

• Clubhouse Space Clubs: Small Steps & Giant Leaps, every Friday

• NewSpace India Discord server discussions, every Saturday

• Satcom Industry Association India - International Virtual Conference on 4th - 5th August 2021

• Godrej's experience of spin-offs from ISRO technology: Surendra Vaidya talks about Godrej's experience of taking technology from working with ISRO to solve problems in other sectors.

Job Openings

• Pixxel

• Skyroot

• Kawa Space

• Dhruva Space

• SSERD

• Junior Research Fellows for India's first Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project at Amity University, Mumbai

Other Articles

1. TSMC, Intel, Samsung unlikely to chip in, India could use DIY in Semicon

2. A good summary of the rise of Indian Space Start-ups: Allowing private players to ISRO facilities marks new era in Indian space segment

GISAT-1 launch scheduled for August

ISRO is finally planning to restart their launch campaign. The earth-observation satellite GISAT-1/EOS-03 would be the first one to launch in August. The satellite was scheduled to launch over a year back in March 2020, when multiple reasons halted it, and then the pandemic struck India.

Satish Dhawan Space Centre's webpage also mentions a PSLV launch with the EOS-04 satellite in September. Hopefully, we can once again cheer for the Indian launches soon.

Gaganyaan Updates

Not only earth observation launches, but we are gearing up for the first Human Spaceflight mission as well. ISRO shared a press release stating the successful testing of the Vikas engine to be used in the Human-rated GSLV Mk-III vehicle. This is the third successful test, and a few more are planned to ensure the human rating of the engine. Similarly, other launch vehicle components, like the S200 boosters, will be tested in the coming months.

The GSLV Mk-III launch vehicle is configured to launch cargo to space. ISRO will make various changes to systems to ensure the safe transportation of humans. The systems should have built-in fail-safes, more reliability and lower launch loads.

ISRO Merchandise coming soon

ISRO released an Announcement of Opportunity (AO) for the space agency's merchandise a few months back. Indic Inspirations India Pvt. Ltd., a culture startup, announced an MOU with ISRO. The company CEO and founder, Sunil Jalihal, said, "We will soon be launching a whole collection of ISRO Themed Merchandise that will appeal to all Indians and Science & Space enthusiasts alike."

Papers

The overview of the successful Project AstroSat: Five Years of operations and continuing 

Abstract:

India's first dedicated multi-wavelength satellite, AstroSat, was launched by PSLV-C30 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota on Sept 28, 2015. AstroSat is India's first multi-wavelength Observatory. AstroSat carries five scientific payloads and is capable of simultaneous observations from Ultra-violet to very hard X-rays. AstroSat completes 5 years of onboard operations by Sept 2020 as a proposal based observatory. Currently, it has close to 1500 global users and has produced more than a hundred and fifty articles in peer-reviewed journals. This paper is an overview that covers a brief description of the AstroSat mission and some recent results using data from this unique Indian space observatory.

Chandrayaan-2 Terrain Mapping Camera-2 Applications

"Strain/stress evaluation of Dorsa Geikie using Chandrayaan-2 Terrain Mapping Camera-2 and other data"

Abstract:

The high-resolution panchromatic stereo camera Terrain Mapping Camera-2 (TMC-2) on-board the Indian Chandrayaan-2 mission sends images of the lunar surface at 5 m resolution with a low to high sun angle from an altitude of 100 km. These images help identify subtle topographic variations and enable mapping of low-elevation landforms, one of which is a prominent ~220 km long wrinkle ridge called the Dorsa Geikie (DG) lying within Mare Fecunditatis. The favourable resolution of TMC-2 images and the digital elevation models provide opportunities for a detailed structural study of the DG and to reveal crustal shortening, cumulative contractional strain and palaeostress regime responsible for thrust faulting for the first time. The time of deformation and formation of dorsa is also estimated for a holistic spatiotemporal understanding of deformation. This study presents an initial analysis of the data received from TMC-2, and the accuracy of the results are likely to improve as the ingredients get amended and evolved in future.

Indian Private Industry

• Agnikul successfully completed their Agnilet engine's repeatability & performance validation tests.

• Space Surveillance and Space Situational Awareness (SSA) startup Digantara raised $2.5 million in funding from Kalari Capital. This seed funding will be essential for their campaign to launch the first technology demonstrator satellite.

• A virtual reality company, Hyper Reality Studios, has finalised the Gaganyaan VR simulator at Human Spaceflight Center (HSFC), ISRO. This simulator will probably be used in the advanced training phase of the astronauts in the Gaganyaan program. The company could release the 1:1 scale, 3D model of the Gaganyaan capsule for commercial use.

Podcasts and Discussions

• ISRO, CII to organise an international conference on space from Sept 13-Oct 4

• Clubhouse Space Clubs: Small Steps & Giant Leaps, every Friday

• NewSpace India Discord server discussions, every Saturday

• Webinar: Register here.
  Manish Johari, SVP - Lead Angels in conversation with Sanjay Nekkanti, Founder CEO Dhruva Space on SpaceTech opportunities & why VCs & Angel investors are embracing Rocket science.

• Godrej's experience of spin-offs from ISRO technology: 
  Surendra Vaidya talks about Godrej's experience of taking technology from working with ISRO to solve problems in other sectors.

Job Openings

• Pixxel

• Skyroot

• Kawa Space

• Dhruva Space

• Junior Research Fellows for India's first Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project at Amity University, Mumbai

• ISRO Offering one-year training apprentices, applications due by 22nd July

Other Articles

1. The Future of Indian Orbital Rockets: An excellent summary of what to expect in the Indian launch vehicle industry in upcoming years.

2. ISRO chairman K Sivan met the new president of the French Space Agency and the Ambassador of the Dominican Republic

3. SpaceX to partner with Indian companies to manufacture satellite communications gear

About Libre Space Foundation

What is Libre Space Foundation?

Libre Space Foundation is a non-profit organisation dedicated to designing, developing and promoting open-source space technologies. It is an organisation that was founded in 2015 in Greece, formed by the creators of the SatNOGS project. Libre Space Foundation focuses on supporting knowledge, space exploration and the promotion of scientific research. All our projects, activities and operations are governed by the Principles of the Libre Space Manifesto. We follow the values and the principles of open-source development methodology, open governance and transparency, working towards making space available to everyone.

Being an open-source company in space technologies, how do you manage to stay in business?

