May 18, 2018: Weekly Spatial Resolutions

The Mystery of the ‘SpaceBees’ Just Got Even Weirder We’ve talked about the SpaceBees issue a few times on our podcast, “The Mission Readiness Review.” In case you don’t know, Swarm Technologies, a Silicon Valley startup, launched some very small satellites for a few federal agencies on an Indian rocket early this year. But […]

India Did WHAT??!

What if you did something that was awesome, a first for you and your country, and the world just yawned? Can you imagine how irritating that would be? Especially if your accomplishment was nearly as important as certain other accomplishments that occurred weeks earlier? Imagine India being in that awkward position and the something significant they […]

The Indian Mechanical Martian

The above image is a great reminder of the playful part of conducting serious missions. The latest mission to Mars in this case just arrived Tuesday and was placed into Mars’ orbit. The country responsible for the mission? India. 11 months ago, in November 2013, the Indians launched the Mangalyaan, or Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) […]

PSLV: A SpaceX/ULA/Ariane Alternative?

The Indians continue proving they are in the space business for real. The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), their success with the Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV), and their continued success with their latest launch today of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from the Satish Dhawan Space Center (formerly known as Sriharikota Launching Range), are all […]

Low-cost Mars Probe Hack: Jugaad To Be Kidding Me

Americans pride themselves on entrepreneurship, independence, ingenuity, and can-do traits. And there’s historical and current evidence of those traits to support that pride. The Indians, however, seem to be quickly adopting these “American” traits, but at less expense. Or maybe the traits have always been present in India, but something was suppressing them for a long […]