Science

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will turn its focus on science experiments in 2023 with dedicated missions to the Sun — Aditya — and the moon — Chandrayaan-3 — even as the nascent start-up sector is set to soar in the space applications segment. The upcoming year will also witness a series of experiments on India’s maiden human space

NASA has formally retired its Mars InSight lander, the first robotic probe specially designed to study the deep interior of a distant world, four years after it arrived on the surface of the red planet, the US space agency announced on Wednesday. Mission controllers at NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles determined the mission

After a pair of Islamist bombings rocked the south-central Indian city of Hyderabad in 2013, officials rushed to install 5,000 CCTV cameras to bolster security. Now there are nearly 700,000 in and around the metropolis. The most striking symbol of the city’s rise as a surveillance hotspot is the gleaming new Command and Control Center

Nuclear fusion holds huge promise as a source of clean, abundant energy that could power the world. Now, fusion researchers at a national laboratory in the US have achieved something physicists have been working towards for decades, a process known as “ignition”. This step involves getting more energy out from fusion reactions than is put

Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite-based broadband internet system, could become much more accessible in the coming years. The Elon Musk-owned company has reportedly received the go-ahead to launch an additional 7,500 satellites, expanding the Starlink broadband to over 10,000 low-orbiting satellites over the next decade. The new Starlink satellites will help users connect to the satellite-based broadband

A dust devil looks a bit like a tornado, but is weaker and rarely lasts more than about a minute. It is a twisting column of warmed air scooting across sun-heated ground, made visible by the dust that it lofts upwards. Although usually benign, occasionally dust devils can kill. Dust devils have been known to

Oppo announced three new products at its annual technology event Oppo Inno Day 2022 held on Wednesday. The offerings include a pair of assisted reality (aR) glasses dubbed the Oppo Air Glass 2, the OHealth H1 family health monitor, and the MariSilicon Y SoC. The Chinese manufacturer, however, has not announced an official release date

NASA’s Orion capsule made a blisteringly fast return from the Moon Sunday, parachuting into the Pacific off Mexico to conclude a test flight that should clear the way for astronauts on the next lunar flyby. The incoming capsule hit the atmosphere at Mach 32, or 32 times the speed of sound, and endured reentry temperatures

US House Representatives Earl Francis Blumenauer and Adam Schiff want further US Department of Agriculture (USDA) scrutiny of Elon Musk’s Neuralink following a Reuters report that outlined mistakes in the brain chip company’s animal testing program, their offices said on Thursday. Reuters reported on Monday that the USDA’s inspector general is investigating Neuralink for potential

Elon Musk’s Neuralink, a medical device company, is under federal investigation for potential animal-welfare violations amid internal staff complaints that its animal testing is being rushed, causing needless suffering and deaths, according to documents reviewed by Reuters and sources familiar with the investigation and company operations. Neuralink is developing a brain implant it hopes will

Elon Musk said on Wednesday a wireless device developed by his brain chip company Neuralink is expected to begin human clinical trials in six months. The company is developing brain chip interfaces that it says could enable disabled patients to move and communicate again. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area and Austin, Texas, Neuralink

NASA’s Orion spacecraft was placed in lunar orbit Friday, officials said, as the much-delayed Moon mission proceeded successfully. A little over a week after the spacecraft blasted off from Florida bound for the Moon, flight controllers “successfully performed a burn to insert Orion into a distant retrograde orbit,” the US space agency said on its

ISRO on Wednesday announced that RH200, the versatile sounding rocket of the Indian space agency, has registered its 200th consecutive successful launch from the shores of Thumba, Thiruvananthapuram. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has termed it a “historic moment”. It was witnessed by former President Ram Nath Kovind and ISRO chairman S Somanath, among

Spacetech startup Pixxel is set to launch its third hyperspectral satellite – Anand – onboard ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from the Sriharikota spaceport on Saturday. Anand is a hyperspectral microsatellite weighing less than 15 kg but having more than 150 wavelengths that will enable it to capture images of the earth in greater

The Indian Space Research Organisation will launch PSLV-C54/ EOS-06 mission with Oceansat-3 and eight nano satellites, including one from Bhutan, on board from Sriharikota spaceport on November 26. The launch is scheduled at 11.56am on Saturday, the national space agency said on Sunday. Asked about the passengers aboard the rocket, a senior ISRO official told

India will host a meeting of science ministers from G-20 member nations at Coimbatore in July next year during its presidency of the grouping of the world’s 20 major developed and emerging economies. Besides the Science-20 Summit with the theme ‘Disruptive Science for Innovative and Sustainable Growth’, the science administrators will also host the “Research Innovation

Skin-like electronics combined with Artificial Intelligence are being developed by researchers in order to detect potential emergent health concerns.  The study was published in the journal Matter with the title Intrinsically stretchable neuromorphic devices for on-body processing of health data with artificial intelligence. Although flexible, wearable electronics are becoming increasingly common, they have yet to

