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

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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?

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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>

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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

  ---

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…

  Read more

  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…

Read more

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

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

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.

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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

Leave a comment

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

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.

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

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.

  ---

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

Demonstration of free-space Quantum Key Distribution (QKD)

Two weeks back, scientists at Space Applications Centre (SAC), Ahmedabad, successfully demonstrated free-space Quantum Communication over a distance of 300 m. The Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) technology underpins a technology that ensures unconditional data security under quantum mechanics principles, which is impossible with conventional encryption systems. Two line-of-sight buildings within the SAC campus were involved in the test. SAC shared a presentation with some more details about the test. The subsequent phases in the QKD testing are PS4-OP based demonstration followed by satellite communication.

Workshop on Scientific Writing

Watch the workshop.

The Capacity Building Programme Office (CBPO), ISRO organised an online workshop on "Scientific Writing" on 31st March 2021 for the benefit of faculty, research scholars and others from academia, especially the research scholars working in the ISRO sponsored projects taken up under Space Technology Cells (STCs), Regional Academic Centre for Space (RAC-S), Space Technology Incubation Centres (S-TIC) and RESPOND.

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Upcoming Missions

Lunar Polar Explorer (LUPEX)

ISRO is collaborating with the Japanese Space Agency, JAXA, for a Lunar Lander Mission called Lunar Polar Explorer (LUPEX). JAXA's Sagamihara Campus organised a Special Online Exhibition. The event featured a video on LUPEX. Sadly, the video itself is in Japanese with no subtitles. Still, you can make out a few detailed slides and a little by using the auto-translate feature of YouTube.

The video provides a good animation video for the whole mission to find water on the south pole of the moon. A slide includes new information on the payloads for the mission.

Some of the Expected Payloads:

• ISRO Sample Analysis Package (ISAP) by ISRO

• Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) by ISRO

• Neutron Spectrometer (NS) by NASA

• Exospheric Mass Spectrometer for LUPEX (EMS-L) by ESA

• And five other payloads by JAXA

NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR)

NASA Office Of Inspector General published a report on the COVID-19 Impacts on NASA's Major Programs and Projects. The NISAR mission is amongst the missions which were affected significantly. Following is the excerpt from the report.

NISAR, a joint mission between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), is expected to be the first satellite to produce high-resolution images of the Earth that can be used to track local changes and measure regional trends. This data will provide scientists with a better understanding of the causes and consequences of land surface changes, increasing our ability to manage resources and address global warming. NISAR operations are mainly conducted at JPL.

NISAR project officials estimate an impact of $10.4 million in FY 2020 from hardware and manufacturing delays. NISAR shut down all of its activities in mid-March 2020, but resumed limited hardware activities later in the month. Remaining hardware activities did not fully resume until early June 2020. NISAR's domestic and international partners experienced different levels of impact, ranging from 2-week to 4-month delays. For example, Boeing's manufacturing operation underwent an initial 2-month delay in March 2020 and experienced another 5-week delay in August 2020 due to COVID-19 exposures. As of September 2020, NISAR officials reported that all hardware activities at JPL have resumed and are being conducted at near-normal operations.

NISAR officials anticipate a $36 million impact in FY 2021 and beyond. Based on a revised schedule, ISRO's delivery of its radar to JPL has been delayed from August 2020 to February 2021. In addition, NISAR officials anticipate a 7-month launch readiness date delay from June 2022 to January 2023.

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Chandrayaan-2 Science Papers

The first science results from the XSM experiment onboard Chandrayaan-2 have been accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters as two companion papers.

Paper-1: "Observations of the Quiet Sun During the Deepest Solar Minimum of the Past Century with Chandrayaan-2 XSM -- Elemental Abundances in the Quiescent Corona"

Paper-2: "Observations of the Quiet Sun During the Deepest Solar Minimum of the Past Century with Chandrayaan-2 XSM -- Sub-A Class Microflares Outside Active Regions"

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Rocketry Movie Trailer

The trailer for the movie based on the book Rocketry | The Nambi Effect was released this week. There are so many different language trailers which is very cool. Hopefully, this means the movie is watched by a larger audience. The effects seem to be correct and good. I am really excited about this movie.

