mission Archives - Defence Monitor

13 Nov

SpaceX completes Falcon 9 static fire test ahead of Crew-1 launch

Washington: The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft that will launch four astronauts to the International Space Station, the Crew-1 mission, has completed a key prelaunch milestone, the integrated static fire.Crew Dragon is targeting launch on a Falcon 9 on Saturday at 7.49 p.m. EST from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. "Static fire of Falcon 9 complete -- targeting Saturday, November 14 at 7.49 p.m. EST for launch of Crew Dragon's first operational mission to the @space_station with four astronauts on board," SpaceX said in a tweet on Thursday."Teams will continue monitoring weather conditions for liftoff…

12 Jun

GSLV’s first test flight for India’s human space mission delayed

Chennai: The first unmanned test flight of Indian rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), as part of the country's human space mission Gaganyaan, will not happen this year, said officials.The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had planned the first of the two test flights later this year. "The first flight of the rocket as part of Gaganyaan mission will not happen this year (2020)," a senior ISRO official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told IANS.While the actual reason for the delay is not known, perhaps the Covid-19 lockdown had its impact on the first test flight. In his address at…

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…

20 Aug

India’s Chandrayaan-2 on course to Moon

Chennai: The Indian space agency on Tuesday completed successfully the crucial orbit manoeuvre and put the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft into the lunar orbit.According to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) was completed successfully at 9.02 a.m. as planned using the onboard propulsion system. All the systems of Chandrayaan-2 are healthy. "The duration of manoeuvre was 1,738 seconds. With this, Chandrayaan-2 was successfully inserted into a lunar orbit. The orbit achieved is 114km X 18,072km," the ISRO said.Following this, a series of orbit manoeuvres will be performed on Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft to enable it to enter its final orbit passing…

07 May

NASA spacecraft to collide a small moonlet in 2022

Washington: The US space agency NASA revealed on Monday details about its plan to hit a small moonlet target in a double asteroid system with a spacecraft in 2022, its first mission to demonstrate a planetary defence technique. The asteroid, called Didymoon or Didymos B, is a moon asteroid around 150 meters tall orbiting a larger body Didymos A, the most accessible asteroid of its size from the Earth, the Xinhua news agency reported. An international campaign is now making observations using powerful telescopes worldwide to understand the state of the asteroid system. "The Didymos system is too small and too…

27 Feb

NASA’s new mission to study space weather from ISS

Washington: NASA has selected a new mission that will help scientists understand and, ultimately, forecast the vast space weather system around our planet.The Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE) mission will cost $42 million and is planned to launch in August 2022, attached to the exterior of the Earth-orbiting International Space Station (ISS), the US space agency said in a statement on Tuesday. From its space station perch, AWE will focus on colourful bands of light in Earth's atmosphere, called airglow, to determine what combination of forces drive space weather in the upper atmosphere. "This mission absolutely meets that standard with a creative…

27 Feb

ISRO to launch defence satellite in March for DRDO

Chennai: In a special mission in March, the Indian space agency will launch an electronic intelligence satellite Emisat for the DRDO, 28 third party satellites and also demonstrate its new technologies like three different orbits with a new variant of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket, said a top official. The exact date has not been specified yet."It is a special mission for us. We will be using a PSLV rocket with four strap-on motors. Further, for the first time we will be trying to orbit the rocket at three different altitudes," K. Sivan, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told.…

03 Jan

India’s second Moon mission gets delayed again

Bengaluru: India's second Moon mission Chandrayaan-2 that was to be launched on Thursday with a lander and rover got delayed again, officials said on Thursday."The next launch date of Chandrayaan-2 has not been confirmed yet," a spokesman of the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told IANS here. This is the second time the space agency deferred the mission launch after it was put off first time in October for unspecified reasons.Though ISRO Chairman K. Sivan told the media here earlier that they planned to launch Chandrayaan-2 on January 3, reason for the delay has not been made public yet. "The…

21 Dec

Year of many new beginnings for Indian space sector

Chennai: The year 2018 could be termed as one of several new beginnings for the Indian space agency: the political sanction for a manned Gaganyaan mission, operationlisation of the heaviest rocket, steps to licence out lithium ion battery technology, introduction of new technologies in rockets and satellites and the decision to go ahead with the Indian Data Relay Satellite System (IDRSS), among others. As the year ended, the IAF got its own eye in the sky to exponentially enhance its capabilities.The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) also carried out a sort of `Swachh Bharat' mission - clearing the backlog of satellite…

30 Aug

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft nears destruction

Washington: Launched 20 years ago, NASA's Cassini spacecraft now has less than 20 days for its mission-ending dive into the atmosphere of Saturn. Its fateful plunge on September 15 is a foregone conclusion -- an April 22 a gravitational kick from Saturn's moon Titan placed the two-and-a-half ton vehicle on its path for impending destruction, NASA said. "The Cassini mission has been packed full of scientific firsts, and our unique planetary revelations will continue to the very end of the mission as Cassini becomes Saturn's first planetary probe, sampling Saturn's atmosphere up until the last second," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project…