If you have a look at our projects' page, you will understand that we have invested in exploring knowledge, supporting scientific research and building collaborations with great partners thanks to our expertise and willingness to share knowledge freely. Unlike the proprietary models with which most of us are familiar, the open-source model allows for flexibility, creativity, inclusion and creates a buzzing community of knowledge, synergy and ideas. We create high-end Space technology available to everyone, and this has granted us the skill to offer our expertise and to be consulted for that. Our expertise and knowledge have made us a sought-after partner in many of our established collaborations. What is more, we are working hard on developing and expanding open-source business models. In fact, we have created a detailed report as part of one of the projects that we are running. The initiative is called OpenSatCom, and we have released a thorough report on "Open Source Development Models in Satellite Communications". The report provides an overview of open-source development and business models in general, how these models are adopted/implemented/integrated into specific industries. It focuses on the applicability and existing usage of open-source models in the satellite communications domain.

What is the motivation towards making Space Accessible to All?

The Principles and Values clearly stated in the Libre Space Manifesto are the rules by which we abide. The motivation stems from a deeply humanistic philosophy that we follow. This also abides by the rules of the Outer Space Treaty and sets the tone for the way space and space exploration should be used. We believe that space is the future of humanity, and as such, it should be explored to the fullest by humanity as a whole. Seeing that not all countries and communities have access to it, we have decided to work hard towards that, to promote space technology and knowledge. The only way to achieve this effectively and inclusively is by following the open-source way. The democratisation of space is the only way for humanity to enjoy access to space, knowledge and to be able to explore it for peaceful purposes.

Projects

Can you briefly explain the three dimensions of your work, i.e. Infrastructure, Satellites, and Rockets?

Sure. Here is a concise summary, overview and categorisation of our projects:

Upstream

• UPSat: Designing and developing the first-ever open-source CubeSat for the University of Patras, Greece

• PocketQubes: Creating an electrical standard and a collection of open-source circuit boards.

• QUBIK: Designing, developing, integrating and delivering 2 PocketQube satellites (QUBIK-1 & QUBIK-2) as well as a PocketQube deployer PICOBUS to be flown as part of the DREAM payloads program on the inaugural Firefly Alpha launch of Firefly Aerospace.

Midstream

• SatNOGS: Maintaining and expanding the most extensive open-source ground station network worldwide, optimised for modularity, built from readily available and affordable tools and resources. The network boasts over 400 operational ground stations, tracking 590+ satellites, 1140+ transmitters, collecting over 4.1 million observations and 106+million data frames.

Research & Development

• SDR MakerSpace: Facilitating open-source projects using software-defined radio technologies for Space Communications.

• SatNOGS-COMMS: A versatile Communications solution, suitable for nano-satellites and CubeSats, tightly integrated with the SatNOGS network.

• Polaris ML: An open-source tool used for the exploration and analysis of satellite telemetry data by building machine-learning models. Deep Learning for SpaceOps.

• MetaSat: An open Metadata Schema to link the data, software and hardware of small satellite missions and LSTN to bring space-based knowledge closer to communities. 

Rocketry

• Rocketry Telemetry: Telemetry module for high power rocketry missions.

• Cronos: A hybrid-fueled sounding rocket designed and manufactured by a University-student team. 

Looking specifically at satellites, can you elaborate on the PocketQube standard?

Before delving into this question, I would like to point out that CubeSats come at 1U, which translates into 10x10x10cm, and they are larger than PocketQubes that are 1P=5x5x5cm. This constitutes PocketCubes, a format that is particularly versatile, low cost, and thus, affordable by university teams and educational projects, especially since they can be used for experiments and testing. For these reasons, PocketQubes are becoming all the more popular, and an impressive technological stack has been developed around the PocketQubes; for instance, we have created SatNOGS-COMMS as part of this and, of course, the PICOBUS PocketQube Deployer as vital components of this standard. 

What is Qubik, and when are you planning to launch it?

The QUBIK Mission is a project we take great pride in. It consists of two equally significant components. The first component is the two open-source PocketCubes QUBIK-1 and QUBIK-2. The second component is PICOBUS, a PocketQube Deployer. It is the first-ever open-source PocketQube Deployer. The entire Qubik Mission was designed and developed at LSF in a collaborative open-source way. The QUBIK PocketQubes along with AMSAT-EA's GENESIS-L and GENESIS-N and Fossa Systems' FOSSASAT-1 and FOSSAT-2 were integrated into the deployer and are part of the Firefly Aerospace's Alpha Launch DREAM payloads program. The mission is to be launched in the next months.

Both QUBIK-1 and QUBIK-2 are tasked to perform a series of satellite identification and tracking experiments during the Launch and Early Orbit Phase of a mission.

Future Plans

Finally, what are your upcoming or future goals?

We are always looking for new projects to develop and ideas to put into action. We are looking forward to the QUBIK mission launching and conducting the experiments we have in mind. Experiments that are focused on satellite tracking and identification which is an area we are very interested in. At the same time, we are working towards expanding the current projects. For instance, making SatNOGS even bigger, helping even more satellite operations, optimising SatNOGS-COMMS so that it is available for use. Further developing Polaris ML to help Space Operators diagnose satellite behaviour and detect satellite anomalies. Mentoring and overseeing university projects such as the Cronos sounding rocket and the GSoC programme, bringing in great collaborations that will enhance data-sharing and aiming at bringing the public closer to space exploration and technology by expanding the LSTN project in collaboration with the Wolbach Library of the Harvard-Smithsonian School of Astrophysics.

I would like to thank Nikoletta for taking the time for the interview.

All images are credited to Libre Space Foundation.

Garmin releases NavIC based Hand-held Navigation Devices

Garmin launched NavIC enabled handheld devices GPSMAP 66sr and GPSMAP 65s in India.

Gaganyaan Updates

The first uncrewed flight for the Gaganyaan Program may not happen in December 2021. ISRO Chairman, K Sivan, said that significant design and development for the project had been completed. Static tests of the rocket's solid-fuel motor are scheduled for September.

Meanwhile, the agency is conducting an internal assessment to review the mission timeline. The article also reported that the astronauts would continue training in India until the mission's launch to ensure physical fitness.

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Satellite Applications

ISRO to help states re-open schools with satellite TV based classroom

A Parliamentary Standing Committee for Education had asked ISRO to provide technical assistance to start satellite TV classrooms to bridge the learning gap in the syllabus due to the pandemic. Last Friday, ISRO officials highlighted their readiness to help states and provide satellite rights. However, they did also questioned the willingness of states to use the technology. 

ISRO-ICG developed tech, Indian satellites prove crucial in saving lives at sea

The Indian Costal Guard (ICG) rescued a distressed fishing vessel with seven near Port Blair crew. The Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre (MRCC) received a Distress Alert Transmitter (DAT) on 30th June. Following which ICG tasked ship C-422 from Kamorta, besides ship Vishwast and Dornier aircraft for Search and Rescue. Finally, ICGS Vishwast towed the distressed vessel as on-site repair was possible.