Other News

• ISRO selects Amity to design and build two modules to launch into space

• Back in India, 4 astronauts to stay on busy training schedule

• SiA-India to represent unified voice for satellite communication industry in India

Demonstration of free-space Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) Technology

For the first time in the country, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully demonstrated free-space Quantum Communication over a distance of 300 m. The Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) technology underpins a technology that ensures unconditional data security under quantum mechanics principles, which is impossible with conventional encryption systems. Two line-of-sight buildings within the Space Applications Centre (SAC) campus, Ahmedabad, were involved in the test. Following are a few links that would help you better understand the QKD technology:

• https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9225317

• https://newsd.in/b-luru-institute-takes-big-leap-in-quantum-communication/

Upcoming Missions

SSLV SS1 Static Fire (ST01) Videos

Last week, there were reports of SSLV SS1 fire test failure. This week some videos of the test showed up on social media.

A resident at Sriharikota posted the video of the test on Youtube.

Also, u/Ohsin searched the Sentinel-2 images to observe disturbed dirt at the mouth of the 6C static test facility.

Indian Planetary Missions

A few questions were asked about the Planetary Mission in the parliament on 24th and 25th March 2021.

Mars Orbiter Mission

The MOM-1 mission has completed six years in orbit, and ISRO still monitors the spacecraft and its scientific instruments. Scientific analysis of the data being received from MOM spacecraft is in progress. This statement helps in removing doubts about ISRO receiving signals from MOM-1 spacecraft. Hopefully, they'll release the data soon.

The MOM-2 mission is still under the study phase.

Chandrayaan-3 Mission

CY-3 is in the advanced stage of realization. The Propulsion module has been realized, and final testing is in progress. Integration of the lander is being done. The plan currently is to launch the spacecraft in 2022.

The Propulsion module's final testing can be referring to the NOTAM released last week for the Chitradurga range.

Venus Mission

The Venus mission is not finalized yet. It is being referred to as Shukrayaan, which I don't like personally.

NASA-ISRO SAR (NISAR) Mission

The S-SAR payload developed by ISRO was shipped to the USA a couple of weeks ago. NASA's JPL posted a video of receiving the delivery of the payload. The payload is being installed on the satellite. The integrated spacecraft will later be shipped back to India and launched by GSLV-Mk II.

Astrophysics related ISRO grants from RRI Annual Report

The Raman Research Institute (RRI) published its Annual Report for the year 2019-2020.

Nobel Laureate, Sir C V Raman, founded the Raman Research Institute in 1948 on land that had been gifted to him by the Government of Mysore. The research in basic sciences is today in selected areas of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Light and Matter Physics, Soft Condensed Matter Physics, and Theoretical Physics. The research work includes Physics in Biology, Soft Matter Chemistry, Quantum Information, Computing and Communications.

Following is the description provided on the r/ISRO subreddit:

Page 36 onward there are lots of details for ISRO relevant research work including PRATUSH (Probing ReionizATion of the Universe using Signal from Hydrogen) and development of PRATUSH-C3 payload that could be accommodated on Propulsion Module of Chandrayaan-3, POLIX for XPoSat, new research work on the development of X-Ray optics, DAKSHA X-ray observatory and Indian sub-millimetre-wave astronomy facility in Hanle, Ladakh.

Agnikul's Agnilet Rocket Engine

Podcasts

The story of how the first 100 industry suppliers were convinced to work with ISRO

Sudarshan, a recruit of Prof Sarabhai in 1970, talks about his experience of being the Chairman of the ISRO technology transfer committee and helped develop the first 100 industries to collaborate with ISRO.

Other News Articles

• India, France Working On 3rd Joint Space Mission, Says ISRO Chairman

• GSLV-F10/GISAT-1 mission deferred to April due to technical issues

• ISRO embarking on replicating NASA partnership model in India

Three new Space Technology Incubation Centres Inaugurated

Dr K Sivan, Chairman ISRO / Secretary DOS, inaugurated three Space Technology Incubation Centre(s) (S-TICs) on March 18, 2021, in an online programme. The three S-TICs, together with the three established in the last two years, make the total six S-TICs, one in each region across India.

