Moon Monday
Moon Monday #219: Results from India’s Chandrayaan 3 experiment to benefit future missions eyeing lunar water
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Indian Space
Tracking and contextualizing India’s increasingly relevant capabilities in civil space exploration.
Indian Space
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
ISRO provided ground tracking support for Intuitive Machines’ NASA CLPS Moon landing
Last week I wrote how the annual report of NSIL, an Indian government arm tasked with commercializing ISRO’s space technologies, notes that ISRO provided commercial ground tracking support for a lunar mission by another country in 2023. For some reason, the NSIL report doesn’t specify the mission name.
Indian Space
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
ISRO Chandrayaan
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.
ISRO Chandrayaan
Discussing India’s lunar exploration heading with Carnegie India (podcast)
I was a guest on Carnegie India’s podcast Interpreting India. In light of the recently approved Chandrayaan 4 sample return mission, we discuss for a good 45 minutes where India’s Moon exploration plans are heading, and what are the enablers and constraints on the increasingly complex road for
Indian Space
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!
Moon Monday
Moon Monday #196: Confusion about lunar water and LUPEX, and papers plus mission updates
You can now follow my articles on some non-questionable social networks that also federate (interoperate): Flipboard, Mastodon and Bluesky. The hunt for water on the Moon continues US researchers find that permanently shadowed regions up to 77° latitude—which is outside the Moon’s south pole—could host surface and
Moon Monday
Moon Monday #194: On the approval of India’s Chandrayaan 4 sample return mission, and first look at Chang’e 6 samples
This week’s Moon Monday has not one but two feature stories! So much has been happening in lunar exploration this whole year that I’ve transitioned to writing deep dives more frequently so as to adequately capture and contextualize big updates. If you appreciate my efforts to bring you
Indian Space
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
Moon Monday
Moon Monday #190: On the varied importance of the Chandrayaan 3 rover, and more mission updates
Grab some tea, coffee, or beverage of your choice because this week’s Moon Monday is a sci-tech deep dive! 🌝 Chandrayaan 3 contributes to learning our Moon’s origin and evolution The first ever ground-based measurements of high-latitude lunar soil and rocks made by the Chandrayaan 3 rover’s Alpha
Indian Space
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