Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

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Ashokk
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by Ashokk »

Chandrayaan-3 In Advanced Stage Of Realisation, Targeted To Be Launched In Second Quarter Of FY23: Govt
Chandrayaan-3, India's third lunar mission, is in the advanced stages of realisation and it is targeted to be launched in the second quarter of financial year 2022-23, the Parliament was told on Thursday (9 December).

In a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said, "Chandrayaan-3 is in advanced stage of realisation. All the systems in both Propulsion Module and Rover Module have been realized, integrated and tested".

"In the Lander Module, most of the systems have been realised and tests are under progress," Singh said.

"Chandrayaan-3 is targeted to be launched in the second quarter of financial year 2022-2023," the minister added.

Integrated Sensors and Navigation performance test on the Chandrayaan-3 Lander have been completed and other tests are in progress, he said.

"All the identified tests will be completed before the launch of Chandrayaan-3," he added.

In a written reply to a separate question, Singh said that the government currently has no proposal to send a manned-mission to the Moon and any proposal for the same would be considered after the launch of Gaganyaan programme, which will be India's first manned space mission.

"Any proposal or studies for extending human presence beyond Low earth orbit could be taken after demonstration of Gaganyaan programme," Singh said.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by Rakesh »

https://twitter.com/TheLegateIN/status/ ... 36130?s=20 ---> India to have it's own Space Station by 2030 announces GOI.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by Rakesh »

https://twitter.com/TheLegateIN/status/ ... 62529?s=20 ---> ISRO to launch Chandrayaan-3 lunar rover by Sept 2022.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by k prasad »

Rakesh wrote: https://twitter.com/TheLegateIN/status/ ... 36130?s=20 ---> India to have it's own Space Station by 2030 announces GOI.
it's a great idea, and I'd love to see a manned module with a tricolour in permanent orbit. But it seems to me like this is something that ought to be done only after we have enough experience and maturity in launching our own manned missions. Plus, docking maneuvers are no joke. We haven't even launched our own manned mission yet, and our launch systems are at least a decade from the level of manurity needed to sling a 20+ ton payload into stable orbit.

I love the ambition, but sometimes, it's useful to learn to crawl before we decide to run in the Olympics.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by A Deshmukh »

k prasad wrote:I love the ambition, but sometimes, it's useful to learn to crawl before we decide to run in the Olympics.
Sometimes the dream of Olympics will spur a child to crawl, walk and run faster than otherwise.

ex: US dream of landing on moon, spurred on the US Space technology development.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by k prasad »

A Deshmukh wrote: Sometimes the dream of Olympics will spur a child to crawl, walk and run faster than otherwise.

ex: US dream of landing on moon, spurred on the US Space technology development.
I hope that's true, Saar, but there's too much riding on this. Failure will turn us into a laughing stock. It would've been better to make this statement AFTER we had a successful manned mission and were well on our way to the second. Anything before that becomes a case of building castles in the air, or in this case, a literal castle in space.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by S_Madhukar »

ISRO I hope can first nail the cryo tech before all the grandiose plans. Heck we should send a lunar rover again before attempting new projects. I understand they are marketing to secure projects and money otherwise babus won’t pay up and politicians won’t support but please let’s not run ahead of ourselves… Even better if ISRO is given some challenging Mil projects and says to deliver…
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by csaurabh »

ISRO has much bigger problems at the moment than launching space station. They need to get the basic launches going again for one thing..
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by sum »

^^ Given the track record over these past 2 years and trying to blame COVID for near zero launch record, really wish that grandiose statements are given a rest and the bread and butter stuff are up and running first
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by Prem Kumar »

ISRO has postponed the launch of the 3 EOS satellites. God knows when it will happen. They've really let it slide under Dr. Sivan. The man needs to go and some of the sloth cleaned up.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by k prasad »

Can someone explain to me what the issue is with Dr. Sivan? I've seen a lot of adverse statements about him on this thread, and was wondering what are the issues that are directly tied to Dr. Sivan, beyond the seeming lack of progress and launches at ISRO.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by arvin »