New S-TICs

1. Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur (for Western region)

2. Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal (for Central region)

3. National Institute of Technology, Rourkela (for Eastern region)

Existing S-TICs

1. National Institute of Technology, Agartala (for North-Eastern region)

2. Dr B R Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar (for Northern region)

3. National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli (for Southern region)

S-TICs are envisioned to take a leading role in the region to provide opportunities to final year graduate, postgraduate and research scholars as future budding entrepreneurs. In some sense, these are extensions of the Space Technology Cells of ISRO at various IITs across the Nation. Projects of practical relevance linked to the ongoing missions or future missions of ISRO are made available to the students at these centres through documents like RESPOND basket.

List for the candidates selected for NSIL Skill Development Programme-2021

The list of selected candidates for the NewSpace India Limited Skill Development Programme shared last month is released on the ISRO website.

Meeting with Saudi Space Commission

ISRO and Saudi Space Commission met in a virtual Bilateral Meeting to discuss space cooperation and the possible signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

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Upcoming Missions

NOTAM for Aerial Survey over Chitradurga. CY-3 tests are likely.

A Notice To Airmen (NOTAM) is filed for a large region around the Chitradurga ISRO facility. The notice is enforced for 0200-1200 (UTC) from 19 to March 31 2021. It is most likely for CY-3 tests, but it could also be related to something entirely different as the region also covers a DRDO runway.

Local Report of SSLV Static Fire Test Failure

Many times local news media houses receive and feature news of ISRO centres much earlier than national media. Recently, regional media reported that a state fire test of SSLV's solid propellant based first stage booster (SS1) might have failed. While the scientists are reviewing the fault in the rocket motor's nozzle, this anomaly can lead to a further delay in the launch vehicle's maiden flight.

Gaganyaan Mission

Times of India reported that the four Indian Astronaut Candidates undergoing training in Russia had passed all tests, and their training will end in March end. ISRO will then take a call on when to call the candidates back to India and start the Indian leg of the training. While answering some questions in the Parliament, Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister of State, Department of Space, said that the Indian portion would start in May/June of 2021.

He also mentioned that no private firms would be involved in the maiden human spaceflight mission. It'll be assisted by the DRDO, Indian Armed Forces and other Space Agencies such as Roscosmos. Dr Singh also answered some other questions related to the expansion of the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre, Valiamala, Private Firms in Space and Commercial Missions in the Lok Sabha session on March 17.

The same Times of India article also reported that Dmitry Loskutov, director-general, Glavkosmos, said, "The production of spacesuits is carried out in strict accordance with the approved schedule. There are no alterations of the production deadlines." This quote again puts questions on the spacesuit to be used in the maiden flight. There have been multiple reports of different spacesuits designed by ISRO, Sure Safety, a Vadodara based company and Glavkosmos. Maybe, we would need to wait for another Parliamentary question to get the answer.

Data Patterns, one of the many Indian companies involved in ISRO activities, delivered the Checkout system for the Gaganyaan Mission on the ground segment front.

Project Netra

NETRA aims to track space object tracking, studies related to space weather, Asteroids, and other Near Earth Objects (NEO). ISRO released a tender for space object tracking data of 100 days for six months. In the past few years, ISRO has been active to improve its Space Situational Awareness (SSA) capabilities. Even in 2020, multiple MoUs were signed with different agencies for collaboration in the same field. Currently, there are limited facilities for space object tracking. ISRO could be looking for data to improve its data processing techniques or close gaps in its own available data.

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Pixxel closes the $7.3 million seed funding round and releases a new website with Hyperspectral Imaging Payload details.

Pixxel, a small satellite-based Earth observation company, completed its $7.3 million seed funding round. The company also unveiled the indigenous hyperspectral imaging technology for the first time.

Hyperspectral imagining helps in a better understanding of the imaged region. Like three primary colours (Red, Green and Blue) in the visible light, a hyperspectral camera can image the region in multiple bands. This ability essentially enables users to distinguish between an extensive range of materials like water, greenhouse gases, green cover, concrete construction etc.

The company mentions that its first satellite Anand, which couldn't launch in the previous PSLV, will carry the hyperspectral imaging sensor on the newly redesigned website. This satellite would be one of the highest resolution hyperspectral small satellites in the world. Do explore their website to learn more.

Pixxel Website

GeoKumbh (Geoकुंभ) Portal for Kumbh Mela to be held in Haridwar

IIRS released a web portal for space-based observation of the Haridwar region, the site of Kumbh Mela-2021. Khumb Mela, celebrated every 12 years, attracts millions of devotees. The 2001 Mela had a footfall of over 60 million people. The portal shows various types of data ranging from daily weather, pollution updates to land cover, forest type and other remote sensing data.

