ISRO General News and Updates

[Blademaster]

Lol where is the money to run two parallel programs.

India only has to pay for the one seat. I think SpaceX charge about $65 million per seat. That is not derailing the Gaganyaan program by any stretch of the imagination.

As for the space station, ISRO has not even started designing its modules and you are worried about compatibility issues? If anything, ISRO is cutting its learning curve by going with NASA in designing space stations and learning from the ISS program. ISRO is being prudent here. It is shaving off hundreds of millions of dollars in learning how to design space stations without reinventing the wheel and only serves to help its own program better.

 

[Blademaster]

And a new one will be built.

That will be most likely the Lunar Gateway. And any ISS-type platform will be built through commercial means. NASA has its own ideas of getting space stations built through private space companies. It wants to commercialize the LEO aspect and concentrate on deep space exploration programs and only contract to use some space on LEO orbital platforms for zero gravity experiments and etc.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

That will be most likely the Lunar Gateway. And any ISS-type platform will be built through commercial means. NASA has its own ideas of getting space stations built through private space companies. It wants to commercialize the LEO aspect and concentrate on deep space exploration programs and only contract to use some space on LEO orbital platforms for zero gravity experiments and etc.

There must be another revolving earth space station after decay of ISS also given that cooperation with Russia or China will not be there in any field.
All the program anyway will be a huge learning curve for ISRO.

 

[Gessler]

Joining Artemis was inevitable I'd say.

There was no place for India in the Russo-Chinese cooperative ventures. We were certainly not going to share a stage with our enemies in space especially at a time like this when we're dealing with policy decisions regarding increasingly strategic uses of space (setting up bases, resource-extraction etc.). On the other hand, there is simply not enough domestic wherewithal or investment capacity to pursue resource-extraction & interplanetary colonization independently.

So Artemis it is. IMO, a wise decision.

++

To be noted, we'd be one of only about half a dozen countries in the Accords who have independent space access. And in next few years, one of only 2 with independent human spaceflight capability. That means we'll be negotiating with a hard hand to get sizeable workshare contracts in a lot of future space infrastructure development (lunar & mars-orbiting space stations, terrestrial bases, cargo missions etc.)

A nice boost for the local Private industry as well.

All in all, a great development!

There must be another revolving earth space station after decay of ISS also given that cooperation with Russia or China will not be there in any field.
All the program anyway will be a huge learning curve for ISRO.

Exactly. The existing ISS had a significant Russian contribution. With Roscosmos no longer welcome, their role is now up for grabs. ESA, JAXA don't have any clear plans for sustained human spaceflight programs which means that as long as we can ensure that Gaganyaan delivers, we have a huge potential market to tap.

Right now with reusability & economics of scale, SpaceX is unrivalled and need not depend on any others for launching additional missions...but China is also working on reusable stages and it won't be long before the competition heats up.

The 'Western' missions will need all the help they can get.

But we cannot forget that Private industry will need to have a role in this. Toward middle of this century, resource-extraction can become a driver for growth.

 

[SKC]

There must be another revolving earth space station after decay of ISS also given that cooperation with Russia or China will not be there in any field.
All the program anyway will be a huge learning curve for ISRO.

Federal funding for ISS might continue till end of 2028:
"Funding for the ISS was approved by the Obama administration through 2024, though the provision left the door open to continue U.S. federal funding for the station into 2028 "

After that the ownership might be transferred to a private organization of trust and funding might be achieved privately or from consortium of companies from member/partner countries.

I fully believe it will continue to be in orbit till end of 2030. Nasa is already allowing private tours from this year charging up to $28K per night from private individuals.

 

[SKC]

Federal funding for ISS might continue till end of 2028:
"Funding for the ISS was approved by the Obama administration through 2024, though the provision left the door open to continue U.S. federal funding for the station into 2028 "

After that the ownership might be transferred to a private organization of trust and funding might be achieved privately or from consortium of companies from member/partner countries.

I fully believe it will continue to be in orbit till end of 2030. Nasa is already allowing private tours from this year charging up to $28K per night from private individuals.

I did not factor in SpaceX. They came out of syllabus in Space sector

Their Mars landing program can make use of part of ISS as orbital rendezvous point and refueling and maintenance stuff.

 

[Gessler]

Federal funding for ISS might continue till end of 2028:
"Funding for the ISS was approved by the Obama administration through 2024, though the provision left the door open to continue U.S. federal funding for the station into 2028 "

After that the ownership might be transferred to a private organization of trust and funding might be achieved privately or from consortium of companies from member/partner countries.