One issue I have is cryogenic failure report for GSLV F10 is not released. No snippets or even the root cause. Only info that we have is a pressure drop occured in the engine. Even that info was released casually in an informal talk sometime in November I think.
Doesnt inspire confidence.
Anyway he has less than a month in his service. Lets see if govt extends his tenure again.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by fanne »

or could be more sinister and people are still determining how deep is the rabbit hole.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by Prem Kumar »

k prasad wrote:Can someone explain to me what the issue is with Dr. Sivan? I've seen a lot of adverse statements about him on this thread, and was wondering what are the issues that are directly tied to Dr. Sivan, beyond the seeming lack of progress and launches at ISRO.
I am very empathetic with him, given his humble background, the fact that he took the Chandrayaan lander failure personally etc. I think he's genuinely an honest, hard-working person who wants ISRO to do well. But under his watch, ISRO's performance in the last couple of years have been declining quite visibly. This is especially glaring if you look at the rapid strides made by competitors like SpaceX in that same timeframe. The Covid excuse has worn thin, considering how the once problem-child DRDO has pulled ahead considerably.

He is the chief and the buck stops with him.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by csaurabh »

fanne wrote:or could be more sinister and people are still determining how deep is the rabbit hole.
,,.......

Disclaimer - this is unofficially known to me through sources. Not sure what has been disclosed in public domain.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by fanne »

it is just speculation on my part. Corruption, sabotage etc. is part and parcel of this country (particularly with earlier political setup- where all branches of govt and public life were compromised). It would be foolish to think that the important establishment would not be under that. This tells you that what pressure a nationalistic government would be under, where at each step there is a well laid mine.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by Vips »

Gaganyaan Crew Module to have two landing choices - Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal.

As the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is going at full throttle for Gaganyaan, the country's maiden manned space mission scheduled for launch in 2023, interesting details of the Crew Module (CM), including the landing choices, Crew Escape system, and survival packets for each crew member, have emerged. The CM would be splashing down near the Indian coast in 2023 after the week-long mission, and the Arabian Sea, which is comparatively calmer, is the primary choice, but Bay of Bengal is is also being considered as a backup option, writes Dr Unnikrishnan Nair S, Director, Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC), ISRO, Bengaluru, in an article.

The article 'Indian Human Space Mission' appears in the Manorama Yearbook 2022.

The HSFC was set up by the ISRO in Bengaluru in 2019 for sustained and affordable human space flight activities and Gaganyaan is the first project. The test flight to validate the performance of Crew Escape System and the first uncrewed mission of

The Gaganyaan Orbital Module (OM) has two parts - the Crew module (CM) and the Service module (SM) - and weighs about 8,000 kg.

While in orbit, the OM will be orbiting the Earth with a velocity of about 7,800 m/s.

The CM, a double walled system and the habitat of astronauts, who would be part of the manned mission, has an ablative Thermal Protection System (TPS) to protect it during the intense aerodynamic heating during the flight, points out Dr Nair.

Human Rated Launch Vehicle (HRLV), which is a modified version of GSLV MK-III vehicle. The CM has a cluster of small thrusters with 100N thrust level based on green propulsion that will be fired in controlled manner to change the attitude of the module during the re-entry and atmospheric phases of flight.

After landing, the coordinates of CM will be passed on to the recovery team waiting in ships. The CM has survival packet for each crew that can ..

For Gaganyaan, the selected four astronaut candidates have undergone generic space flight training at Russia for nearly 15 months.

The Gaganyaan-specific training will be carried out in India at the Astronaut Training Facility being set up at Bengaluru.

The crew will be familiarised with all conceivable situations that can happen while in flight and they will be trained to face such situations. The training will include classroom sessions on different engineering, medical and ..

The crew will undergo training in weightlessness condition by flying in special aircraft through a parabolic path that will give 25 to 30 seconds duration of weightlessness.

In order to familiarise the crew with rescue under abort conditions, they will undergo special survival training in sea, snow, mountain and desert conditions. They will be taught to survive in such situations making use of the survival kit available with them.

The crew will also undergo long duration training in special simulators that will mimic the interior of crew module.
Indranil
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by Indranil »

ISRO looking to change truss-rod intertank structure in cryogenic stage to common bulkhead intertank structure. Latter will save weight by around 490 kg and height by 1.75m on GSLV Mk3.

Will affect SC120, SC200 and SC500 stages.

IMHO, much more important than Gaganyaan mission.