GeoKumbh

Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS) is a constituent unit of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Department of Space, Government of India.

52nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference

In last week's newsletter, I shared some of the articles and posters submitted by Indian Scientists and Professors at the LPSC-2021. Official Microblogger for LPSC, @Astro_Neel, has shared a list of all the papers, presentations and posters presented at the conference. This edition of the newsletter is already the longest till now. Therefore I won't share more details about the posters. I urge you to check out at least the list to know the planetary science is happening in India.

Virtual IIRS Academia Meet (VIAM) – 2021 (March 16, 2021)

Find time stamps for various topics here.

Anniversaries

March 17: India's First Remote Sensing Satellite IRS-1A Launch. This satellite paved the path for the ISRO as we know it today.

Visit Aerospace Nerd

ISRO's NISAR payload flagged off to JPL, NASA

ISRO is collaborating with NASA for a Synthetic Aperture Radar mission called NISAR (NASA-ISRO SAR Mission). The mission, planned to be launched next year onboard GSLV, completed a significant milestone. The Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad (SAC/ISRO), shipped the S-band SAR payload to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL/NASA) for integration with the L-Band SAR payload.

RH-560 Mk-III Maiden Flight Successful

As shared in the last week's newsletter, the latest sounding rocket in ISRO's Rohini series planned its first launch this week. The launch was successful, and ISRO's Twitter handle shared some pretty pictures of the launch. The launch had payloads to study attitudinal variations in the neutral winds and plasma dynamics.

NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) organised its first Press Meet

NewSpace India Limited, CMD, Mr G Narayanan and Director, Technical and Strategy, organised a press meet on 12th March 2021. Not much information was released in the update. A few media articles detailing the Meet are mentioned in the last section below.

ISRO and JAXA signed an Agreement for air quality and rice crop monitoring

ISRO chairman, Dr K Sivan, signed an Implementing Arrangement for collaborative activities on rice crop area and air quality monitoring using satellite data during a recent Bilateral virtual meeting with Dr Hiroshi Yamakawa, President of Japanese Space Agency JAXA. The two leaders also discussed the 2024 joint Lunar Mission.

Official Government Reports and Documents

345th Report of the Department-related Standing Committee on Demand of Grants - Dept of Space

Department-related Standing Committee on Demand of Grants submitted their report on the Department of Space in Rajya Sabha. The report comes after a Committee meeting with the Secretary and other offices of the Department of Space on 22nd February 2021.

The committee made many important observations and suggested changes in the budget. They especially asserted the importance of completing the Chandryaan-III and Gaganyaan missions on schedule and pointed out that the missions "must not suffer due to any budgetary constraints whatsoever" (section 3.4).

For me, it was heartening to see the committee pointing ISRO to improve their outreach (section 4.4).

Some other key points raised by the committee were consolidated by Reddit user r/pradx:

1. Asked for more communication and remote sensing satellites for commercial and defence purposes (section 6).

2. Called for the tabling of the Space Activities Bill (section 8).

3. Commented on whether we are opening up the space sector to the private sector too fast and about security implications of the same (section 8).

4. Questioned whether NSIL will replace ISRO (section 9).

Output-Outcome Framework for 2021-22

ISRO released the Output-Outcome Framework document for the 2021-22 Financial Year. This document helps us understand the plans of ISRO for the upcoming period. Some of the key points are listed below:

Gaganyaan

• "One test vehicle launches" is planned, which points to the first GSLV Mk-III Unmanned Flight test of the two overall.

• "100% completion of Qualification and validation of Crew Escape System and Parachute System" means that we can see the Crew Escape System flight test this year as well.

Satellite Missions

• ISRO plans seven satellite missions this year, one onboard a GSLV and four on 2 PSLV missions.

• The final two satellites will be launched by the latest SSLV (Small Satellite Launch Vehicle) in two separate launches.

• Amongst the seven satellites, two will be communication satellites.

Space Science Missions

• Chandryaan-III and Aditya-L1 missions will achieve 90% completion, while the XPOSAT (X-ray Astronomy Mission) will achieve 100%.