I fully believe it will continue to be in orbit till end of 2030. Nasa is already allowing private tours from this year charging up to $28K per night from private individuals.

There'll be over a dozen space stations going forward. More than enough for us to play.

As long as GoI releases sufficient funding.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Exactly. The existing ISS had a significant Russian contribution. With Roscosmos no longer welcome, their role is now up for grabs. ESA, JAXA don't have any clear plans for sustained human spaceflight programs which means that as long as we can ensure that Gaganyaan delivers, we have a huge potential market to tap.

NASA, ESA, JAXA and ISRO will be involved in docking of cargo spacecraft to station.
Only NASA & ISRO shall be delivering astronauts to station.

So obviously, India's role will remain as an equal collaborator (with a bit short of funding as compared to UD & EU) than being just client like other 25 countries.

Federal funding for ISS might continue till end of 2028:
"Funding for the ISS was approved by the Obama administration through 2024, though the provision left the door open to continue U.S. federal funding for the station into 2028 "

After that the ownership might be transferred to a private organization of trust and funding might be achieved privately or from consortium of companies from member/partner countries.

I fully believe it will continue to be in orbit till end of 2030. Nasa is already allowing private tours from this year charging up to $28K per night from private individuals.

I didn't contend that. ISS might serve even till late 2030s but eventually will be discarded. Artemis is huge opportunity for collaboratively building a massive space station with Americans, Europeans & Japanese than making a 20 tonnes lab in name of Indian space station by 2035 and sitting in corner.

 

[spiritb2]

Artemis Accords in detail

 

[Indx TechStyle]

NASA-ISRO to send Indian astronauts to International Space Station

IE says Indian astronauts might not be onboard.

In a related development, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will partner the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the US in sending a joint mission to the International Space Station, a permanent laboratory in space, next year. It was not immediately clear whether the joint mission would include an Indian astronaut to the space station.

https://indianexpress.com/article/world/coming-artemis-accords-isro-nasa-mission-8680033/

May be just ISRO equipment will be utilized in cooperation.

Typical India media outlet. Write up things without understanding what to write.

Cross post
Here is another article, says crew being trained for Gaganyaan may not involve ISS mission or Gaganyaan manned spaceflight will happen before sending an Indian to ISS. Translates into both projects running parallel. Might have joined ISS only for gaining docking and space station operating experience, delivering cargo once or twice will be a great experience for connecting spacecraft in orbit.
No decision yet on sending Gaganyaan astronauts to International Space Station
Astronauts are under training for an Indian orbital mission; a decision on sending one of these to the International Space Station is awaited

The International Space Station. Photo: NASA/Roscosmos via Reuters

While Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden signed an agreement on June 22 to conceive a joint mission sending an Indian astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS) by 2024, it is unclear if this will involve astronauts currently being trained for the indigenous Gaganyaan mission.

“The details of this mission… on whether someone being trained for Gaganyaan will be part of the ISS trip is still to be decided,” Minister of State (Space), Jitendra Singh, told reporters on June 23. He also said that it was yet uncertain if an Indian astronaut will be in space before the proposed Gaganyaan mission. The agreement mentions providing “advanced training” to Indian astronauts at the Johnson Space Centre, Houston, Texas.

Also Read | Study reveals how immune system of astronauts breaks down

The Gaganyaan mission, led by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), proposes to launch a crew of three into an orbit of 400 km for a three-day mission and bring them back safely to earth. There are multiple tests underway to test each aspect of this mission and, Mr Singh has told Parliament that the final launch is scheduled for the “fourth quarter of 2024.” India is currently collaborating with Russia in training the future Gaganyaan astronauts.

ISRO’s reservations

S Somnath, Chairman, ISRO, told The Hindu that the proposed participants in the ISS was “yet to be decided.” The decision to have an Indian astronaut on the ISS marks a significant change to Isro’s policy that has historically seen little value to having an Indian astronaut aboard the ISS. Mr Somnath in an April 2022 interview to the publication Geospatial World said, “We did not join ISS because in our assessment, we didn’t find merit in joining it.” His predecessor, S Sivan, in June 2019 had stated that India would not join the ISS and would work on developing its own space station. Mr Somnath did not respond to a query from The Hindu on the reasons for this policy shift.

“For a long time there has been a question on whether we should be part of the (ISS). Ultimately this has happened. Certain quarters had some reservations at the diplomatic level but now there is unanimity,” said Singh.

