agency Archives - Defence Monitor

16 Apr

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope confirms largest comet nucleus ever seen

Los Angeles: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has confirmed the largest comet nucleus ever seen by astronomers, the agency has said. The estimated diameter of the largest icy comet nucleus is approximately 80 miles (128 km), making it larger than the state of Rhode Island, NASA said on Tuesday, Xinhua news agency reported. The nucleus is about 50 times larger than that found at the heart of most known comets. Its mass is estimated to be a staggering 500 trillion tons, a hundred thousand times greater than the mass of a typical comet found much closer to the sun, said NASA. The…

08 Feb

ISRO to start 2022 space romance with RISAT launch on Valentine’s Day

Chennai: The Indian space agency will begin this year's romance with space missions on the Valentine's Day, on February 14, by having one more eye in the sky, with the radar imaging satellite RISAT-1A or EOS-4. According to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-C52 (PSLV-C51) carrying 1,710 kg EOS-04 is scheduled to lift off at 5.59 a.m. on February 14. The rocket will also carry two small satellites as co-passengers - a student satellite (INSPIREsat-1) from Indian Institute of Space Science & Technology (IIST) in association with Laboratory of Atmospheric & Space Physics at University of…

27 Aug

NASA’s James Webb space telescope completes testing, ready to ship

Washington: NASA's much-awaited James Webb Space Telescope has successfully completed its final tests, the US space agency has said.Engineering teams have completed Webb's long-spanning comprehensive testing regimen at Northrop Grumman's facilities. The telescope is now being prepared for shipment to its launch site, and will be completed in September, NASA said in a statement on Thursday.The US space agency recently pushed back the target for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, touted as its next great space observatory, to October 2021. Previously, Webb was targeted to launch in March 2021.The launch has been pushed due to impacts from the…

15 Dec

Raja Chari to lead SpaceX mission to ISS

Washington: NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) have selected three astronauts, including Indian-American Raja Chari, to serve as crew members for SpaceX Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station (ISS), which is expected to launch in the autumn of 2021. Raja Chari will serve as commander while NASA's Tom Marshburn will be pilot and ESA's Matthias Maurer will serve as a mission specialist, NASA said on Monday. A fourth crew member will be added at a later date, following a review by NASA and its international partners. This will be the first spaceflight for Raja Chari, who became a NASA astronaut…

03 Nov

Mixed payload satellites may have prompted ISRO to use generic names

Chennai: With Indian satellites sporting mixed payloads for varied users perhaps the space agency has decided to opt for a generic name for its earth observation satellites, said a satellite expert.He also added that satellite names should not be changed prior to the launch as it may result in problems at a later stage. Recently, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) decided to change the name of its radar imaging satellite RISAT-2BR2 as EOS-01 standing for Earth Observation Satellite-01.Till date ISRO has not officially told the nation that RISAT-2BR2 has been renamed as EOS-01 and the reasons for the same. "Nowadays satellites…

21 Nov

ISRO postpones Cartosat-3 and 13 US satellites to Nov 27

Chennai: The Indian space agency on Thursday said it has postponed the launch of Catosat-3 satellite and 13 commercial nanosatellites with its PSLV rocket by two days to Nov 27.According to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the launch of PSLV-XL variant carrying Cartosat-3 and 13 US nano satellites has been rescheduled for November 27 at 9.28 a.m. The PSLV-XL variant rocket will blast off from India's rocket port in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.Earlier ISRO had said the rocket launch will be on Nov 25 at 9.28 a.m. Cartosat-3 satellite is a third generation agile advanced satellite having high resolution imaging capability.…

19 Nov

India to launch Cartosat-3, 13 nanosatellites from US

Chennai: India will launch its cartography satellite Cartosat-3 and 13 commercial nanosatellites into sun synchronous orbit on November 25, the Indian space agency said on Monday.According to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), its rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-XL variant (PSLV-XL) will put into orbit Cartosat-3 and 13 commercial nanosatellites from the US on November 25.The rocket is expected to lift off at 9.28 a.m. Cartosat-3 satellite is a third generation agile advanced satellite having high resolution imaging capability. The satellite will be placed in an orbit of 509 km at an inclination of 97.5 degrees.According to ISRO, the 13 nanosatellites…

07 Nov

NASA to study previously unopened Apollo sample

Washington: As NASA plans to return humans to the Moon in 2024, scientists opened an untouched rock and soil sample from the Moon returned to Earth as part of the the US space agency's final mission of the Apollo programme. The sample, opened on Tuesday, was collected on the Moon by Apollo 17 astronauts Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt, who drove a 4-cm-wide tube into the surface of the Moon to collect it and another sample scheduled to be opened in January 2020, NASA said in statement on Wednesday.This marks the first time in more than 40 years that a pristine…

24 Oct

ISRO releases pictures of impact craters on Moon

Chennai: Indian space agency has released fresh set of pictures of impact craters on moon surface taken by its Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter.The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Tuesday releasing a picture on its Twitter handle said the images were taken by the Dual Frequency-Synthetic Aperture Radar (DF-SAR) on its Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter. According to ISRO, the Moon has been continuously bombarded by meteorites, asteroids and comets since its formation. This has resulted in the formation of innumerable impact craters that form the most distinct geographic features on its surface. Impact craters are approximately circular depressions on the surface of the moon, ranging…

18 Jul

Chandrayaan-2 launch rescheduled for July 22

Chennai: The Indian space agency on Thursday announced that the launch date for its ambitious second Moon landing mission Chandrayaan-2 has been rescheduled for July 22, seven days after the ambitious launch by ISRO had to be aborted an hour before the lift off. "Chandrayaan-2 launch, which was called off due to a technical snag on July 15, 2019, is now rescheduled at 2.43 p.m. IST on Monday, July 22, 2019," the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) tweeted.The space agency has rectified the fault in its 'Bahubali' rocket-Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark III (GSLV-Mk III) whose Monday flight with Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft was…