Aditya-L1, named after a Hindu sun deity, will study solar storms and other phenomena. Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the mission as a landmark for India's space program. India's solar observation mission reached its destination on Saturday after a four-month journey through space. The Aditya-L1 satellite will orbit the sun to study its outermost layers. The solar observatory is stationed at the Lagrange Point, where the gravitational forces from the sun and the Earth cancel out, allowing it to remain in a stable halo orbit around the sun. India's Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh said the orbiter's mission is "to discover the mysteries of sun-Earth connection." What is the Aditya-L1 mission about? The Aditya-L1 satellite was launched in September and is expected to conduct remote sensing of the sun for five years. It was named after a Hindu sun deity. It will study coronal mass ejections, a periodic phenomenon that sees huge discharges of plasma and magnetic energy from the sun's atmosphere. These bursts are so powerful they can reach the Earth and potentially disrupt the operations of satellites. The satellite could also act as an early warning system for solar storms, with roughly a one hour advantage.   Modi hails 'yet another landmark' NASA and the European Space Agency have each sent numerous probes to the center of the solar system since the 1960s. Japan and China have also launched solar observatory missions in orbit around Earth, rather than the sun. But India's Aditya-L1, which reportedly cost $48 million (€44 million), is the first mission by an Asian nation to orbit the sun. "India creates yet another landmark. It is a testament to the relentless dedication of our scientists in realizing among the most complex and intricate space missions," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on social media. India's comparatively low-budget space program has raked up a number of firsts in recent years, including becoming the first Asian nation to orbit a craft around Mars in 2014 and the first country ever to land an uncrewed craft near the south pole of the moon in August 2023.

South Korea has been ramping up its surveillance capabilities in order to gain a strategic edge over North Korea. The move comes after North Korea launched a satellite of its own in violation of UN resolutions. South Korea has launched its first spy satellite into orbit, Seoul said Saturday, in an attempt to compete with its estranged neighbor North Korea. What do we know so far? A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried the satellite from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base at 10:19 am local time (1819 GMT) Friday. It was placed into orbit about an hour after launch and it "successfully established communication with an overseas ground station," the South Korean Ministry of National Defense said. "With this successful launch of the military satellite, our military has secured independent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities," the ministry said in a statement, adding the South Korean military is also developing a micro satellite system project for rapid monitoring and early warning. South Korea has been trying to increase its surveillance capabilities to gain strategic advantage over North Korea. Seoul has a contract with SpaceX to launch five spy satellites by 2025, in order to increase its surveillance of the Korean Peninsula. This year in May, South Korea also used its own Nuri launch vehicle to place a mission-capable satellite into orbit for the first time. The satellite launched on Friday is an electro-optical and infra-red device, while the four following satellites are due to feature synthetic aperture radar (SAR), which can "see" through cloud cover and at night. "Until now, South Korea has relied heavily on US-run spy satellites when it comes to monitoring the North. While the South has succeeded in the launch of a military communications satellite, it has taken much longer for a reconnaissance satellite due to higher technological hurdles," Choi Gi-il, professor of military studies at Sangji University, told AFP news agency.  South Korean launch comes after North put its own satellite into orbit The move by the South Korean government comes just days after North Korea successfully launched its own military reconnaissance satellite. After two failed attempts earlier this year, North Korea used its Chollima-1 launch vehicle to place the Malligyong-1 reconnaissance satellite in orbit. This had received strong condemnation from the US, South Korea and other nations.  North Korea said Saturday it would consider any interference with its satellite operations a declaration of war. "In case the US tries to violate the legitimate territory of a sovereign state by weaponizing the latest technologies illegally and unjustly, the DPRK will consider taking responsive action measures for self-defense to undermine or destroy the viability of the US spy satellites," a statement from its defense ministry as quoted by KCNA agency said. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is the official name of North Korea. Several UN Security Council resolutions ban any satellite launches by North Korea. Pyongyang said it has satellite images of target regions in South Korea, which it claims were taken by its spy satellite.   North and South Korea are both technically still at war, as the the Korean War ended in 1953 with a truce, not a peace treaty.