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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by Pratyush »

Can the saved weight be utilised for additional payload?
Indranil
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by Indranil »

Yes.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by arvin »

S Somnath will be the new ISRO cheif after Dr Sivan's term ends this month.

https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story ... 2022-01-12
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by Vips »

Much awaited and welcome change. Hope it brings in a flurry of long overdue launches.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by Prem »

https://twitter.com/RAFIndia_/status/14 ... 27872?s=20
Indian Space Research Organisation successfully conducted the qualification test of Cryogenic Engine for the Gaganyaan programme for a duration of 720 seconds.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by csaurabh »

arvin wrote:S Somnath will be the new ISRO cheif after Dr Sivan's term ends this month.

https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story ... 2022-01-12
Much awaited news. I have spent a few hours being grilled by Somnath ji and can confirm that he has a really sharp technical mind. Let's hope he can bring in long awaited changes.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

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ISRO tests liquid engine for Gaganyaan mission to check engine function, 3 more tests to be done.

The Indian space agency on Thursday successfully conducted a 25-second qualification test for its liquid propellant-based Vikas engine to be used under the Gaganyaan mission.

The test, which was conducted at the Indian Space Research Organisation((ISRO) Propulsion Complex in Mahendragri, Tamil Nadu, was done to see how the engine performed in conditions that were not optimal, such as change in the fuel-oxidiser ratio or pressure in the fuel chamber. “ The performance of the engine met the test objectives and the engine parameters were closely matching with the predictions during the entire duration of the test,” ISRO said in a release.

Three more tests will be conducted, totalling a duration of 75 seconds, to test the engine under varying conditions. Then, a long-duration test for 240 seconds will be conducted to qualify the engine for carrying humans to space.

Two Vikas engines have already been tested for 240 seconds each under optimal operating conditions. This is one of the three engines that the space agency will have to qualify to finally make the entire launch vehicle human rated.

The space agency conducted a qualification test for 720 seconds of its cryogenic upper stage earlier this month. The engine will undergo four more tests totalling a duration of 1,810 seconds and another engine will under-go two short duration and one long-duration test before the cryogenic stage is qualified for Gaganyaan mission.

This is especially important after the failure of the GSLV F10 mission in August last year, when the cryogenic engine did not ignite due to a small drop in pressure in the fuel tank, even though the cryogenic engine for the GSLV MkIII is different.

The first stage of the launch vehicle, which used solid propellant, is already qualified for the mission, according to experts. ISRO is targeting the launch of at least one of the two planned uncrewed mission before this Independence Day, while the crewed mission is planned for next year.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by Prem Kumar »

csaurabh wrote:
fanne wrote:or could be more sinister and people are still determining how deep is the rabbit hole.
,,.......

Disclaimer - this is unofficially known to me through sources. Not sure what has been disclosed in public domain.
Could you elaborate: do you mean that, per your sources, there is a likelihood of sabotage of the cryo engine though its not been offically revealed?
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by Rakesh »

https://twitter.com/TheHemantRout/statu ... 93568?s=20 ---> Another step towards Mission Gaganyaan. High Thrust VIKAS Engine for Gaganyaan program successfully undergone qualification test for a duration of 25 seconds at ISRO Propulsion Complex, Tamil Nadu. The much-awaited human spaceflight mission is expected to take off in 2023.

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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by Barath »

Indranil wrote:ISRO looking to change truss-rod intertank structure in cryogenic stage to common bulkhead intertank structure.
For reference/link
https://publications.drdo.gov.in/ojs/in ... 17239/7692
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by Rakesh »

Skyroot Aerospace raises $4.5 million to build infra for 2022 rocket launch
https://www.livemint.com/companies/news ... 27362.html
27 Jan 2022
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ISRO conducts breakthrough demonstration of hack-proof quantum communication.

In a major step forward towards satellite-based quantum communication, scientists from Ahmedabad-based Space Applications Centre and Physical Research Laboratory successfully demonstrated quantum entanglement. Using real-time Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), they conducted hack-proof communication between two places separated by 300 meters.

Quantum communication is one of the safest ways of connecting two places with high levels of code and quantum cryptography that cannot be decrypted or broken by an external entity. If a hacker tries to crack the message in quantum communication, it changes its form in such a manner that would alert the sender and would cause the message to be altered or deleted.

During the demonstration, scientists managed to create an atmospheric channel on the ground to enable sharing of quantum-secure text, image transmission and quantum-assisted two-way video calling. The experiment was conducted between two buildings separated by 300 meters at the Space Applications Centre.