ISS manned since 1998

Since its launch in 1998, the ISS has continuously been inhabited since November 2000 under a U.S.-Russian-led partnership that also includes Canada, Japan and 11 European countries. Russia last year, following the outbreak of the Ukraine war, has said it will withdraw from the ISS after 2024 though the US has said that it was committed to continue supporting the project until 2030 and that it was discussing this with its “partners.”

Artemis Accords

Along with the ISS agreement, India also signed the Artemis Accords, a compact of 27 countries, promoted by the United States that envisages a manned mission to the moon by 2025 along with several other space-exploration initiatives.

“(The Americans) have planned an ambitious programme to return to the moon by 2025 and they say that the next mission will have a non-White, maybe a woman, (on board)…They wish India to be equal partners on this. We are offering them (the Americans) as much as they have to offer. This is a celebration of Indo-US friendship in space and as PM Modi said, the sky is no longer the limit,” Mr Singh added, “The Artemis agreement is non-binding and is unlikely to involve a major financial commitment now.”

The Artemis Accords, a document that India has been weighing for a few years since the Trump administration, envisages peaceful exploration of space and equitably sharing resources on the moon, be they private or public companies. China and Russia – two major space faring nations – have objected to provisions of the Accords on the grounds that it constituted a “power grab” of moon territory by the United States.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

@Vamsi @Gessler

 

[SKC]

Please delete if already posted :

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Please delete if already posted :

Quoted tweet.goe archives

ISRO Lab PRL Commissioned Param Vikram-1000 High Performance Computing Cluster. It provides theoretical peak performance (Rpeak) 1395.63 TeraFlop/s (TF) & Maximal LINPACK performance (Rmax ) 956.34 TF. 1/2

Param Vikram-1000 has 108 computing nodes dispense 7296 CPU cores, 2,76,480 GPU Cores, 74TB of RAM and 1 PB of high performance luster parallel filesystem. The system has been setup using open source tools/libraries like Lustre, OpenHPC, Slurm, Ganglia, Intel oneAPI etc.. 2/2

 

[Gessler]

(Not directly related to ISRO but posting here also as this is a follow-up to conversion on Artemis accords):

@Indx TechStyle

It seems signing on to the Artemis Accords has already started opening doors:

L&T likely to fuel space exploration plans of Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin

Jeff Bezos-owned firm engines: Jeff Bezos-owned firm sourcing engines based on the Artemis Accords

www.business-standard.com

Blue Origin has begun negotiations to source engine manufacturing services from India's L&T - which makes solid-propulsion solutions for ISRO.

For decades, both public & private-sector aerospace companies in India developed in a closed market, catering only to the limited, but technically challenging local industrial needs of ISRO. Now, their scope for space-related business is set to expand rapidly.

Thanks to ISRO's programs, a lot of these companies (L&T, HAL, Godrej Aerospace, etc.) have developed industrial capabilities that very few enterprises in the world have. They manufacture stuff like the S200, the 3rd-biggest solid rocket booster in the world (after the Shuttle's and the Ariane 5's), like the CE-20 (the most powerful upper-stage cryogenic engine in the world currently). They are tooling up to build the Gaganyaan crew module as we speak.

When you combine that with the low costs of India's manufacturing scene, the scope of work these companies can do (both as primary contractors, wherever deals are yet to be signed, as well as Tier-1/2 suppliers for existing primary contractors) in programs like Artemis, Axiom station, etc. is simply immense.

This biz is about to take off!

 

[spacemarine2023]

India does have civilain collaboration with all these countries. As for strategic partnership, ISRO neither shares know-how of space technology (which South Korea, Brazil and Arabs will likely demand) nor has collaboration with any other military except India's. That's all taken care of armed forces themselves.

These countries will actually take more from India than giving benefits.

My opinion on tech sharing is pretty different…
I say share the tech enable all the countries to go to space for whatever reason,
Make sure if 100 rockets goes to space from Global south 90 are manufactured in India..
Bring economy of scales build more manpower increase capacity…
Economy of scales is the most important thing if humans ever want to be a space faring species…
West will always keep a plug on this.. India can change that

 

[Indx TechStyle]

My opinion on tech sharing is pretty different…
I say share the tech enable all the countries to go to space for whatever reason

What you are saying has strong reasons of India not doing it. Space launch capability is a dual use technology which enables a country to attack any corner in world.

Make sure if 100 rockets goes to space from Global south 90 are manufactured in India..

India barely makes a fraction of global launches and aerospace industry. So no. We need decades to meet our own domestic demands.

No country except US can supply rockets around globe.