• This means ISRO will launch all three missions in the year 2022.

Parliamentary Q&A at Lok Sabha [10th March 2021]

On 10th March 2021, Lok Sabha members asked a few queries on planned missions, astronaut training and new space sector reforms. You can find the summary for the same here.

Podcasts, Conferences and Webinars

Why some Indians are starting space startups abroad?

Sethu (CEO of ReOrbit) talks about his perspectives on why he chose Finland as a home to his startup and reflects on what can make the ecosystem in India more welcoming to have more and more Indian entrepreneurs start their space ventures out of India.

52nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference

One of the biggest Planetary Science Conferences, LPSC 2021, is underway this week. Thanks to one of the official microbloggers of the event @Astro_Neel, here are some of the India-related poster and presentation updates:

SPECTRAL OBSERVATIONS FROM IMAGING INFRARED SPECTROMETER (IIRS) ONBOARD CHANDRAYAAN-2 ORBITER: RADIANCE DATA COMPARISONS

A joint collaborative research group published a poster on the latest spectral observations from the IIRS payload onboard CY-2 from IIT Kanpur, IIRS/ISRO, PRL/Ahemdabad, SAC/ISRO and NISER/Bhubaneswar.

CURRENT STATUS OF THE PLANNED LUNAR POLAR EXPLORATION MISSION JOINTLY STUDIED BY INDIA AND JAPAN

Scientists at JAXA share updates regarding the joint Lunar Polar Exploration Mission (LUPEX) of ISRO and JAXA.

REPORT ON THE LOSS OF VIKRAM LANDER OF CHANDRAYAAN 2 MISSION

As the Department of Space never released any report on the failure analysis of the Vikram Lander of CY-2, a research team at Podicherry University makes an educated hypothesis of what could have gone wrong with the lander.

Chandrayaan-1 Moon Impact Probe: Impact Location Refined

An independent study to refine CY-1's Moon Impact Probe (MIP) location on the lunar surface. They utilise various images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).

Future of Aerospace and Avionics in India | Dr K Sivan

Dr K Sivan, chairman of ISRO, addressed students and faculty of UPES University. I was unable to attend the webinar, but the university has shared the video on YouTube. A lot of renders for upcoming missions and technologies can be seen in the slide deck used.

Other News Articles

• ISRO's commercial arm NSIL bags four more contracts, eyes satellite deals

• Methane oxygen rocket engine tested in November 2020

• GISAT-2 Launch planned on 28th March

The Indian Space Agency, ISRO released the Annual Report for the financial year 2020-21 on 4th March. The report provides much more clarity on ISRO's current and upcoming missions. You can watch a video by Gareeb Scientist on the critical updates on this link.

A few extra points I felt he missed:

Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC) Description (Pg No 10)

The Centre will develop necessary expertise to sustain the human space flight activities in the country including capability to build orbiting space station and become active partners in collaborative interplanetary manned missions to Moon/Mars and near-Earth Asteroids.

To have such a goal in writing means ISRO is serious with the Human Space Flight Programme and hopes to take it further than a few orbital missions.

Satellite Applications and Science Missions

Many applications of different earth observation (remote sensing) and communication satellites are mentioned in the report. I believe these don't get much coverage as compared to technical aspects like launch and upcoming missions.

The science outputs from missions such as Astrosat and Chandrayaan-2 are covered along with the upcoming missions: Aditya-L1 and XPoSat.

You can download and read the whole document here.

Upcoming First Launch of RH-560 Mk III Sounding Rocket

The RH (Rohini) class of sounding rockets of ISRO have been around almost since the inception of the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS). The latest and most heavy sounding rocket in this series, RH-560 Mk III, will soon have its first flight from the Sriharikota Launch Range. (Yes, SHAR also has a sounding rocket launch pad along with two launch vehicle pads.)

While there is no official announcement about the rocket launch, a NOTAM regarding the launch was enforced for 12th to 16th March.

A0564/21 (Issued for VOMF VECF PART 1 OF 3) - RH-560 MKIII SOUNDING ROCKET LAUNCH FM SHAR RANGE,SRIHARIKOTA

WILL TAKE PLACE AS PER FLW DETAILS. THE LAUNCH WILL BE ON ANY ONE OF THE DAY DRG THIS PERIOD.

