Archive For August, 2018
Supersonic cruise missile BrahMos was successfully flight-tested under extreme weather conditions as part of the service life extension programme for the Army. “The missile followed the designated trajectory and the key components functioned perfectly. BrahMos has again proved its all-weather capability, flying in sea state 7, with waves as high as nine metres,” the Defence […]
Indian Army would soon have armed drones in its inventory. During the annual joint working group discussion between India and Israel held in South Block, both sides moved forward to finalise the deal to provide 10 Heron TP armed drones for Indian Army. The deal worth $400 million had been pending for over three years. […]
This week, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) announced its Chandrayaan-2 mission, which will have the space agency send a rover to the south-side of the moon later this year. It will be India’s second lunar mission and the first time any country has visited that region of the lunar surface. For its part, ISRO’s six-wheeled rover […]
China is working on a super-powerful rocket that would be capable of delivering heavier payloads into low orbit than NASA, a leading Chinese space expert was quoted as saying. By 2030, the Long March-9 rocket under development will be able to carry 140 tonnes into low-Earth orbit — where TV and earth observation satellites currently […]
Previous attempts to power spacecraft with giant solar sails, like the abandoned Soviet-Russian Znmaya project and the successful Japanese IKAROS, relied on giant, reflective, metallic sails to move through space and to reflect light back to Earth. Now, RIT scientist Grover Swartzlander is now calling to abandon these reflective materials in favor of metamaterials, synthetically created materials with properties […]
NASA is on schedule to launch mankind’s first mission to the Sun – a car sized probe that will swoop to within 4 million miles of the solar surface, facing heat and radiation like no spacecraft before. The Parker Solar Probe, which is expected to take off no earlier than August 6 aboard United Launch […]
All three satellite launch vehicles of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) are set to add muscle to their spacecraft lifting power in upcoming missions this year. The space agency has improved the thrust of the Vikas engine that powers all of them. The agency said the high-thrust engine qualified after a ground test lasting […]
Ahead of its August launch, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe — the mission aiming to get closest to the Sun than ever by any human-made object — has got its “revolutionary” heat shield permanently attached to the spacecraft, the US space agency said. The probe’s heat shield — called the Thermal Protection System, or TPS — was reinstalled on the […]
India took another step forward with its human spaceflight program, as ISRO tested the crew escape system for its crew capsule in an emergency pad abort situation. The test lasted about 220 seconds, during a two-hour window that opened at 06:00 local time (00:30 UTC). ISRO is yet to confirm the test, but Indian media […]
Terming the creation of infrastructure a big challenge, Civil Aviation Minister Mr Suresh Prabhu said India will need at least 1,000 planes in the next few years as it prepares a comprehensive and integrated plan for 2035 to boost the sector. “To create infrastructure for aviation is a big challenge and we, therefore, are preparing a comprehensive and integrated plan for […]