AlphaRocketry

English Tamil In a milestone in the development of space astronomy in India, the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) has built the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC), the largest payload that would fly on Aditya L1, the country's first dedicated scientific mission to study the Sun. It is expected to be launched by Indian Space Research Organisation by middle of this year.  The VELC payload has formally handed over to ISRO Chairman S Somanath at IIA's CREST campus on Thursday.  There are other six payloads: Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope, Aditya Solar Wind Particle Experiment, Plasma Analyser Package for Aditya, Solar Low Energy X-ray Spectrometer, High Energy L1 Orbiting X-ray Spectrometer, and Magnetometer.  சூரியனை ஆய்வு செய்வதற்கான பயணத்தில் மிகப்பெரிய பேலோட் இஸ்ரோவிடம் ஒப்படைக்கப்பட்டது   இந்தியாவில் விண்வெளி வானியல் வளர்ச்சியில் ஒரு மைல்கல்லாக, இந்தியன் இன்ஸ்டிடியூட் ஆப் ஆஸ்ட்ரோபிசிக்ஸ் (IIA) விசிபிள் எமிஷன் லைன் கரோனாகிராஃப் (...

 ISRO said its lead rocket development facility, the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) facilitated the hot testing of a Rocket Engine developed by an Indian Start-up on November 4. VSSC successfully conducted the 15 second hot test of Agnilet Engine for Agnikul Cosmos Pvt Ltd on November at its Vertical Test Facility, Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS), Thiruvananthapuram. The test was carried out as a part of an MOU signed betwenn ISRO and Chennai based Agnikul to povdie opportunity for Indian Space Startups to use ISRO facilitites through InSpace. "Agnilet is a regeneratively cooled 1.4 kN semi-cryogenic Engine, working at a chamber pressure of 10.8 bar(a) using Liquid oxygen and Aviation Turbing Fuel (ATF) as propellants.  This Engine is realised through state of art 3D printing Technology and material of construction is INCONEL-718" Agnikul Cosmos sadi: "Humbled to announce that we successfully test fired one version of out patented technology based...

India’s first privately developed rocket — Vikram-S is undergoing final launch preparations at ISRO launchpad in Sriharikota and is expected to be launched in a suborbital mission later this week. The mission is named ‘Prarambh’ — meaning ‘the beginning’. The rocket is developed by Skyroot Aerospace, which has the technical launch clearance from InSpace and is looking at a launch window between November 12 and 16. “A launch window between November 12 and 16 has been notified by authorities, the final date being confirmed based on weather conditions. With this maiden mission, we’re set to become the first private space company in India to launch a rocket into space heralding a new era for the space sector which was recently opened up to facilitate private sector participation,” the Hyderabad-headquartered company said. Skyroot, incidentally, was the first Indian startup to sign an MoU with Isro in this regard. “We could build and get Vikram-S mission-ready in such a short t...

The first abort test using the special test vehicle (TV) part of #Gaganyaan, which was earlier targeted for the last quarter of this calendar year, is now expected only in early 2023. ISRO chairman S Somanath told: “There’s been a lot of progress & at this juncture we're looking at the first test in early 2023. The test vehicle is already at SHAR (spaceport in Sriharikota) and work on the crew module (CM) and crew escape system (CES) is progressing. As reported earlier, the test — TV technology demonstrator-1 (TV-TD1) mission — will demonstrate the descent phase, parachute deployment and recovery, among other things. While there will be more than one TV-TDs, in the first one, the CM will separate from the TV at a height of around 11km (from sea level), attain an altitude of around 15km before falling back to back in the Bay of Bengal. The Sriharikota ground team will track. Once separated or ejected from TV, CM will have a free fall. Essentially, will demonstrate crew e...

  It's time to modernize the fight against space junk, U.S. regulators say. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is pledging to update the rules it enacted just two years ago to address space debris, with a new focus on in-space servicing assembly and manufacturing (ISAM) risks and opportunities. "We believe the new space age needs new rules," FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in an Aug. 5 statement. Existing regulations, she added, were generally "designed for a time when going to space was astronomically expensive and limited to the prowess of our political superpowers." Rosenworcel pointed out that megaconstellations and crowdfunded satellites were not possible in the 1950s when space exploration first began. That said, the new push piggybacks off a similar space debris effort that the FCC publicized much more recently, in 2020(opens in That 2020 update was said to be the most comprehensive revision to space debris rules in more than 15 years,...

  The campaign to bring pristine Martian samples to Earth will now include two mini helicopters. Artist's illustration of the vehicles that will participate in the Mars sample return campaign organized by NASA and the European Space Agency.   (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) NASA officials involved with the Mars sample return (MSR) effort announced yesterday (July 27) that they plan to redesign the mission, abandoning a previous concept that called for a European Space Agency (ESA) "fetch rover" that would touch down on its own lander. NASA's Perseverance rover, expected to still be active when a NASA MSR lander touches down in 2031, will now be tasked with bringing the samples it is collecting and caching to a Mars ascent vehicle. Failing that, however, two helicopters much like Ingenuity, which landed with Perseverance last year, will be backup options to pick up the caches themselves. The helicopters will be similar to Ingenuity in terms of size and ma...

A fresh image based on brand-new deep-space data appears to show a wormhole spinning before our very eyes. The appropriately named "Phantom Galaxy" glows eerily in a new image by Judy Schmidt based on James Webb Space Telescope data collected nearly a million miles away from our planet using the observatory's mid-infrared instrument (MIRI). "I've been doing this for 10 years now, and [Webb] data is new, different, and exciting," Schmidt told Space.com. "Of course I'm going to make something with it." The image highlights the dust lanes in the galaxy, which is more properly known as NGC 628 or Messier 74. Dubbed the "perfect spiral" by some astronomers because the galaxy is so symmetrical, the Phantom Galaxy is scientifically interesting because of the intermediate-mass black hole scientists believe is embedded at its heart. The image highlights the dust lanes in the galaxy, which is more properly known as NGC 628 or Messie...