India launched its first privately developed rocket, the Vikram-S, on Friday, a milestone in the country’s effort to create a commercial space industry. The 545-kg rocket developed by space startup Skyroot took off from the Indian space agency’s launch site near Chennai. The rocket has the capability of reaching Mach 5 – five times the

Several SpaceX employees who were fired after circulating an open letter calling out CEO Elon Musk’s behaviour have filed a complaint accusing the company of violating labour laws. The complaint, made Wednesday to the National Labor Relations Board, details the aftermath of what allegedly happened inside SpaceX after employees circulated the letter in June, which,

NASA’s huge next-generation rocketship was on course Wednesday for a crewless voyage around the moon and back hours after blasting off from Florida on its debut flight, half a century after the final lunar mission of the Apollo era. The much-delayed launch kicked off Apollo’s successor program, Artemis, aimed at returning astronauts to the lunar

NASA launched the most powerful rocket ever built on a journey to the Moon on Wednesday, in a spectacular blaze of light and sound that marked the start of the space agency’s new flagship program, Artemis. The 32-story tall Space Launch System (SLS) blasted off from the storied Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 01:47

Third time’s the charm? After two failed attempts, NASA plans to launch its new mega Moon rocket early Wednesday from Florida, less than a week after the massive machine withstood a hurricane. “Our time is coming. And we hope that that is on Wednesday,” said Mike Sarafin, the manager of the much-delayed Artemis 1 mission,

SpaceX has bought an advertising package on Twitter for its satellite internet service Starlink, said Elon Musk, who owns the rocket company and the social media platform that is seeing an exodus of advertisers. “SpaceX Starlink bought a tiny – not large – ad package to test effectiveness of Twitter advertising in Australia and Spain. Did

India’s first privately developed rocket — Vikram-S — is set for a November 15 launch on a sub-orbital mission with three payloads, Hyderabad-based space startup Skyroot Aerospace announced on Tuesday. The maiden mission of Skyroot Aerospace, named ‘Prarambh’ (the beginning), will carry payloads of two Indian and one foreign customers and is set for launch from the

Elon Musk, who heads five companies including Tesla and Twitter, said in a tweet on Friday that his companies will be well positioned in 2023 despite the possibility of a tough economy. Musk’s tweet comes a day after he raised the possibility of Twitter going bankrupt. Earlier in the day, in his first company-wide email,

NASA’s new $4 billion (roughly Rs. 32,280 crore) moon rocket endured fierce winds and heavy rains early Thursday as it rode out Hurricane Nicole on its Florida launchpad, apparently with only minor damage, according to an early NASA inspection in the storm’s aftermath. Sustained winds of 85 miles per hour (136.8km per hour) were measured by launch-site

The Indian Space Research Orgnisation (ISRO) has for the first time supplied a rocket system to support a private launch vehicle built in the country. Chennai-based space technology startup Agnikul Cosmos received its first flight termination system (FTS) on November 7 from ISRO, with the support of IN-SPACe (Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre),

A satellite intended to improve weather forecasting and an experimental inflatable heat shield to protect spacecraft entering atmospheres were launched into space from California on Thursday. A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the Joint Polar Satellite System-2 satellite and the NASA test payload lifted off at 1:49am local time (3:19pm IST) from Vandenberg Space

ISRO announced on Thursday that the payload capability of India’s heaviest LVM3 rocket has been enhanced by up to 450kg with a successful engine test. According to the Indian Space Research Organisation, the CE20 cryogenic engine indigenously developed for Launch Vehicle Mark 3 (LVM3) was subjected to a successful hot test at an uprated thrust level

The Indian Space Research Organisation appears set for the first runway landing experiment (RLV-LEX) of Reusable Launch Vehicle – Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD) from aeronautical test range in Karnataka’s Chitradurga district, with its Chairman S Somanath indicating that weather is being monitored. “We are looking at the climate. Climate is still not good. So, we are

India’s first privately developed rocket – Vikram-S – is set for a launch between November 12 and 16, Hyderabad-based space startup Skyroot Aerospace announced on Tuesday. The maiden mission of Skyroot Aerospace, named ‘Prarambh’ (the beginning), will carry three customer payloads and is set for launch from the Indian Space Research Organisation’s launchpad at Sriharikota. “A

The last total lunar eclipse of the year is set to take place on Tuesday, when the Earth blocks the Sun’s rays from reaching the Moon. Also known as the Blood Moon, the lunar eclipse will take place almost a year after the last total lunar eclipse, and viewers in North America, Central America, most

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will move its operational activities to its marketing arm NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) and focus on research and development in the area of advanced space technologies in the coming years, its Chairman S Somanath said on Monday. He said the ISRO has over the years been focusing more on delivering