ISRO and ICG jointly develop the DAT system. It transmits distress alerts to the Search and Rescue Authorities through the INSAT series of satellites.

Read More

A new Optical Telescope under Netra SSA Program

ISRO released a tender for an optical telescope for scanning space debris of 30 cm or more at Hanle, Ladakh. Following are the specifications mentioned in the document:

Optical Configuration: Ritchey-Chretien/ dual Nasmyth two-mirror telescope (spectral band 0.4- 0.9 micron) with field corrector optics

Telescope Mirrors: Primary mirror (PM) clear aperture of 1- meter diameter *(Major) Secondary mirror of suitable diameter

Field of View: Optimized for circular Field of view ± 0.3Degree or better without vignetting.

Spectral Range: 0.4 to 0.9 micron (Major)

India building ground station for ASEAN countries in Vietnam

ISRO started establishing a ground station, payload data reception, processing, and dissemination facility in Vietnam. The tender for an 11m antenna at the ground station was released. The whole project is part of Space co-operation between Indian and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

A paper on India's Lunar Soil Simulant (LSS)

"A lunar soil simulant (LSS-ISAC-1) for the lunar exploration programme of the Indian Space Research Organisation"

Abstract:

Lunar Regolith Simulants are imperative materials required for In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), simulating physical and chemical properties of the lunar terrain, testing landers and mobility of rovers, and calibration of payloads and sensors. The available simulants do not represent all the lunar terrain environments and are insufficient to conduct the above experiments. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) took up necessary steps to launch the Chandrayaan-2 mission after successfully completing the Chandrayaan-1 mission. The Chandrayaan-2 mission included an orbiter, a lander, and a rover. ISRO's UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC) has decided to have a dedicated Lunar Terrain Testing Facility (LTTF) at Bengaluru. URSC has planned for a bulk quantity of lunar soil simulant similar to Lunar highland composition. The task was assigned to the Centre for Geoinformatics and Planetary Studies, Department of Geology at Periyar University in southern India. The bulk quantity of Lunar soil stimulant was produced from the anorthosite rocks collected from the Sittampundi Anorthosite Complex (SAC) exposed in the southern part of India. We report the merit of the source area, geological setting, chemistry, mineral phase, soil characteristics, and grain size distribution of simulant material. The anorthosite rocks collected from SAC have a higher abundance of calcic plagioclase, and the proportion of major oxides is mostly equivalent to lunar highland anorthosite. ISRO's lunar soil simulant LSS-ISAC-1 has similarity with the Lunar highland regolith in the majority and has fidelity to represent the highland terrain. The testing facility, LTTF, was used for testing the soft landing of the lander and mobility of the rover of the Chandrayaan-2 mission.

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NewSpace India

• Skyroot Aerospace completes Series A funding with the recent $11 million capital raise. The company aims to become the most affordable on-demand launch vehicle.

• Pixxel aims to launch a total of 36 satellites by the end of 2023 to give daily hyperspectral coverage around the globe. Their first satellite, Anand, is expected to launch by October after the scrub in February due to technical difficulties.

• OneWeb in talks to reduce access terminal costs says, Sunil Mittal

• Manastu Space releases their own YouTube channel.

Podcasts and Discussions

• Clubhouse Space Clubs: Space Smurfs and Small Steps & Giant Leaps

• NewSpace India Discord server discussions, every Saturday 9:30 PM IST

• All Things Small is coming up with the second season of their podcast Mission ISRO.

• Comparing Japan's approach to space industry to the Indian experience

Job Openings

• Pixxel

• Skyroot

• Kawa Space

• Dhruva Space

• ISRO Offering one-year training apprentices, applications due by 22nd July

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Other Articles

1. India's draft space transportation policy gives green push to ISRO

2. LPU to have 'ground station for multiple satellite tracking'

3. Govt school in Bengaluru will be part of satellite launch: K''taka Dy CM

4. Policy black holes spook space investors

5. NewSpace India Can Also Lease ISRO Assets, Says K Sivan

It is an exciting time for the space industry. Many private players have stepped in along with the government space agencies, making the competition higher than ever. It's not just the launch vehicle market with renowned names like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, Rocket Lab, and more. Still, there are many emerging companies bound to exploring our neighbor Moon.

Google's Lunar X Prize began a race back in 2007, a race to become the first private lander on the Moon. Although sadly no one could win, it started a revolution. Private companies started looking towards Lunar Mission. Even NASA announced the Commercial Lunar Payload Servies (CLPS) program. Under CLPS, NASA contracts companies to transport scientific payloads on landers and rovers to the Moon. Companies can sell spots for other payloads as well, making a viable business solution.

Spacebit is a company developing space robotics technology for lunar and planetary missions, working on space data analytics tools and robotic concepts of space exploration that include AI and advanced micro-robotics. Founded in 2014 by CEO Pavlo Tanasyuk, it is based in London, United Kingdom. Their first mission to the Moon, Asagumo, a unique rover, will piggyback onboard Astrobotic Technology Peregrine Lander with ULA (United Launch Alliance) as the launch provider.

Asagumo Rover - The Morning Spider

spaceiac

A post shared by @spaceiac

An animated video on Spacebit’s Instagram about the Asagumo rover.

Your first mission, the Asagumo rover, is unique in design, giving it unprecedented advantages to explore the lunar surface. Can you explain the ideology behind this design?

Usually, when one thinks of lunar rovers, an image of a wheeled vehicle comes to mind. This is hardly surprising since all existing rovers are based on this standard method of locomotion. By contrast, Spacebit's rover is reminiscent of a four-legged spider. It was named 'Asagumo' after the namesake of a Japanese proverb, the 'morning spider,' which is supposed to bring good luck. It seemed particularly apt since the rover is expected to reach its target early in the morning of the lunar day! Spacebit decided to buck the trend and develop a 'walking rover' because of its intended mission – the exploration of lunar lava tubes, which a traditional wheeled rover might find challenging. Lava tubes are subsurface tunnels formed by basaltic lava flows – on Earth and the Moon - and have long been proposed as viable locations for future lunar habitats, not least because they would offer some natural protection against space radiation. The novel design solution resulted in a relatively small rover, with a total deployed mass of just 1.3 kg. Although weight-saving for lunar vehicles has been fundamental in the design process since Apollo – for launch vehicle payload and cost reasons – modern micro- miniaturization technologies have allowed the development of a rover that weighs little more than that legendary yardstick, the 'bag of sugar'. The Asagumo rover is effectively a 'walking CubeSat' - cubical body (without legs) measures 10 cm on a side. Its first outing – dubbed 'Mission One' - is essentially a technology demonstration mission. One of the main operational requirements of the rover is for it to walk 10 meters - though, of course, the company hopes this notional target will be exceeded. The rover's payload includes a high-definition camera and a LIDAR (laser-based measuring device).