North Korea told Japan it would launch a satellite between November 22 and December 1. The announcement comes as US aircraft carrier arrives in the South Korean port of Busan. North Korea has notified Japan that it plans to launch a rocket carrying a military satellite in the direction of the Yellow Sea and East China Sea, the Japanese government said on Tuesday.  The third attempt to send the reconnaissance satellite into orbit — following two failed attempts earlier in the year — is set to take place at some point between November 22 and December 1. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Japan was coordinating its response with its partners South Korea and the US, and that the use of any ballistic missile technology would be a breach of UN resolutions. How did North Korea's neighbors react? North Korea notified Japan, as the coordinating authority for the International Maritime Organization for those waters, of its plans all three times. Kishida condemned the announcement and said he had instructed government agencies "to make utmost efforts in collecting information and providing it to the Japanese people, to demand cancellation of the launch in cooperation with relevant countries, and to make utmost efforts in preparing for unpredictable situations." South Korea responded to the announcement by warning its northern neighbor against carrying out the planned launch. It also issued a sail warning. "We sternly warn North Korea to... immediately suspend the current preparations to launch a military spy satellite," Kang Ho-pil, chief director of operations at the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday. "If North Korea goes ahead with the launch of a military reconnaissance satellite despite our warning, our military will take necessary measures to guarantee the lives and safety of the people," he added. The announcement also coincided with the arrival of US aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the South Korean port of Busan. The vessel had been sent to increase preparedness against missile threats from Pyongyang. North Korea's satellite plans The launch follows a rare trip to Russia by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in September. He visited a modern space launch center, where Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would assist Pyongyang with building satellites. North Korea wants to put a military spy satellite into orbit, as it wishes to monitor moves by US and South Korean troops. Since North Korea conducted its first nuclear weapons testin 2006, the UN Security Council adopted several resolutions calling for it to halt nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Earlier this week, North Korea denounced the potential US sale of hundreds of missiles to Japan and South Korea, saying it would raise tensions in the region. North Korea has earlier made attempts to launch "observation" satellites, of which two appeared to have successfully reached orbit including one in 2016. However, Seoul officials have raised doubts about whether they are transmitting any signals.

The spacecraft Shenzhou-17, or "Divine Vessel", lifted off at 11:13 a.m. local time (0313 UTC/GMT) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre, on the edges of China's Gobi Desert. The crew is the youngest ever to depart for the orbiting Tiangong space station as part of a China's program to send its taikonauts to the lunar surface. The six-month mission is headed by Tang Hongbo, 48, a former air force pilot. He was on the first crewed mission to the space station in 2021. Accompanying him were first-time space travelers Tang Shengjie, 33, and Jiang Xinlin, 35.

The NISAR satellite, which has been developed in Bengaluru, in a collaboration between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will deepen understanding of earth’s dynamics and provide detailed insights of environmental phenomenon. The NISAR — short for NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar — is being jointly developed by the two organisations, to track movements of Earth’s land and ice surfaces in extremely fine detail, and is all set to launch in early 2024, NASA informed in a press release.  Two major components of the NISAR satellite have been combined to create a single spacecraft in Bengaluru, India. The NISAR satellite will deepen understanding of climate change, deforestation, glacier melt, volcanoes, earthquakes and other issues.  As NISAR monitors nearly every part of our planet at least once every 12 days, the satellite will also help scientists understand, among other observables, the dynamics of forests, wetlands, and agricultural lands, NASA stated in its release. “A crane is used to align NISAR’s radar instrument payload, seen partially wrapped in gold-coloured thermal blanketing, with the satellite’s spacecraft bus, which is inside blue blanketing, in an ISRO clean room in Bengaluru, India, in June,” the release stated.  The satellite’s cylindrical radar instrument payload contains two radar systems and is about the size of an SUV and partially wrapped in gold-coloured thermal blanketing.  The S-band radar is particularly useful for monitoring crop structure and the roughness of land and ice surfaces, while the L-band instrument can penetrate denser forest canopies to study the woody trunks of trees, among other observables, the release added. The wavelengths of the S-band and L-band signals are about 4 inches (10 centimetres) and 10 inches (25 centimetres), respectively, and both sensors have the potential to see through clouds and collect data day and night. “The payload took a roundabout journey to get to this point. The S-band radar was built at the Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad in western India, then flown in March 2021 to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, where engineers had been developing NISAR’s L-band radar.  At JPL, the two systems were fixed to the payload’s barrel-like frame before being flown to the U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC) in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru in March 2023,” the release stated. It added, “The engineers and technicians at URSC, collaborating with teams from JPL, were busy developing the spacecraft’s main body, or bus, which is covered in blue blanketing that protects it during assembly and testing prior to launch.  The bus, which includes components and systems developed by both ISRO and JPL, will provide power, navigation, pointing control, and communications for the mission”. After the radar payload and bus were joined in a URSC clean room in June this year, NASA and ISRO teams have been working together to route thousands of feet of cabling between them.  However, the satellite’s solar panels, as well as the drum-shaped, wire-mesh reflector that will unfold from the end of a 30-foot (9-meter) boom, are still to be attached.  At nearly 40 feet (12 meters) in diameter, the reflector will be the largest radar antenna of its kind ever launched into space, the NASA release added.