ACTUAL DATE OF LAUNCH WILL BE INTIMATED AT LEAST 24 HR IN ADVANCE THROUGH A SEPARATE NOTAM.

LAUNCH PAD COORD:134144N0801405E.

NO FLT IS PERMITTED OVER THE DNG ZONES.

1)DNG ZONE -1 IS A CIRCLE OF 05NM AROUND THE LAUNCHER

2)DNG ZONE -2 IS A SECTOR BTN RADII OF 05NM AND 25NM FM THE LAUNCH PAD COORD AND BTN AZM ANGLES 080 DEG AND 120 DEG FM TRUE NORTH

3)DNG ZONE-3 IS A SECTOR BTN RADII OF 250NM AND 450NM FM THE LAUNCH PAD COORD AND BTN AZM ANGLES 080 DEG AND 120 DEG FM TRUE NORTH PART 1 OF 3. 1330-1430, 12 MAR 13:30 2021 UNTIL 16 MAR 14:30 2021.

CREATED: 03 MAR 10:05 2021

Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) calls home every day.

You may have noticed that I did not mention the MOM while discussing the Annual Report. The reason was that ISRO featured only a small paragraph with no updates in the report. Recently, a ham (amateur radio) operator, @df2mz, shared that MOM calls Earth for 10 minutes every day, and there is no lock to any station. This could mean that no one picking up the call.

On 3rd March, though, there was some extra activity in addition to the 10 minutes call.

All these signs could also mean that the person being in Germany cannot see the uplink signals being sent from Bangalore and ISRO receives the downlink signals without a lock. I do hope that is the case and not that ISRO has forgotten the mission.

Clearing ISRO Land in Challakare, Karnataka for CY-3 phase 3 testing

A lot of updates about ISRO are speculations made through tenders by some of the Redditors of r/isro. The most recent one is that ISRO could perform the Chandryaan-3 phase 3 landing tests in April 2021. The user r/pradx shared the tender clearing some bushes in the Challakre land of ISRO. As seen in the image taken from Google Maps, a lot of CY-2 testing craters are there.

If you have followed some earlier r/isro discussions or saw the Gareeb Scientist Annual Report video, you would know the importance of this land. The Human Space Flight Centre, along with a residential township, is planned on the same land. The RLV landing experiment planned for sometime same as CY-3 landing tests is also planned in a nearby DRDO runway.

PSLV-C51/Amazonia-1 Mission Updates

• All the satellites launched by the PSLV-C51 mission are functioning and have started sending data except the UNITYSats trio. There have been multiple tweets and posts on the librespace forum indicating the same.

• The primary satellite Amazonia-1 sent its first images back to the ground station at INPE, Brazil. The following official video shows the images.

Talks and Conferences

Virtual IIRS Academia Meet (VIAM) -2021

Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS), a constituent unit of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), is organizing a Virtual Academia Meet on 16th March. IIRS conducts such a meet (earlier called as IIRS User Interaction Meet) every year since 2013. This year the topic is Technological trends in Capacity Building for Disaster Management Support. You can register at the following link:

https://www.iirs.gov.in/viam/

Space Exploration - Challenges and Opportunities

Register Here

Abstract for the talk

Space exploration poses a variety of technological and human-related challenges owing to which crewed spaceflight has been mostly confined to the vicinity of Earth, while unmanned space exploration has gone far beyond the solar system. The hazards of the space environment include extremes of temperature, space radiation and the danger of impact with a micrometeorite or orbital debris. The talk discusses the technical challenges to be overcome to expand the frontiers of space exploration and the enabling technologies to sustain life in the hostile space environment. The potential research areas in this domain are also touched upon.

PROLIM-SpaceFed Webinar

Register Here

Paris Space Week

Manastu Space, an Indian Space Startup working on green propulsion technologies for satellites, will present at the Paris Space Week. The event is hybrid being held on 9-10th March.

Register Here

Virtual Exhibition on Indo-France Space Partnership

The French Institute in India has initiated a project to document the scientific partnership between India and France. Their first blog featured “Indian and France in Space”. It is a highly intriguing collection that exhibits many historical Indo-France Space Missions.

