Tag Archives: India

Hughes Communications India Ltd, (HCIL), a majority-owned subsidiary of Hughes Network Systems, LLC (Hughes), the world’s leading provider of broadband satellite networks and services, and Bharti Airtel Limited (Airtel), India’s leading telecommunications services provider, announced on 7 May 2019 an agreement to combine their Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) operations in India.

SatSure, the Indian geospatial data analytics company that utilises advances in Earth observation satellites, machine learning, and big data analytics, has announced that it has won the Imkan Innovation Award worth U.S.$10,000 at startAD’s Venture Launchpad.

Pakistan signed a space cooperation agreement with China at a ceremony in Beijing held on 27 April 2019 providing a framework for the training of Pakistani astronauts, space science and exploration, as well as the establishment of a Sino-Pakistani space committee that will discuss other cooperative initiatives in space.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence gave a remarkable “Kennedy” style speech on 26 March 2019 in Huntsville, Alabama, where he stated that the United States will put Americans on the Moon again - in as soon as five years. China demonstrated, with Chang'e 4, their capability to land on the far side of the Moon. Israeli NGO SpaceIL’s Beresheet spacecraft, though ultimately unsuccessful in its soft landing, did reach the Moon’s surface on 11 April 2019. This has all happened without Europe. SpaceWatch.Global Chairman, Dr. John B. Sheldon, shares his thoughts on Europe's ability to carry out Moonshots in the 21st century.

Following its 27 March 2019 direct-ascent antisatellite (ASAT) missile test that destroyed a target satellite in low-Earth orbit (LEO), the head of India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) – G. Satheesh Reddy – has outlined to Indian media his organisation's counterspace technology ambitions for the coming years.

On March 27, India announced it had successfully conducted an anti-satellite (ASAT) missile test, called “Mission Shakti”. After the United States, Russia and China, India is now the fourth country in the world to have demonstrated this capability.

Swiss New Space company Astrocast had its second satellite launched and deployed by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (Mission PSLV-C45) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on 1 April 2019.

India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C45) successfully launched EMISAT and 28 international customer satellites from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR in Sriharikota. This flight marked the first mission of PSLV-QL, a new variant of PSLV with four strap-on motors.

India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully carried out the country's first anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon test against an out-of-service Indian satellite orbiting the Earth at 300 kilometres altitude on Wednesday, 27 March 2019, at 11.16 am Indian Time.

Argos is the only global satellite-based data collection and location system of its kind dedicated to studying and preserving the environment. Created in 1978 on the initiative of the French national space agency, the Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), it is today operated by CLS (Collecte Localisation Satellite), a subsidiary of CNES. Since Argos entered service, three generations of instruments have succeeded one another. Eumetsat and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) joined the programme in 1997 and 2007 respectively.