Pyongyang "bitterly criticized" those responsible for last month's failed rocket launch. But officials said progress was being made on ballistic missile technology and the country's nuclear program. North Korea vowed on Sunday to launch a second space rocket after calling last month's botched attempt at launching a satellite the "gravest failure." The North Korean government has ordered researchers and other workers to analyze the failed launch and prepare for another one in the future. The comments were made at a key meeting for the ruling Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang that ran from Friday to Sunday. Party officials at the meeting "bitterly criticized the officials who irresponsibly conducted the preparations for (the) satellite launch," state news agency KCNA said. North Korea claims 'strides' in nuclear program At the meeting, officials said North Korea was making "big strides" in developing nuclear weapons and continued to strengthen ties with countries that oppose what it called the "US strategy for world supremacy." The Politburo members also analyzed the "extremely deteriorating security situation" in the region caused by the "reckless war moves" of its rivals, apparently referring to the expanded US-South Korea military drills, KCNA said. It said they unanimously approved unspecified plans for counteraction. The KCNA report did not say whether North Korean leader Kim Jong Un spoke during the meeting. A spokesperson for South Korea's Unification Ministry, Koo Byoungsam, said it would be highly unusual for Kim to sit through such a high-profile party meeting without making a public speech. Koo said the apparent lack of a speech by Kim could stem from the failure of the satellite launch. The failed launch of May 31 was widely denounced by South Korea, Japan and the United States. Although Pyongyang said the launch was to put a military reconnaissance satellite into orbit, critics said the rocket technology overlapped with ballistic missile technology and therefore breached sanctions. South Korea recovered some of the wreckage from the ocean. Seoul hopes the debris can help experts gain insight into Pyongyang's ballistic missile program. 

The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un accused the UN of acting as a "political appendage" to the United States. She vowed that her country would push for a second attempt to launch a spy satellite. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's sister, Kim Jo Jong, sharply criticized the UN Security Council (UNSC) for a "most unfair" meeting held over Pyongyang's failed spy satellite launch, state media reported on Sunday. "I am very unpleased that the UNSC so often calls to account the DPRK's exercise of its rights as a sovereign state at the request of the US," Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency, referring to North Korea by its official name. "(I) bitterly condemn and reject it as the most unfair and biased act of interfering in its internal affairs and violating its sovereignty," she said. What happened at the UN council talks? North Korea's new Chillima-1 rocket carrying a spy satellite lost thrust and crashed into the sea with its payload on Wednesday, Pyongyang said in a rare same-day announcement, adding another test will be conducted soon without specifying a date.  The United States and South Korea, close allies, denounced the launch, saying it violated UN resolutions barring a nuclear-armed country from any tests using ballistic missile technology. Rosemary DiCarlo, UN's under-secretary-general for political and peace-building affairs called the security council out on its "lack of unity and action" against North Korea's frequent tests. The UN Security Council has a total of 15 members, including the five permanent members: China, France, Russia, the UK and the US. The permanent members hold veto power which North Korean allies China and Russia have used in the past to block UN action on Pyongyang. In her statement on Sunday, Kim Yo Jong also criticized the security council, but for being a "political appendage" of the US, saying the recent UN meeting was convened following America's "gangster-like request." She further said the UN Council was discriminatory since other nations have launched thousands of satellites that are already operating in space. Her country's attempt to position a spy satellite is a legitimate step to respond to military threats posed by the US and its allies, she said. Threat of launch without warning North Korea on Sunday also threatened to not notify the International Maritime Organization (IMO) of future satellite launches in advance in protest of its condemnation of the several missile tests. The IMO, on Wednesday, adopted a rare resolution denouncing North Korea for conducting the satellite launch without proper notification which "seriously threatened the safety of seafarers and international shipping." Since the start of 2022, Kim has carried out over 100 missile tests in what he called a warning over expanded military drills between the US and South Korea. In a statement carried by state media, a North Korean international affairs analyst, Kim Myong Chol, said the IMO resolution indicated that North Korea's advance launch notice "is no longer necessary." "In the future, IMO should know and take measures by itself over the period of (North Korea's) satellite launch and the impact point of its carrier and be prepared to take full responsibility for all the consequences from it." North Korea had earlier notified the IMO and Japan of the satellite launch to take place between May 31 and June 11. Who is Kim Yo Jong? Kim Yo Jong is the influential and powerful younger sister of the reclusive nation's supreme leader, Kim Jong Un. Korean observers say the 35-year-old, who is also a senior ruling party member, shares a strong bond with her brother. The US Treasury has previously imposed sanctions on Kim Yo Jong along with other North Korean officials for committing "severe human rights abuses." In a previous interview, Michael Madden, a North Korea expert at Johns Hopkins University's "38 North" website, said that Kim Yo Jong was one of the North Korean dictator's "closest confidantes."