How would a spider-like walking rover enable exploration of Lunar Lava Tubes?

Many people were skeptical about the legs – and some of them still are. Even though we have already demonstrated it can move on the surface of Earth, we still have to prove that it can do the same on the Moon, but yes, there is some skepticism from the scientific community. But as a conceptual form, it's a very interesting design because it can allow us to basically step over some obstacles. It can allow us to go in [lava tubes] at a certain angle. It can also allow us to maybe even jump on the Moon in certain conditions. It's basically like a spider. If you look at what nature has created, you don't really see anything built with wheels, and we can go over hard terrain. It proves that sometimes you need legs to do certain specific tasks. If it's military combat and you need something to carry along a soldier, you can't really do that with wheels because of the terrain. The same applies to the Moon. There are two things here to note. First of all, we're doing this because we really want to go into a lava tube, and we believe it's one of the better designs to do so. Secondly, I decided to go for this challenge because it's a cool design, and I believe it's something different. It would be very obvious to go with the wheels as it's a much simpler way. Sometimes we do regret choosing the legs because it's so much more challenging than two wheels. But it's an exciting technology, and I believe that in our future on the Moon and other celestial bodies, you will have robots with wheels, and you will have robots with legs. That's why we have to be pioneers.

Second Wheeled Rover

Spacebit is also working on another larger rover, very different in design from Asagumo, that will be launched onboard Intuitive Machines, NOVA-C Lander, by SpaceX rocket, again as part of NASA's CLPS program. 

As I understand, there is another lunar rover mission in development. Can you tell us about that mission and how it is different from Asagumo?

Spacebit opted for wheels on its second lander because the company is eager to see how a different technology responds to the lunar surface. In addition, a wheeled rover is likely to require just two motors while Spacebit's Asagumo rover will require between six and 12 rovers to walk on four legs, he added. The company is continuing to expand its staff as it develops instruments for its lunar missions and the wheeled rover it plans to fly on the Intuitive Machines lander. Through sensors as well as still images and video, Spacebit plans to obtain detailed information on lunar regolith. While Apollo astronauts brought lunar regolith to Earth for analysis, a small rover moving across the lunar surface may obtain additional insight. We will be able to measure the lunar dust in its natural environment and see the electrostatic charge. For the second Nova-C lander launch, Spacebit is preparing a wheeled rover that will carry a small NASA scientific module. Both the wheeled and the walking rover are designed to help assess what kind of resources are available on the surface of the Moon, with the aim of providing support for the Artemis program. This will provide Spacebit with multiple opportunities to assess the makeup of the regolith (the equivalent of soil for other planets), which is its primary goal with these missions. The different rover designs will also mean it can better assess which is more amenable to the task.

Future Plans

Is Lunar Exploration the only future path for SpaceBit, or you plan to diversify in other fields?

Spacebit hopes to provide a service that will help kick-start the lunar economy. It intends to work on other robotic technologies and the propulsion systems that deliver them from lunar orbit to the surface and back. In doing so, the company is keen to drive and support what might be called a 'green lunar economy,' specifically offering more environmentally-friendly engineering solutions for propulsion and in-situ power generation. Indeed, the protection of the lunar environment as part of a sustainable lunar economy is paramount in the company's ethos. Also embedded in Spacebit's ethos is a determination to support science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) education. Spacebit believes that operating commercial space missions to the Moon can help democratize access to space. As such, the company is a true proponent of NewSpace and a disruptor of the 'status quo' in space, as well as having high aspirations.

Private participation in Lunar Exploration is increasing, but collaboration would the key to success. It is also evident in your partnerships with Astrobotics, SpaceX, and involvement in NASA's CLPS program. How has the experience been so far, and how do you envision these collaborations help the Lunar Exploration?

Partnerships have always been the foundation of success in space. The first 'flags' installed during the Apollo 11 mission were solar wind experiments developed in Switzerland. It is clear that the next step in space exploration will be more global, but it will also entail great opportunities for private and public collaboration. Companies such as Blue Origin and Space X are increasingly involved in NASA's projects. The more cooperation we gather to solve complex problems for humanity as a whole, the better our collective opportunities can grow in Space Exploration. In October 2020, Spacebit signed a contract for a second lunar delivery mission that will be launched onboard Intuitive Machines, NOVA-C Lander, by SpaceX rocket as part of NASA's CLPS program. So we will be working on two UK missions to the Moon next year with our microbot rover technologies. It is an exciting time for space exploration, particularly the Moon, and the great push towards accelerating private sector participation in lunar-based research and science under the Artemis Program. Spacebit is one of the very few commercial companies planning to fly on every NASA CLPS delivery on the market. Everything we do and achieve in space has an impact on our day-to-day lives here on Earth.

I thank CEO Pavlo Tanasyuk for taking time for the interview and also a big thanks to Maksym Shkurat, the Communications Manager at Spacebit for arranging it. 

The Department of Space released the National Space Transportation Policy draft, inviting comments from the public until 21st July ’21. The draft outlines norms, guidelines and procedures for the private space agency working in the space transportation field. Few important takeaways are that private companies are now

• allowed to build and launch rockets/launch vehicles.

• own and operate launch sites in India as well as around the world

• build launch pads on ISRO sites

• carry out re-entry and recovery missions

• collaborate with international agencies and companies

The majority of these activities would require authorisation from the newly formed In-Space. Read the whole draft here.

Chandrayaan-2 Science Updates

Looking for OH and H20 on the Moon: The Imaging Infrared Spectrometer (IIRS) instrument demonstrated the presence of widespread lunar hydration and unambiguous detection of OH and H2O signatures on the Moon between 29 to 62 latitudes. This presence was already known and used as an “instrument works as intended” experiment, as noted in a paper preprint. Working of IIRS payload: Paper and Presentation.

Observing the Sun: Moon provides a good vantage point to observe the Sun. Therefore Chandrayaan-2 has a Solar X-ray Monitor (XSM) payload onboard. ISRO officially announced the detection of sub-A class solar flares during the quiet phase on the Sun. The article is based on the papers published back in April as shared in the sixth edition of Antariksham.

ISRO is much more than just space vehicles and satellites

ISRO will be developing the unique underwater capsule needed for the recently approved ‘Deep ocean mission’. The Ministry of Earth Sciences has roped in space scientists to design and create the capsule that will dive more than 6,000 mt in the Indian Ocean. The three men mission would carry sensors and tools to look for polymetallic nodules containing copper, nickel, cobalt and manganese worth millions. The Government of India sanctioned Rs 4,077 cr ‘deep ocean mission’ on 16th June ’21.