"This experiment and demonstration were repeated over several nights to ensure the repeatability and robustness of an indigenously developed QKD system capable of seamlessly generating and utilizing secure keys for various applications," Isro said in a statement, adding that this is yet another significant step towards the development of the planned Satellite-Based Quantum Communication.

The demonstration was conducted at SAC, Ahmedabad, between two buildings separated by a distance of 300 m. (Photo: Isro)
Isro chief S Somnath was present to witness the demonstration during which various images were encrypted using a generated quantum key and transmitted over a classical channel from one building to another building. They were then decrypted at the receiving terminal in real-time.

Isro said that to achieve the feat, scientists developed various key technologies like robust & high brightness entangled photon source (EPS), BBM92 protocol implementation, NavIC enabled synchronization, polarization compensation techniques, among others. A cryptographic application software suite with integrated quantum security has also been developed and demonstrated for text, image, video encryption/decryption.

" The Department of Space is getting ready for satellite-based demonstrations of fundamental quantum mechanics experiments as well as quantum communication for future-proof data security," Isro said.

The latest breakthrough comes on the back of an earlier demonstration of quantum secure video-conferencing in free space, over a distance of 300 meters in March last year. Former Isro chief K Sivan had said that the space agency was working on a hackproof communication system. He had said that Isro's work will make the relay faster and much more secure in the coming era of quantum computers that explore quantum mechanics.

China already has a satellite dedicated to quantum information science, Micius, and demonstrated quantum communication in a laboratory over a coiled optical fibre up to 404 kilometres long.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by Vips »

ISRO to launch Chandrayaan-3 in August this year.

Launch date slips by another quarter within a month of the last announcement!!! We can say things are definitely back to normal as ISRO continues in the typical PSU operations mode of over promising and under delivering.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by arvin »

I will give them the benefit of doubt since the lander went through complete redesign. The fifth engine has been eliminated, laser doppler velocimeter (LDV) has been added, algorithms have been tweaked etc. Hopefully independant teams have reviewed the changes and there are no surprises.
The orbiter configuration will also change since it will be without instruments and will act like a tug and relay station.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by Nick_S »

https://www.isro.gov.in/launcher/pslv-c ... 04-mission

PSLV-C52 is scheduled at 05:59 hours on February 14, 2022
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

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India has launched 129 satellites of Indian Origin since 1975.

India has launched a total of 129 satellites of Indian Origin and 342 foreign satellites belonging to 36 countries since 1975, Union Minister of State for Atomic Energy and Space Jitendra Singh said here on Thursday.

“India has a total of 53 operational satellites in space providing various identified services to the nation. 21 of these are communication satellites, 8 are Navigation satellites, 21 are Earth Observation Satellites and 3 are Science Satellites,” the Minister said while replying to a question in the Rajya Sabha.

The satellite enabled data and services are being used for the benefit of various sectors of the country including Television broadcasting, Direct-to-Home, ATM, Mobile communication, tele-education, tele-medicine and advisories on weather, pest infestation, agro-meteorology and potential fishing zones, the Minister informed the House.

He said the Satellite data is also used for crop production estimation, crop intensification, and agricultural drought assessment, wasteland inventory, identifying ground water prospect zones, inland aquaculture suitability and disaster risk reduction.

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has also plans to launch more satellites to further enhance operational applications and cater the needs of emerging applications and user ministerial requirements in the country, the Minister said.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by ldev »

ISRO PSLV - C52 launch. An ISRO launch after a long time.
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by Mort Walker »



Watch from 49:28 with Somnath speaking. A successful launch!
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by Cyrano »

Congratulations ISRO !
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Post by kit »

The 1,700kg EOS-04 is a radar imaging satellite capable of providing high-quality images under all weather conditions. It can be used to capture images for agriculture, forestry, flood mapping, soil moisture and hydrology. The satellite has a mission life of 10 years.

The spacecraft will also carry the INS-2DT technology demonstrator satellite, which has a thermal imaging camera and can help in the assessment of land and water surface temperatures apart from mapping vegetation
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Re: Indian Space Program: News & Discussion

Post by kit »

csaurabh wrote:
fanne wrote:or could be more sinister and people are still determining how deep is the rabbit hole.
,,.......

Disclaimer - this is unofficially known to me through sources. Not sure what has been disclosed in public domain.
https://www.nibindia.in/report-a-case IB
https://cbi.gov.in/en-us/Contact-Us. CBI

For forumites., please contact relevant agencies., if matters relate to national importance, IB or CBI would investigate it
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