The mission was attempted by British billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit, which has successfully completed four similar launches from the US. The UK attempted its first orbital space launch from UK soil on Monday evening, making it the privately-owned Virgin Orbit's first international launch. However, it failed when a reported "anomaly" early Tuesday prevented the rocket from reaching orbit. The repurposed Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 aircraft, named "Cosmic Girl" took off from Cornwall in southwestern England at around 10:15 pm local time (2215 GMT) and released the rocket around an hour into flight over the Atlantic Ocean, toward the south of Ireland. However, Virgin Orbit said it appeared to have an "anomaly" in a satellite launch, saying it had prevented the rocket from reaching orbit. "We are evaluating the information," it said. The rocket was carrying nine small satellites and was dubbed "Start Me Up," as in the Rolling Stones song. A crowd of around 2,000 people attended the takeoff in Cornwall. The nine satellites the rocket was set to bring into orbit had to be used for both civil and defense purposes. The first in the UK and Western Europe The commercial satellite launch, described by Virgin Orbit as "history-making," was not only the first in the UK but in the whole of Western Europe, according to the UK Space Agency. Though the UK has produced satellites in the past, they were sent to spaceports abroad to be launched into space. Ian Annett, deputy chief executive at the UK Space Agency, said, "This is the start of a new era for the UK in terms of launch capabilities." He added that the UK had ambitions for being ''the hub of European launches." More small satellites were built in the UK than anywhere outside of the US, and the UK was also the home of operation centers for satellite telecommunication companies. "So we have the full spectrum except launch," Annett told the Reuters news agency. "If you have launch, you have everything." Previously in 2022 and 2021, Virgin Orbit launched four similar missions from California after some failed attempts. National pride or ground for military escalation? Apart from NASDAQ-listed Virgin Orbit, state bodies such as the UK Space Agency, the Royal Air Force and Cornwall Council are also collaborating on the mission. It was originally planned for late last year, but technical and regulatory issues pushed back the date. In the past century, satellite missions were exclusively launched by national space agencies. Recent years have seen growing private sector initiatives. Virgin Orbit acknowledged on its website that the mission was enabled by the UK Space Agency funding. The company, founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, said the launch would "meet a key ambition of the UK Government's National Space Strategy."

Indian Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari Thursday said that China's latest demonstration of physically moving one of its disabled satellites into the graveyard orbit is bringing new threats in the space domain. While delivering the inaugural address at the 13th Jumbo Majumdar International seminar, he said, "China's latest demonstration of physically moving one of its disabled satellites into the graveyard orbit is bringing new threats in the space domain." "The first and foremost challenge that we will face is that of keeping pace with technology...No other field has seen such rapid transformation in technology as air-power has seen in the last 120 years of its existence. It has seen an evolution from a small biplane to space-based anti-satellite weapons," he added. "The second challenge that I foresee is to develop doctrines, training philosophies, and concepts of operations. There is a need for doctrines to be contemporary because if the fundamental guiding principle is dated then our warfighting will also be dated," he stated. Doctrine is an important element in the development of future force structures and capability requirements that will require capability dedicated and specialized requirements, said Chaudhari, adding "our training philosophy will need to be modern, flexible, and adaptive". "A well-trained air warrior who is technologically sound and yet able to adapt to disruptions would serve a future force multiplier. The next step is to use the doctrines and well-trained manpower to evolve employment philosophies and concepts of operations. This would require joint planning and joint execution of plans," he said. The next challenge will be of command and control, and another will be aerospace control, he said, adding that the primacy of who will do what cannot be determined by the pro-rata system of who has a larger mass of forces or equipment. "This process must change and it will be important to appreciate the capabilities of each service to make 2 plus 2 equal to five," he further said. He further stated, "The fundamental strength of individual services must be brought together to deter potential enemies and decisively win the nation's war. There is a need to wage tomorrow's wars with pragmatism and not necessarily idealism. One such challenge is aerospace control." Source: ANI