Meanwhile, the Indian Airforce, in collaboration with ISRO, is developing a real-time aircraft tracking system (RTATS) for its military planes. The industry will develop final hardware, while ISRO would help ascertain the specifications and requirements.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and ISRO are co-leading the CEO COAST project aiming to improve coastal data accuracy based on satellite and land-based observations. The current algorithms can make sense of data for ocean and landmasses, but they fail for coastal areas. The project was recently honoured by the United Nations.

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Some other articles

Natural selection in few milliseconds: Shock-induced formation of complex macroscale structures

A team of scientists at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad, have found a possible theory that suggests that the building blocks of life could have polymerised not just on Earth but on other planetary bodies through shock-processing of life-forming molecules. A recently published article explains the experiment on induction of shock of building blocks of amino acids. The molecules tend to take complex shapes similar to those present in life forms.

TIFR zero-pressure balloon programme crosses a milestone

Current Science published an article to celebrate the crossing of the milestone of completing 500 flights in 2018 by the TIFR balloon facility (BF) at Hyderabad. Among its many achievements, BF developed the balloon used for StratEx Mission of Alan Eustace to set the highest high altitude balloon jump record in 2015.

Other News

• New subreddit for the Private Indian Space Industry: India In-Space

• How Skyroot is making affordable space launches a reality

• NavIC L1 adopts indigenous digital codes designed by ISRO and IISc

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Webinars and Podcasts

1. GEOKUL - Webinar Series on ISRO’s GeoPortals, streamed on 22nd June ’21 [OFFICIAL]

2. Second Last Supper | Ep 18 | Tushar Jadhav on Making Fuel For Satellites, streamed on 18th June ’21

3. To The Point with Dr K. Sivan, Chairman, ISRO, streamed on 15th June ’21

4. ISRO Chairman address at Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX) 2021 Plenary 2A, streamed on 15th June ’21

5. Building the space industry in India, every Friday on Clubhouse

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Dr Siddharth Pandey established the Amity Centre of Excellence in Astrobiology (ACoeA) less than three years ago. Over the years, the centre conducted India's first' Introduction to Astrobiology' Online Course and announced Earth and Space Exploration Program (ESEP) in Ladakh. When I last interviewed Siddharth, he mentioned 'the Amity Space Biology Experiment-1 which will be the first space biology experiment from India, that has been selected to fly as part of the Satellize payload on ISRO PSLV C49 PS4 Platform.'

A recent article suggests that the Indian Space Research Organization has selected Amity University to design and build two small modules to launch into space in 2021.

Recruitment Opportunities at NewSpace India

Spacefed India, a Non-Profit initiative and Industry Association, collected the recruitments for the private Indian space sector released in the past month. Here is the list:

Kawa Space

1. GIS Associate (https://lnkd.in/gppq__8)

2. Data Scientist (https://lnkd.in/gGdi-hT)

SatSure

1. Mobile Developer

2. Back-end Developer

3. Product Design

4. Remote Sensing Analyst

5. Data Analyst

Write to careers@satsure.com

Pixxel

1. Business Development Intern

Link: https://lnkd.in/gRB4_gW

Skyroot Aerospace

1. Embedded Hardware Engineer (Avionics)

2. Avionics Quality and Test Engineer

3. Aerodynamics Engineer

4. Avionics Engineer - Lead

5. Quality - Lead

6. Supply Chain Management - Lead

7. Mechanical Design/CAD Engineer

8. Quality Engineer - Composites

9. Structural Analysis Engineer - (Aerospace)

10. Turbomachinery Engineer

11. General Applicants

Link: https://skyroot.in/join/

Digantara

1. Business and Strategy

Link: https://digantara.freshteam.com/jobs

Three New Courses from IIRS, ISRO

Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS) is a premier Training and Educational Institute set up for developing trained professionals in Remote Sensing, Geoinformatics and GNSS Technology for Natural Resources, Environmental and Disaster Management. It regularly offers free online courses in different fields. Recently, it announced three new courses.

1. Earth Observation for Carbon Cycle Studies (June 21 - June 25, 2021)

2. Overview of Web GIS Technology (June 21 - July 02, 2021)

3. Machine learning to Deep Learning: A journey for remote sensing data classification (July 5-9, 2021)

IIT Bombay forms Rocket Team

IIT Bombay already has a Student Satellite Team, which launched the first satellite, Pratham, in 2016. Now, a bunch of students have started the IITB Rocket Team. They plan to build a 2.5m solid rocket to begin their journey.

Until now, very few universities in India have built rockets. IIST had a team sometime back. I could only find an article dating back to 2011, suggesting that the group no longer functions.

Punjab Engineering College also had a Rocket Team that participated in Spaceport America 2017, one of the largest student rocket competitions, but I couldn't find any current updates. ThrustMIT, a rocket team from the Manipal Institute of Technology, has participated in the 2018 Spaceport America. The team is still active, as evident from their Instagram and LinkedIn pages.

Having student teams enables students to get hands-on experience in Space Technology. The IITB Satellite team has given birth to leaders who started the Manastu Space and Igniting Dreams of Young Minds (IDYM) foundation. The founding member is working at JPL. I am pursuing my PhD in Aerospace Engineering while my co-leader went on to work for ISRO.

Similarly, Pixxel and Digantara started as student groups that went on to become private-sector companies. A lot of other space startups were founded in colleges. Therefore it is good that new teams are coming up.

Know about the experience of working at ISRO

Working at ISRO

Aniruddha Ranade, Scientist/Engineer at Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad, shares his experiences working at ISRO for the past year.

Other Articles

• Skylo launches connected device services in India on Inmarsat network

• IIST PhD and MS/MTech Programmes Admissions

• ISRO to aid construction projects in Northeast through satellite imaging, other technology

History

INSAT-1D launched on June 12 1990.

Tell us about SAC, ISRO.

ISRO, the national space agency of India, is driven by its vision: Harness space technology for national development while pursuing space science research and planetary exploration. The responsibility to achieve this is shared between several centres, units, autonomous bodies of the Department of Space. Space Applications Centre (SAC) is one of the major ISRO centres engaged in the research, development, and demonstration of space technology applications in telecommunications, remote sensing, meteorology, and satellite navigation. It is responsible for realizing the payload of the satellite. In layman's terms, the payload is the instrument onboard the satellite, making the satellite capable of delivering applications. For example, an Earth observation satellite shall require optical cameras. SAC is responsible for delivering the camera and developing applications for generating meaningful maps from the data received from the satellite.