Nor any country likes to import always. Everyone looks for reverse engineering/tech transfer to domestically produce.

India doesn't need to tech charity around world when nobody was around when India needed help. Proliferation of critical tech around world will only create more Pakistans and North Koreas than doing any betterment.

Bring economy of scales build more manpower increase capacity…
Economy of scales is the most important thing if humans ever want to be a space faring species…
West will always keep a plug on this.. India can change that

Too simple to say, too hard to be done. Now, that needs next 40-50 years to be done (as if other countries won't move ahead in meantime).

 

[spacemarine2023]

What you are saying has strong reasons of India not doing it. Space launch capability is a dual use technology which enables a country to attack any corner in world.

India barely makes a fraction of global launches and aerospace industry. So no. We need decades to meet our own domestic demands.

No country except US can supply rockets around globe.

Nor any country likes to import always. Everyone looks for reverse engineering/tech transfer to domestically produce.

India doesn't need to tech charity around world when nobody was around when India needed help. Proliferation of critical tech around world will only create more Pakistans and North Koreas than doing any betterment.

Too simple to say, too hard to be done. Now, that needs next 40-50 years to be done (as if other countries won't move ahead in meantime).

dual use technology can be circumvented by providing some assembly to other nations,
India makes fraction but that is due to our resources stretched thin … ideally to maintain commercial and military capability in space a 5 trillion economy should send 50 odd sats in space every year this is bound to increase..

also technology can only be absorbed by countries who are already working on same so I dont think many countries will want to get cryogenic engines or thirst vectoring tech. Solid motors are pretty common tech ..
Its about bring Global South under single umbrella..
Its like setting up metro system, metro will never provide you direct benefits but the indirect footprint is multiple times of investments..

again economy of scale comes from generating demand which will ultimately come from when India needs to set up sat networks for say Nigeria, Egypt etc.

 

[Vamsi]

ISRO is currently planning Aditya-L1 launch for Aug end, they are currently assembling 2 PSLVs parallely, so this means Gaganyaan TV-D1 might slip to Sept

 

[Indx TechStyle]

ISRO is currently planning Aditya-L1 launch for Aug end, they are currently assembling 2 PSLVs parallely, so this means Gaganyaan TV-D1 might slip to Sept

2 PSLVs also means at least third PSLV/SSLV by year end.

Takes launch frequency to 8 or more this year.

 

[spacemarine2023]

I understand your perspective on sensitive tech., for dual use technology India will need to follow the established framework with this limit still the collaboration will be beneficial for India and IMHO India will go to this route eventually India tried with SAARC minus pakis but the countries are geographically too small to come into this framework, only bringing 3rd world and African nations can provide economy of scale and increased clout. Here's why:

1. Economic Opportunities: By providing space technologies to African and third-world countries, India can foster economic opportunities through collaboration and partnerships. These countries can leverage space technologies for various applications like communication, agriculture, disaster management, and navigation. This collaboration would lead to economic growth, trade, and investment opportunities for India, expanding its global market reach.

2. Market Expansion: Distributing space technologies to African and third-world countries allows India to access new markets. These countries, with their growing economies and populations, present untapped potential for space-related industries. ISRO can offer its expertise, products, and services to cater to these emerging markets, leading to increased demand and revenue for India's space sector.

3. Technological Advancement: Collaborating with African and third-world countries can lead to technological advancements for ISRO. Through knowledge-sharing and joint projects, India can benefit from diverse perspectives, innovative ideas, and unique challenges faced by these countries. This cross-pollination of ideas can accelerate technological development, leading to breakthroughs and advancements in space technologies.

4. Diplomatic Influence: India's collaboration with African and third-world countries in the space sector can enhance its diplomatic influence on the global stage. By offering assistance and support in space-related endeavors, India can establish strong diplomatic ties and partnerships. This can lead to increased clout and cooperation in various international forums, strengthening India's position as a leader in space technology and exploration.

5. Human Resource Development: Collaborating with African and third-world countries provides opportunities for capacity building and human resource development. India can offer training programs, workshops, and scholarships to individuals from these countries, enabling them to acquire technical skills and knowledge in space-related fields. This can contribute to the growth of a skilled workforce in these countries and foster long-term partnerships between India and African nations.

In summary, a secular distribution of space technologies in African and third-world countries can bring significant benefits to ISRO and India, including economic growth, market expansion, technological advancements, diplomatic influence, and human resource development. By fostering collaboration and sharing expertise, India can establish itself as a global leader in the space sector while empowering and uplifting nations in need of space-related capabilities.