Pradeep's Space Newsletter #2
So, in my last newsletter, I missed out on an important anniversary - 50th Anniversary celebration of Apollo. It’s been 50 years since humans landed on the Moon. Here’s a video of the Washington Monument lit up with Saturn V launch sequence. Sandhya Ramesh wrote on the Anniversary for The Print (with a full version here.)
Now, onward to this week’s newsletter.
NewSpace India podcast
Narayan Prasad started putting out episodes of the NewSpace India podcast last week. Episode 1 of the podcast spoke to Mathieu J. Weiss about space co-operation between India and France over the centuries. Hear stories regarding co-operation from the days of the sounding rocket to the development of India’s liquid engine, Vikas. There are also stories related to similarities between the launch pads at French Guyana and Sriharikota.
Episode 2 of the podcast has Narayan speaking to Chandrashekar. The episode has good stories of India purchasing a launch vehicle from the USSR with their lack of a concept of launch window and liability insurance clauses. He also shares what he thinks Sarabhai must have thought of the Indian human spaceflight concept. He speaks of how ISRO progressed vis-a-vis bringing in more private players through the decades.
Chandrayaan 2 launch
ISRO stopped tweeting from their handle @isro from the night of July 15, when the launch was initially scheduled. There was a lot of speculation on the technical snag and when a new launch would be possible. Chethan Kumar writing for the Times of India posited the reason for the technical snag and suggested the likely next date for the launch.
Jatan Mehta writes for The Wire about how the delay in launch affects future timelines of the mission. It doesn’t affect the landing date. Chethan Kumar writing for the Times of India confirms.
Chandrayaan 2 finally flew at 2:43 pm IST on Monday, July 22, 2019 on board the GSLV Mk-III on it’s first non-developmental flight. Coverage: ISRO, The Wire, The Hindu, and SpaceflightNow.
Thirty Metre Telescope
The Indian Express carries an Associated Press article regarding the USD 1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope which is expected to be one of the world’s most advanced. Native Hawaiian protesters and other opponents of the telescope say they are concerned construction will desecrate and damage the mountain.
Tiangong 2
The Chinese Tiangong 2 which had Chinese taikonauts and helped China test several critical technologies required for human spaceflight re-entered and burnt up in Earth’s atmosphere.
Echo Huang writing for Quartz about What you need to know about China’s falling space lab Tiangong-2 .Andrew Jones tweeted video from on-board the spacecraft shared on Weibo.
Balloon Payload
Times of India reported that a TIFR has a balloon facility in Hyderabad from where it launched a student built payload for the first time.
Indian Space Station
Narayan Prasad writes about the 2030 plan for a space station for India for Firstpost.
Private Space in India
Nitin Pai writes in the Mint on the need for an independent space regulator and opening space up for private players.
Lightsail 2
Loren Grush writes for The Verge about the unveiling of the solar sail on The Planetary Society's LightSail 2.