SAC is divided into several areas. Some areas specialize in delivering specific categories of payload instrumentation like satellite communication, navigation, remote sensing in different bands, etc., and their associated applications, while other areas are responsible to support them in achieving this. A group is engaged in designing and delivering human-rated systems for the Gaganyaan program in coordination with similar groups from other ISRO centres.

What is it like to work at SAC?

Typical office day begins at around 9 AM and no the day doesn't end at 5.30 pm! I am part of the team working on the Gaganyaan program. Since this is India's first human spaceflight mission, several systems are being designed for the first time. Along with the excitement, this brings a lot of responsibility. I feel privileged to have got an opportunity to work on the Gaganyaan program. I am sure, like me, you must have seen one of those NatGeo Specials - wherein you get to know about a project too ambitious and how people make it happen. Well, for me, this is a journey of similar sorts, and there is a long road to walk. That's what motivates me to work every day.     

At SAC, several employees have two assignments. The first is pertaining to the satellite mission like RISAT, Cartosat, etc., and the other is an R&D activity. The main project typically has well-defined deadlines, and it takes a good chunk of resources. The R&D activity may be a precursor to upcoming projects or could be completely exploratory. Employees are encouraged to write their own proposals for the R&D activities. Based on it, they are scrutinized and funded periodically. Over the past few months, I have enjoyed this double-stranded responsibility. It allows one to find a balance between implementation and research-driven activities. You also get an opportunity to work with and mentor student interns working on their final year projects. More info about internships could be found here.  

Apart from supporting enthusiastic employees in pursuing higher education, ISRO is also a strong champion of continuing education. It sponsors its employees for attending relevant training camps and participating in conferences. Annually, Professional Update Allowance is given to encourage employees to invest in their upskilling.

What was your experience with the recruitment process?

I was recruited through the campus placement process. There was one round of technical interview. My panel had two members. I passed on my resume, and as they were glancing through it, I told them about my experience at URSC during May-Jun 2016, during integration and flight model testing of Pratham. They asked me about the flight model tests then moved to my master's thesis. Over the next 20 minutes, there were discussions on a wide variety of topics - from how a wing generates lift to what Nusselt number is!

When and how did you start planning your career in aerospace engineering?

To frankly answer the question, I did not explicitly plan "a" particular engineering career. I started my journey at IITB in 2015, in the Chemical Engineering B.Tech batch. The branch selection was straightforward - a core age-old engineering vertical at IITB - nothing more, nothing less. I spent countless hours enjoying the Big, Bigger, Biggest, and Air Crash Investigation, and yet I wasn't particularly inclined on pursuing "a" specific domain of engineering. The plan then was to explore the much-celebrated culture of IITB and see the opportunities it would bring up. IITB offers an opportunity to first-year undergrads to change their branch based on academic performance at the end of the first year. I opted to change my program to B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering. Again this decision was driven by the herd mentality.

Since the day I came on campus, I made sure to keep myself aware. IITB has a rich culture of Tech Teams. These are multidisciplinary student-run projects which are engaged in pursuing long-term engineering projects - Student Satellite Team, IITB Racing, AUV, etc. These teams have students from different disciplines working in a multi-tier structure. Some of these teams have been in IITB for over a decade now and have found a way to maintain continuity and, at the same time, have grown towards chasing more ambitious dreams.

I joined the Student Satellite Team in my first year. I wrote the test, followed by a two-week-long mini-project and a presentation for the electrical subsystem. Candidates can apply for any subsystem irrespective of their parent branches. The enthusiasm to work was the only prerequisite. When I joined the team, Pratham IITB's first student satellite, an ambitious project running since 2007, recently finished its qualification model tests at URSC, ISRO and was gearing up for the flight model tests in the summer of 2016. I got an opportunity to visit URSC and assist my seniors in the FM activities. This 5-week experience was a significant turning point in my life. I not only found a great project to work on but also came across amazing people who grew into a caring family over the years. Looking back, I realize that I enjoyed my journey in the satellite team not because of the project but rather the people in and around it.

In parallel to this, academics were not sidelined. It took me a while to adjust myself and actually enjoy learning through the coursework. IITB offers a rich variety of elective courses. Several classroom teachings made more sense when I saw them in action while working in the satellite team. At the end of my third year, I decided to convert to the B.Tech+M.Tech dual degree program. This time, it was a well-informed decision.

Towards the end of my stay at IITB, I had learned the following:

• I enjoyed working on the systems engineering part of the problems

• I realized that people and their interactions are the most complex component in realizing the project

Around this time, I realized that a project-based engineering profile, similar to what ISRO offers, was a good fit. So, no, I didn't explicitly plan an aerospace engineering career - I happen to be lucky that things aligned so well!

How was your experience of transitioning into the job life?

It is complicated! You usually move out to a new city, meet new people and get along with the job. At the same time, you are moving out of the campus. You are not going to see the same people you have been used to seeing every day for the past few years.

I realized that I had contemplated more about my own career, now that I actually have a job, than when I had, while in college. Maybe it's because there are days when you feel the grass is greener on the other side, and the road not taken might have been better. This is the first time in our lives when we find ourselves without concrete deadlines to look forward to. When you finish the 10th class, you are aware of what you would do in the next two years, and no matter what you do, the date for your 12th class exam is set. I no longer find myself in a similar construct of well-defined life milestones. I think this is one positive thing that has come by after I graduated from the bustling, hustling life at IITB - some time to think about myself, peacefully and without deadlines!

I thank Aniruddha to find time for this Space Talks article.

The UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), Bangaluru, has a new director. Shri M Sankaran took over as Director of URSC on June 01, 2021, from the former director P. Kunhikrishnan. He joined ISRO 35 years ago and worked on power systems for satellites.

Shri P. Kunhikrishnan retired after 36 years of service in ISRO. He joined URSC as its director back in August 2018 and was also director of SDSC-SHAR between 2015-2018.

A TedX Talk by Former Director P. Kunhikrishanan:

Amazon joins the Competition for Satellite-based Broadband in India

Amazon is the latest company to join the competition for Satellite-based Broadband at one of the biggest growing markets, India. Bharti Airtel backed OneWeb and SpaceX are already deploying satellites in their respective global constellations. SpaceX's Starlink has begun beta testing in the USA, and their website states operations start in India around 2022. While OneWeb may be behind in the number of satellites deployed, it plans to begin operations in India. Now, with Amazon entering the picture, the competition for this upcoming market would be fierce.

