Indian Space Progress

Notable nuances about NISAR and how it flows into planetary science for NASA and ISRO | Indian Space Progress #30

NISAR demonstrates peak peaceful uses of cutting-edge space technologies to solve humanity’s fundamental problems, and then some more.

Indian Space Progress

Was Shukla’s Axiom-4 flight to the International Space Station worth it for ISRO? | Indian Space Progress #29

A complicated question to answer for a controversial flight intended to advance India’s grand ambition of indigenously sending humans to space.

Indian Space Progress

A pressing PSLV rocket failure and orbital congestion to brood over | Indian Space Progress #28

Plus more mission updates.

Indian Space Progress

Indian Space Progress #27: Three months of mission updates, and fixing ISRO’s monthly summaries

ISRO has been publishing monthly summaries of the varied activities and programs of India’s Department of Space (DOS) for years. Lately though, there have been consistent delays in publishing them by a month or two, and sometimes even more. The summaries have been trimmed too, now conveying less than

Indian Space Progress

Newly approved Chandrayaan 5 LUPEX mission will drill for water on the Moon and aid Artemis | Indian Space Progress #25-26

Plus: A host of new lunar science results from Chandrayaan 2 and 3. Enjoy this 3200-word Chandrayaan-special. 🌙

Indian Space Progress

Indian Space Progress #24: High on docking, low on navigation. Cool new projects, same old budget

This edition marks two years of publishing the monthly Indian Space Progress blog+newsletter. I started it with the goal of trying to compile, capture, and globally contextualize true trajectories of India’s evolving (civil) space capabilities. More than 7500 of you subscribers spread across the globe have found it

Indian Space Progress

Indian Space Progress #23: How ISRO et al. laid the groundwork for a decade this year

I’m delighted to welcome GalaxEye Space as the latest sponsor of my Indian Space Progress blog+newsletter! 🚀 Bangalore-based startup GalaxEye is developing hybrid Earth observation satellites with multi-spectral optical imaging plus synthetic aperture radar (SAR) capabilities, with the first launch targeted next year. 🛰️ While 2023 was an incredible year

Indian Space Progress

Indian Space Progress #22: How Chandrayaan 1, 2 and 3 leveraged their view from the Moon

ISRO’s Chandrayaan craft have viewed a solar eclipse, studied the Sun’s flares, and observed Earth as an exoplanet, all from the vantage point of lunar orbit.

Indian Space Progress

Indian Space Progress #20–21: ISRO’s plan to study Venus alongside NASA and ESA

Also in this special edition: ISRO’s ambitions to fetch samples from the Moon, build a space station, and develop a heavy-lift rocket!

Indian Space Progress

Indian Space Progress #19: On the new rocket in town, and many mission updates

A nimble new launch(er) On August 16, ISRO launched its smallest and newest rocket SSLV, which successfully placed the agency’s 175-kilogram EOS-08 Earth observation satellite into its intended 475-kilometer circular orbit. The satellite carries a number of novel technological components as well as an innovative remote sensing method

Indian Space Progress

Indian Space Progress #18: A flat budget, increasing mass to orbit, continuing Chandrayaan, and pushes for private space

I hope you enjoy this bird’s-eye view of all major developments in India’s space trajectory over the last two months! 🚀 India’s space budget for FY2024 Despite the many highs of 2023 for Indian space, the FY2024 budget of $1.56 billion for the country’s Department of

Moon Monday

Moon Monday #183 and Indian Space Progress #17: The one where Chandrayaan and Gaganyaan converge

How will ISRO go from Chandrayaan 3 to an Indian on the Moon? Clarifying and laying down India’s plans for increasingly complex robotic lunar missions, where human spaceflight comes in, and what realistic timelines look like.