Other News Articles

• How India is using space technology to 'smart sample' crops

• Isro-SPPU’s Space Technology Cell invites research proposals

• After building ties with Brazil, Aus, ISRO eyes new opportunity with Italy

• Four Indian scientists challenge Big Bang Theory

If you believe I missed something or you would like to share some updates/news for the next edition, please comment below.

Leave a comment

On the occasion of national science day, ISRO completed its first orbital mission for the year 2021. The mission launched a total of 19 satellites with the Amazonia-1, from Brazil being the primary passenger.

Primary Payload

Amazonia-1 is Brazil's first remote sensing satellite to study deforestation in the Amazon region of South America. Just after the ejection of the satellite, nominal operations were also confirmed through the first signals. Along with the Brazilian satellite, PSLV-C51 carried four other Indian satellites: InSpace contracts, while the other 14 satellites were under NSIL (New Space India Limited) contract.

Student Satellites (InSpace)

The four Indian satellites were student satellites, three of them being UNITYsats, designed and built as a joint development by Jeppiaar Institute of Technology, Sriperumbudur (JITsat), G.H.Raisoni College of Engineering, Nagpur (GHRCEsat) and Sri Shakti Institute of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore (Sri Shakthi Sat). Finally, the last one was Satish Dhawan Sat (SDSAT) from Space Kidz India, a space-education company that launched payloads onboard PSLV Stage 4 earlier.

As per the ISRO brochure, the UNITYsats will provide radio relay services which stand for Ham Radio Repeaters, I believe, but I couldn't find any other information about these satellites. Whether the UNITYsat is healthy is unknown.

The SDSAT has a LoRa transmission payload and is known to be alive and healthy in space. While the satellite signals have been received, SATNOGS (Satellite Networked Open Ground Station), free software and open-source satellite ground station network, tweeted that the satellite is interfering with the INNOSAT-2 signals.

Commercial Payloads (NSIL)

This PSLV launch was the first dedicated mission of the NSIL arm of the Department of Space. The 14 other satellites apart from Amazonia-1 were the SindhuNetra, NanoConnect-2 and 12 SpaceBees.

SindhuNetra is a DRDO earth observation satellite developed by the PES University. According to an ANI report, the satellite is already in position and has also started communicating with the ground systems.

The SpaceBees are small 0.25U (2.5 X 10 X 10 cm) satellites developed by USA based Swarm Technologies for two-way satellite communication and data relay. Swarm Technologies shared that the SpaceBees are also healthy and sending required data.

Finally, the NanoConnect-2 is a 2U (20 X 10 X 10 cm) satellite carrying Space-AI's SDR payload and a payload by the Space Instrumentation Laboratory (LINX) of The National University of Mexico (UNAM) to validate the use of the Globalstar satellite phone network as a secondary channel on nanosatellites.

Post-launch Conference

In the post-launch conference, Dr K Sivan, chairman of ISRO, said that the agency is eyeing a total of 7 launches this year. This number includes the Gaganyaan first unmanned launch.

Pixxel’s Anand Satellite did not Launch

While the PSLV launched on Sunday, the Indian Startup, Pixxel’s satellite called Anand could not launch along with it. The company’s CEO, Awais Ahmed tweeted that the software tests resulted in some issues. I wrote the following article explaining the aerospace engineering behind the launch scrub.

Blog Post

Residential Skill Development programme in Aerospace Welding and CNC machining

Register Here

Talks and Podcasts

NewSpace India Podcast

This week’s NewSpace India Podcast features Dr Deganit Paikowsky from Israel. She shares the history of the Israeli Space Programme. Along the way, she and Narayan Prasad discuss the similarities between India and Israel and their relations.

Listen to the Podcast

K. Radhakrishnan - Former Chairman, ISRO | Man Behind 'Mangalyaan'

A QnA session with Dr K Radhakrishnan. He talks about his journey in ISRO and various achievements along the way. He also discusses India’s current space ambitions and where it stands in the worldwide context. I would strongly urge everyone to listen to this talk! It is quite insightful.

All Things Policy Ep. 520: Reaching for the Heavens Via India

An interview with the Mission Director of the Brazilian Satellite: Amazonia-1. He shares his long journey of satellite design and development in the remote sensing program of Brazil.

Other Important News

House panel asks ISRO to make landslip warning system

ISRO gears up to launch its new-generation mini rocket on maiden flight

ISRO lining up launch of India's geo imaging satellite GISAT-1