Gaganyaan Micro-Meteoroid and Orbital Debris Impact Testing to be done at TBRL, DRDO

Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory (TBRL) will test the Gaganyaan Crew Module for hypervelocity impacts. The Laboratory has won the contract after ISRO issued an Expression of Interest (EOI) in January last year. The Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC) of ISRO and TBRL together will design the shield for the Gaganyaan Crew Module using NASA and ESA based debris tools.

TBRL is a DRDO lab at Chandigarh involved in Bombs and Missile testing. They evaluate various protective systems like body armour, vehicle armour and helmets.

Artemis Accords or China-Russia Lunar Research Station: Which one should India join? Or should it join any?

With humankind focusing on our nearest neighbour once again, a divide seems to be forming between the international participants for the latest Moon Race. NASA's Artemis Program plans to land the first woman and return humans on the Moon within the next few years. This time, they plan to stay. NASA has "a set of principles to guide cooperation among nations participating in NASA's 21st century lunar exploration plans" called the Artemis Accords.

Meanwhile, China and Russia plan to build an International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). Both nations are already collaborating on the project. They invited several international entities, including the European Space Agency, to join the project. The upcoming GLEX-2021 would see much more updates on both missions. Follow them on Moon Monday Newsletter.

Moon Monday

Still forming an opinion myself, I would list the various articles debating joining the accords or ILRS. Pradeep Mohandas argues how Japan, Ukraine, Australia being collaborators of the Indian Space Agency and signatories of the Artemis Accords, favour India signing the accords. In contrast, Ajay Lele shares that the Indo-China ties can improve by joining the ILRS. Susita Mohanty points out that Accords may result in mining and colonisation of the Moon, while Keith Cowing argues that Accords will result in Moon's peaceful use like Antarctica. 

There are many more articles discussing the Accords. A reasonable list was posted on the r/ISRO subreddit.

Antrix-Devas Updates

Antrix, a commercial arm of ISRO, formed a deal with Devas Multimedia, a telecommunications company in Bangaluru, in 2005. Years later, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India found irregularities with the deal. Following this, Antrix terminated the agreement between the parties in 2011. But Antrix lost two major Arbitrations favouring Devas and ended up with liability to pay financial compensation. Understand the whole dispute here.

On May 31, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) ordered the winding up of Devas, following a petition filed by Antrix. Without trying to understand the whole meaning behind this, it seems this update could provide some relief to ISRO after the losses in prior arbitrations.

NewSpace India Podcast

Bengaluru-based space tech startup Astrogate Labs builds core technologies in optical/laser communication terminals. The co-founder of the company, Nitish, talks about their journey so far.

Other News and Articles

• GSAT-7R for Indian Navy will use Ka-band 'and may go for the V band'.

• With over 350 private space companies, India in fifth place globally

• Spacetech Startup GalaxEye raises pre-seed round led by Speciale Invest

• India should harness potential of quantum tech: DST secy

🇮🇳 Antariksham Weekly

A weekly newsletter sharing updates on the growing Indian Space Sector

👨‍🚀 Space Talks

Space Talks from students, researchers and scientists working in Spaceflight, Aerospace Engineering and Astronomy

🚀 Lessons Learnt 🛰

Lessons Learnt series reviews past space missions to understand engineering lessons. Each article focuses on different engineering majors.

🇮🇳 ISRO’s Journey

The remarkable journey of the Indian Space Agency from 1965 to the present...

👦 Personal Anecdotes

Musings of Space and Recollections of the my journey so far.

🛺 Science Tourism in India

A voyage of nation's science and technology

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ISRO released an announcement of opportunity (AO), inviting proposals from the Astronomy community of the nation for utilizing AstroSat archival data. AstroSat, India's first astronomy mission, celebrated its five years of operating in orbit last year. This AO is to use the third batch of data. ISRO earlier had released similar AOs for previous sets.

Presentations at the STSC 2021

The United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) organized the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee (STSC) between 19th and 30th April 2021. Amongst many different presentations, ISRO officials gave three presentations.

• Indian Space Programme: 2020 updates & priorities by R. Umamaheswaran

• Space Technology Applications in India with relevance to COVID-19 by Shantanu Bhatawdekar

• India's International Cooperation in Space by B. Pandian

ISRO and Covid-19

India is suffering through a gruesome second wave of Coronavirus infections. Once again, work in many centres of ISRO slowed down. At the same time, the National Space Agency employed its resources to sustain the efforts of the government to combat the second wave.

The work at Satish Dhawan Space Center (SDSC) suspended on 26th April regarding the increase of Covid-19 cases in the worker colonies. But they still continued the GSLV integration and Gaganyaan project at limited capacity. An Indian Express article quotes the SDSC director and the district collector regarding testing, treatment and vaccine facilities at SHAR. While the cases continued to rise, a vaccination drive was being conducted. There are reports of deaths of scientists and staff as well.

Full Disk Time-lapse of cyclone Tauktae

All these reports mean that most ISRO missions (as mentioned in the Annual Report) planned for this year are delayed. The space agency also decided to help the efforts of the government. The liquid propulsion centre at Mahendragiri, Tamil Nadu, produces liquid oxygen for the cryogenic stage of the GSLV Mk III launch vehicle. ISRO started supplying oxygen from the centre to Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Chandigarh. It also fast-tracked the testing on ventilators designed last year at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre.

Recently, ISRO chairman Dr K Sivan told TOI that the industrial partners had stopped work because of lockdown in the states while the work at ISRO centres has slowed down. He acknowledged the delay in all the missions while being still optimistic about the Gaganyaan first uncrewed flight in December this year.

NISAR updates

The joint venture between NASA and ISRO, NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission is in the works. United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report stated the increase in the budget requirements and delay of the launch due to Covid-19 in both countries. NASA notified the US congress that a 15% increase in the baseline is expected.

At the same time, officials at NASA expect the launch to be delayed further than the expected September 2022. One primary reason for the delay would be the need for three successful launches of the GSLV Mk II before the NISAR launch. With the second wave prevalent in India, any launches from the SHAR are a rare possibility in the near future.

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NewSpace India

Indian Small Satellite Launch Vehicle startups Agnikul and Skyroot both announced raising $11 Million each. Both companies have made recent advancements by conducting tests on their engines. Agnikul is designing Agnibaan to launch up to 100 Kgs into orbit while Skyroot’s Vikram series would be capable of a maximum of 720 Kgs.

Bellatrix Aerospace, another Indian Space Start-up, successfully tested its hall-effect thruster for small satellites. The company will now prepare the technology for space on a European company satellite.

Team Indus, one of the first space companies in India, revealed their collaboration with Canadian company Mission Control Space Services. Together, they would demonstrate AI-powered autonomy on Team Indus's ECA micro-rover at Mission Control's facility, ahead of commercial missions to the Moon.

