Tag Archives: India

The member states of the BRICS economic bloc – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – are in the midst of negotiating a mutually beneficial framework that will allow each country to access certain Earth observation satellites from each other, according to various press reports.

An Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), in its fiftieth flight (PSLV-C48), successfully launched RISAT-2BR1 along with nine commercial satellites from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota, on 11 December 2019.

Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) has signed an agreement with Republic of the Philippines' Department of Science and Technology-Advanced Science and Technology Institute (DOST-ASTI) to provide a share of the tasking and data acquisition services from NovaSAR-1, the innovative small S-Band radar satellite launched into a 580km sun synchronous orbit in September 2018.

Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) President Jean-Yves Le Gall was at the 4th Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) symposium that is taking place in Herzliya, Israel, from Monday 4 to Friday 8 November 2019 on the theme of “Small Satellites for Sustainable Science and Development."

Glavkosmos, a subsidiary company of Russia's state space corporation Roscosmos, has signed an agreement with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to provide life support and spacecraft thermal technologies for the Indian Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme.

Pixxel, India’s first private earth imaging company announced their agreement with Leaf Space, a company delivering complete ground segment expertise for microsatellites. The announcement was made at the 70th International Astronautical Congress in Washington, DC, wherein Leaf Space will provide the ground segment support for the satellite to be launched in July 2020.

Kleos Space S.A., a space-powered Radio Frequency Reconnaissance data-as-a-service (DaaS) company, has received confirmation that the Kleos Scouting Mission-1 will launch on an Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from Chennai, India, in December 2019.

Algeria and Russia discussed expanding space cooperation and increased development of Algerian space capabilities during a visit to Algiers by a Russian delegation consisting of officials and executives from the Russian state space agency Roscosmos, Russian commercial launch provider Glavkosmos, and the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Electromechanics (VNIIEM) that is responsible for developing sensors for environmental monitoring, meteorological, and other remote sensing satellites.

On Friday (23 August 2019), I published a short essay on the emerging Asian space race in The Nikkei Asian Review. I believe that the emerging space dynamics especially in Asia will spur new competition as well as cooperation. For example, India and Japan unite over Beijing's moon landings and anti-satellite weapons and find new avenues to collaborate including in joint lunar missions in the future.

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and Dr. Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. This is "India's strategy in space is changing. Here's why", originally published 14 August 2019