by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
An U.S.-Indian synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite is that rarest of NASA’s projects: it is currently on schedule and under budget.
Whether it stays that way depends upon what happens between now and its planned launch aboard an Indian booster in September 2022.
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China launched a satellite that will search for signals that could help scientists to predict earthquakes on Thursday. The China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite will study electromagnetic signals in Earth’s atmosphere and ionosphere to determine if they can be used to predict earthquakes. The Chinese-led mission is being conducted in cooperation with Italy. The spacecraft was launched aboard a Long March 2D booster from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. It was the […]
A new chairman took over leadership of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) last week. K. Sivan, who previously served as director of ISRO’s Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre since June 2015, succeeded A S Kiran Kumar. Like his predecessor, Sivan has been appointed to a three-year term. Sivan also serves as secretary of the Department of Space and chairman of the Space Commission. Sivan joined ISRO in 1982, working on the PSLV […]
Falcon 9 carries the Dragon cargo ship into orbit. (Credit: NASA TV)
by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
SpaceX had a banner year in 2017, launching a record 18 times and helping to propel the United States to the top of the global launch table with a perfect 29-0 record. The U.S. total made up 32.2 percent of 90 orbital launches worldwide, which was an increase over the 85 flights conducted in 2016.
The 29 American launches were a leap of seven over the 22 flights conducted the previous year. This is the highest number of American orbital launches since the 31 flights undertaken in 1999. However, that year the nation’s launch providers suffered four failures whereas they were perfect in 2017.
ISRO Chairman AS Kiran Kumar said the Indian space agency is looking to turn over operations of its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) to a private consortium under the supervision of its commercial arm, Antrix Corporation. “This will be discussed with industry leaders at the Make In India week. Tentatively, we plan to implement it in 2020,” he said. Over the next five years, ISRO is also looking to roughly double […]