GareebScientist’s Exclusive Video on Bellatrix’s Hall-Effect Thruster:

Indian Payloads on Chinese Space Station

The United Nations (UNOOSA), in cooperation with China, published the 1st Announcement of Opportunity (AO), inviting the UN Member States to submit applications for conducting their scientific experiments onboard the Chinese Space Station in 2018. The final list of selected payload includes two with active Indian involvement.

The Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) and the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences are developing a spectrograph to map the galaxy forming clouds called nebulae.

IIT-BHU is working on a Micro-Gravity fluid experiment to test the mixing of various fluids at different temperatures in microgravity. Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Belgium is collaborating on this payload.

Podcasts and Webinars

Dr S Somanath, Director of VSSC, ISRO | VJTI, Technovanza

Dr S Somanath gave a presentation on "Indian Space Enterprise" on 11th February 2021. In the presentation, Dr Somanath talks about the newly found Inspace and various Indian Space Startups. The key highlights of the talk, though, were future goals of the space agency in the launch vehicles front. Reddit user u/Ohsin listed a few highlights here.

NewSpace India Podcasts

As I have not posted in a long time (owing to my finals for PhD coursework), three NewSpace India podcasts were released.

• An economist’s view of the space industry

• Four decades spent on developing applications using space technology for India

• A basic primer of how space industry works in India and the opportunities for anyone to start space companies

  NewSpace India Podcast

Other Articles

• ARIES to train next-generation solar scientists ahead of India’s Aditya L1 mission

• Investor interest in Indian spacetech startups takes off. Here’s why

• Op-ed | India at the Inflection Point: A New Era in the Space Ecosystem

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Novel technique for tracking solar eruptions that disrupt space weather to be used in India's first solar mission

Have you watched a sci-fi movie or TV series where communications are disrupted because of the Solar Flares? While the idea is correct, the term used is often wrong. Solar flares are fundamentally different from Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). These ejections from the sun pose severe threats to our satellites. We need to continuously observe the sun and learn about these ejections as early as possible.

India's first solar mission, Aditya-L1, would be doing precisely that along with other solar science. Scientists at the Aryabhatta Research Institute of observational sciences (ARIES), Nainital, have developed an algorithm to track CMEs, increasing the accuracy of forecasting their estimated arrival time (ETA). The algorithm called CMEs Identification in Inner Solar Corona (CIISCO) would detect and track the accelerating solar eruption in the lower corona. It has already been tested on various Earth-based solar observation data and would now be implemented on the Aditya-L1 mission data.

French Minister has visited ISRO Headquarters and HSFC on April 15, 2021

HE Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister for Europe & Foreign Affairs, Government of the Republic of France, visited ISRO Headquarters & Human Space Flight Centre. An Agreement between ISRO's Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC) and the French National Space Agency (CNES) for cooperation concerning the Human Spaceflight programme, specifically on sharing expertise in space medicine, was signed during this visit.

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Upcoming Missions

Aditya-L1 Mission

The Aditya-L1 mission, planned to be launched later this year, got a ground support centre to monitor and coordinate its various payloads. It will carry seven payloads that multiple institutions across the country have developed.

The ARIES facility near Haldwani will be managed by four to five personnel. An agreement was signed to this effect based on the proposal submitted by the ARIES team, led by Dipankar Banerjee, Director of ARIES, who is a solar physicist and co-chair of the science working group of the Aditya-L1 mission. The same team is also responsible for the CIISCO algorithm.

The centre will attempt to increase international reach through guest participants for collaborations on solar science with the Aditya-L1 mission data. As the article suggests:

The Aditya-L1 Support Centre (ASC) will provide training through regular workshops for the guest users. Apart from this, it will provide ready-to-use Python and Java apps for the satellite data and demos and handouts to facilitate the guest users. An ARIES team has recently developed an algorithm to study the accelerating solar eruptions in the lower corona called CMEs Identification in Inner Solar Corona (in short, CIISCO), where CME stands for coronal mass ejection. Prof. Banerjee explains how this will be put to use: "The centre will also provide source code for advanced data analysis. For example, it will provide the source code for CIISCO that we have developed in ARIES to detect accelerating CMEs in the solar atmosphere."

Gaganyaan

The Gaganyaan Advisory Council (GAC) met recently. They unanimously advised ISRO not to delay the first uncrewed mission. The Indian Data Relay Satellite System (IDRSS) is required for Gaganyaan. This satellite will be responsible for establishing 24 X 7 communication with the astronauts. But there is a possibility that the relay communication satellite may not ready by the end of the year. The council has advised the agency to use another satellite by collaborating with another agency. Most likely, it could be NASA's TDRSS satellite. Also, the four astronaut-elects return from Russia and would be starting training in India soon.

Solid motor testing is planned before the first uncrewed mission, and cryo stage testing is going on. GSLV will be mostly human-rated— the ergonomic characteristics and so on — but it will be fully ready before the crewed mission.

GSLV F10/EOS-3 (aka GISAT-1)

The launch shifted to May 15 due to power problems on the satellite. The spacecraft launch has been pushed back from March 2020.

Agnibaan Launch Vehicle | Agnikul

IIIT-Delhi is developing an algorithm to predict collision from space debris.

The project titled 'Orbit computation of Resident Space Object for Space Situational Awareness' has to be completed in two years. The project will be led by the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-Delhi) faculty Sanat K Biswas and Arun Balaji Buduru.

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Podcasts and Webinars

Evolution of solid propellants for rocketry in India | Newspace India

Rajaram Nagappa talks about how solid propellants were developed in India from the time of the sounding rockets to the larger SLV/PSLV rockets.

Metallurgical failure analysis of aerospace components: Musings of a Metallurgist

A detailed talk on the recent free-space QKD experiment

SAC conducted a detailed talk on the recent QKD experiment on the occasion of World Quantum Day. Thanks to u/ohsin for the presentation slides and for mentioning the key takeaways.

Some takeaways are:

• Another ~300-meter free-space Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) trial by June 2021 on a moving platform.

• Looking to fly a technology demonstration payload on PS4OP this year.

• Might fly a demonstration payload on first Gaganyaan uncrewed flight (Dec 2021)

• Aiming for Satellite-Based Quantum communication readiness by 2023

• Phase-1 work is under progress for Quantum Radar!

• The optical communication demo payload (OCT) on GSAT-29 is yet to be operational, facing difficulties in optical tracking, among others. @36min45sec in audio.

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Other Updates and News

• Bhuvan portal website got updated.

• Participate in the Space Science Challenge by Spacenova.

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  Sorry for no newsletter last week. I have covered the updates for the last two weeks.