Science

The Indian Space Research Organisation’s inaugural solar mission, Aditya-L1, has reached its destination within the anticipated four-month timeframe, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday. Launched on September 2 last year, the spacecraft positioned itself at Lagrange Point 1, from where it will undertake a comprehensive study of the Sun, focusing on the solar corona

ISRO will perform the final manoeuvre on Saturday to inject Aditya-L1 spacecraft — the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun — into its final destination orbit, some 1.5 million kilometres from the Earth. According to ISRO officials, the spacecraft will be placed in a halo orbit around Lagrange point 1 (L1) of the

ISRO on Monday successfully launched its maiden X-Ray Polarimeter Satellite that would offer several insights into celestial objects like black holes. ISRO’s ever reliable Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) in its C58 mission, placed the primary X-Ray Polarimeter satellite XPoSat into a 650 km Low Earth Orbit as intended after lifting off at the pre-fixed

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) is testing artificial intelligence (AI) to build climate models to improve weather forecasting as torrential rains, floods and droughts proliferate across the vast country, a top weather official said. Global warming has triggered more intense clashes of weather systems in India in recent years, increasing extreme weather events, which the

Stepping up collaboration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration Administrator Bill Nelson on Tuesday said the US was open to helping India build its own space station.  On a visit to India, Nelson said the US and India were working on plans to send an Indian astronaut to the International Space Station by the end of

Amazon.com said on Thursday its two prototype satellites for its planned Kuiper internet network have been operating successfully in orbit, with the project on track to start launching operational satellites by mid-2024. The Kuiper internet network is set to compete against billionaire Elon Musk‘s Starlink, the world’s largest satellite operator, to offer broadband internet service

About 5 and a 1/2 years from now, astronomers predict, an asteroid about as wide as the Empire State Building is tall will streak through space within 20,000 miles (32,200 kms) of Earth, the closest any celestial object of that size will have come to our planet in modern history. When it does, a spacecraft

Indian scientists plan to seed clouds for the first time to trigger heavy rain in some areas of New Delhi, hoping this will be enough to tackle the smog gripping the world’s most polluted capital for a week, the project’s head said on Thursday. Air quality dips in Delhi ahead of winter every year, when

Space start-up Skyroot Aerospace on Tuesday unveiled its indigenously built Vikram-1 rocket which is expected to deliver satellites to low earth orbit early next year.  Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh also inaugurated ‘The MAX-Q Campus’, the new headquarters of the start-up at the GMR Aerospace and Industrial Park at Mamidipally in South Hyderabad. Singh toured

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman S Somanath on Saturday announced the success of the ‘TV-D1’ (Test Vehicle Development Flight 1) in the Gaganyaan Mission. The test vehicle was launched on the second attempt after it had faced an engine ignition problem at 8:45am IST. ISRO briefly aborted the launch of the first uncrewed test flight

A unique characteristic of the geology of Mars has been revealed in breathtaking clarity in the latest release from the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Mars Express orbiter. The surface of the Red Planet appears to have enormous scratches across it. These marks, however, are part of the Tantalus Fossae, a massive fault system on Mars. Apart

NASA on Wednesday gave the public a first glimpse of what scientists found inside a sealed capsule that was returned to Earth last month carrying a carbon-rich soil sample scooped from an asteroid‘s surface, including water-bearing clay minerals. A small quantity of the material collected by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft three years ago from the near-Earth

After India’s solar mission, Aditya L1 began its journey towards Lagrange point 1 following a key manoeuvre, it has started studying energetic particles in the solar wind from space and will continue to do so for the rest of its life, a senior astrophysicist said. The study of the solar wind, the continuous flow of charged

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk‘s brain-chip startup Neuralink said on Tuesday it has received approval from an independent review board to begin recruitment for the first human trial of its brain implant for paralysis patients. Those with paralysis due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis may qualify for the study, it said but

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced on Tuesday that its maiden solar mission — Aditya-L1 — has performed the Trans-Lagrangean Point 1 Insertion (TL1I) manoeuvre successfully and the spacecraft was now in a trajectory that will take it to the Sun-Earth L1 point. ISRO also informed that it marked the fifth consecutive time that

India’s Aditya-L1 solar mission spacecraft has commenced collecting scientific data to help scientists analyse particles surrounding Earth, ISRO said on Monday.  The sensors on board India’s first solar observatory have begun measuring ions and electrons at distances greater than 50,000 km from Earth, ISRO announced in a post on X.  The national space agency said

India is set to conduct a key test in its ambitious crewed space mission Gaganyaan as early as next month, the project director of the mission R Hutton told Reuters. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is currently training four astronauts and looking to expand the cohort as it aims for more future manned missions, Hutton said.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has signed a memorandum of understanding with ISRO and IN-SPACe to support space-tech innovations through cloud computing. The collaboration with ISRO and the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe) is aimed at giving space startups, research institutes and students access to cloud technologies through AWS Activate for new solutions