Last year a US general made an ominous revelation: two Russian satellites in orbit were stalking a US spy satellite high above the earth.   It wasn't clear if the Cosmos satellites could attack USA-245, an American surveillance spacecraft.   "It has the potential to create a dangerous situation in space," said General Jay Raymond, head of the Pentagon's Space Command.   The incident passed, but it marked a new stage in the mounting arms race in space, where potentially bomb-armed satellites, laser-shooting spacecraft and other technologies have moved from science fiction to reality.   The stakes were made clear Monday when Russia launched a missile from Earth and blasted to pieces one of its satellites in a show of force.   NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called the act "reckless."   "It demonstrates that Russia is now developing new weapons systems that can shoot down satellites," he said at a meeting Tuesday with EU defense ministers.   - Kamikaze satellites -   The militarization of space is as old as the space race itself -- as soon as Sputnik was launched into orbit in 1957, Washington and Moscow began exploring ways to both arm and destroy satellites.   In the beginning, the biggest worry was nuclear weapons in space. In 1967 the superpowers and other countries signed the Outer Space Treaty, banning weapons of mass destruction in orbit.   Since then, Russia, the United States, China and even India have explored ways to fight in space outside of the treaty.   That competition today focuses on destroying a rival's satellites, which are increasingly essential to every advanced military for communications, surveillance and navigation.   In 1970, Moscow successfully tested a satellite loaded with explosives that could destroy another satellite in orbit.   The US answered back in 1983, when then-president Ronald Reagan announced his ambitious Strategic Defense Initiative -- the "Star Wars" program promising precision-guided anti-missile missiles and satellites emitting laser beams or microwaves -- to make the US militarily superior.   Much of the technology envisioned was unfeasible. But in a landmark move, the Pentagon used a missile to destroy a failed satellite in a 1985 test.   Since then, rivals have sought to show they had the same targeting skills: China in 2007 and India in 2019.   After trying for some time, Russia's successful shoot-down on Monday was unsurprising for many experts.   "The Russians did not need to detonate the satellite to demonstrate that they had the ability to do so," said Isabelle Sourbes-Verger, a space expert at France's National Centre for Scientific Research.   It was a demonstration "that if necessary in asymmetric responses, Russia will not permit the United States to be the only one in control of space," she said.   - Space stalkers -   Countries are intensely secretive about their military space activities, and because many of the technologies involved are dual-use -- useful for both civilian and defense purposes -- their capabilities are not fully clear.   But the race is such that by 2019, the year the Pentagon established its Space Force, it believed that Russia and China had the potential to surpass the US.   "Maintaining American dominance in that domain is now the mission of the United States Space Force," said then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.   The race has evolved from the idea of killing satellites with missiles, or kamikaze satellites, to finding ways to damage them with laser or high-powered microwave weapons.   Both Russia and China have developed "space stalker" satellites that can be manipulated to physically interfere with others, according to Brian Chow, an independent space policy analyst who spent 25 years at the Rand Corp think tank.   With robotic arms, "they can just stalk the opponent satellite and move it somewhere else, or bend an antenna" to render it useless, said Chow.   Those satellites remain few, but Russia's deployment of two to menace the US satellite in 2020 shows the technology has arrived.   China and the United States both have ultra-secret programs of small, reusable, robotic, winged spacecraft which could potentially be used with weapons and damage a rival's satellites. Countries are also developing surface-based weapons to jam and spoof satellite signals, and to use directed energy to damage them.   The US Defense Intelligence Agency said in 2019 that China had five bases with ground-based lasers that could be used to disable enemy satellites.   "Every satellite that passes over China would be subject to attack," said Chow. Source: AFP/BSS AH