Latest news with #RakeshSharma
Time of India
a day ago
- Science
- Time of India
Between Rakesh Sharma and Shubhanshu Shukla — India's leap in space exploration
In 1984, Rakesh Sharma flew as part of a Soviet mission. In 2025, Shubhanshu Shukla launched aboard a SpaceX capsule. The two missions reveal how India evolved from a dependent spacefaring nation to one preparing its own human spaceflight programme
India Today
a day ago
- Science
- India Today
From Sharma to Shukla, night lights reveal India's transformation over the years
In April 1984, when Rakesh Sharma stayed in space for around a week, he saw India from up there like no other Indian had before him. Forty-one years later, when Shubhanshu Shukla looks at India from the International Space Station, he would have an entirely different view of the country, especially of the night-time a live broadcast with then Prime Minister IndiraGandhi, when asked how India looked from space, Sharma replied: "Saare Jahan Se Achcha".That India looked better than the rest was a patriotic expression that is remembered to this day. But if Sharma happened to travel to space today, his pride would shine like the night-time lights now do across satellite images of India have been publicly accessible since the 2000s, as earlier satellite cameras were not advanced enough to capture such lights, as captured from space, represent the intensity of artificial lights on the earth's surface. They are an indication of development activities and socio-economic changes, including urbanisation. The night-time satellite images of India from 2012 and 2023 show a significant increase in electrification. (Images: NASA) In the 1980s, when Sharma went to space aboard the Soyuz T-11 spacecraft, cameras weren't as evolved as they are today. Eyes in the sky that would capture the earth's images were few and far is why there aren't many images of night-time India as seen from space from that era. However, images from the last two decades are available, and show how India has such study was carried out by the Indian Space Research Organisation's (Isro's) National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC). Night-time satellite images from 2012, 2013, and 2014 reveal India's steady surge in electrification and urban glow. (Images: NASA) The NRSC carried out a 10-year trend analysis of such a change and depicted it in an atlas titled 'Decadal (2012-2021) Change of Night Time Light over India from Space'.Overall, a 43% increase was observed in the radiance of night-time lights (NTL) in 2021 from 2012. "Significant increase was observed in Bihar, Manipur, Ladakh and Kerala," according to the NTL atlas released in November radiance of night lights as observed from space doesn't just show developments, it also marks disruptions."In most of the states, a fall in NTL cumulative radiance was observed in the year 2020, and this could be the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic," according to the NTL atlas. Night-time satellite images from 2016, 2018, and 2020 reveal India's rapid penetration of electrification. (Images: NASA) INDIA LOOKS AMAZING FROM SPACE: SUNITA WILLIAMSIndian-American astronaut Sunita Williams shared that India's diverse terrain looks "amazing" from ended up staying in space for months against the planned 8 days as her ride back -- Boeing's Starliner -- malfunctioned."India is amazing," she said in April, adding, "Every time we went over the Himalayas, we got incredible pictures. It happened like a ripple and flows down into India."She highlighted the rich colours visible from orbit, particularly as the landscape transitions into Gujarat and the day, large cities like Delhi, Sao Paulo, or Lagos show greyish patches due to concrete and day-time images also reveal urban sprawl and changes in land-use patterns, the shining brilliance of transformation is better visible in images of night-time lights. Satellite images from 1984 to 2022 show Delhi's rapid urban expansion, with the bottom-left revealing Indira Gandhi International Airport's transformation from a single runway to a four-runway hub. (Video: Google Earth Engine/Screengrab)HOW INDIA LOOKS FROM SPACE AT NIGHT?Satellites, which send back the images, are either stationed or orbit the earth at a greater distance than the ISS, where Shubhanshu Shukla is stationed for 14 ISS, just like the Salyut 7 where Rakesh Sharma carried out experiments, is in the lower earth orbit (LEO). The Salyut 7 was the last space station in the Soviet Union's Salyut program before the launch of the Mir space station. India's night lights in 2021, 2022, and NASA's latest 2023 image, a glowing snapshot of the nation's present form. (Images: NASA) Night-time satellite images available in the public domain from 2012 show a massively transformed would be safe to assume that the biggest transformation would have come after the 90s, when India opened up its we can only guess how night-time India must have looked to Rakesh Sharma, images are available to show how the country would be visible to Shubhanshu Shukla. The two images of India -- a country that is Saare Jahan Se Achcha -- would be starkly different.- EndsThe photos were curated by Rahul Kumar, Senior Photo Researcher at India Today Digital. advertisement
Russia Today
a day ago
- Science
- Russia Today
India's second astronaut in space enters ISS (VIDEO)
Shubhanshu Shukla has become the second Indian ever and first since 1984 to travel to space. SpaceX's Axiom Mission 4, carrying the Indian Air Force officer, successfully docked at the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday, SpaceX has said. Shukla was selected for the South Asian nation's first human spaceflight mission to the ISS. The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft lifted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Wednesday, following nearly a month of delays. Shukla became the first Indian to travel to space after Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma's spaceflight aboard a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in 1984. The air force officer, who was chosen by the Indian Department of Space as the prime astronaut for the mission, underwent an extensive training program with three other astronaut designates at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center near Moscow in 2020. On Thursday, he sent greetings from space with a 'namaskar', a traditional Indian greeting. 'Since yesterday, I've been told that I'm sleeping a lot, which is a good sign,' Shukla said on a SpaceX livestream. 'I'm getting used to this quite well, enjoying the views, enjoying the entire experience.' He added that he was 'learning like a baby... how to walk and eat in space... It's good to make mistakes, but it is better to see someone else do that, too.' The Axiom Mission 4 carried Shukla and three other crew members to the ISS. 𝐀𝐱𝐢𝐨𝐦-𝟒 𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧🚀🇮🇳Group Captain 𝐒𝐡𝐮𝐛𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐮 𝐒𝐡𝐮𝐤𝐥𝐚 enters the International Space Station (ISS) and shares his excitement:"It has been a wonderful ride... I think this is fantastic, this is wonderful, and I'm very confident that the next 14 days… Aboard the ISS, Shukla will conduct research on microscopic organisms known as tardigrades to understand how living things adapt to microgravity. Muscle regeneration, the growth of sprouts, the survival of tiny aquatic organisms, and human interaction with electronic displays in microgravity will also be studied, as well as the effects of microgravity and space radiation on edible microalgae, a potential food source for future space missions.
Time of India
a day ago
- Science
- Time of India
From Space, Tejas fighter to IT: India's first cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma shares untold stories of his 2nd innings after returning to Earth
India's first space hero, Rakesh Sharma , shared his post-space journey in a podcast with the Ministry of Defence, recounting how he returned to the Indian Air Force after his mission and later moved to the IT industry. "And after few years, I moved to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited as their chief test pilot," he said, and recalled his association with the evolution of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) 'Tejas'. 'Later I joined the IT industry. Life has been rewarding for me.' Rakesh Sharma on space travel Astronaut Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian to journey into space in 1984, says space travel alters the mindset of humans and makes them see the world from a perspective that "this planet belongs to everyone" and not a sole preserve of anyone. He shared his thoughts in a recorded podcast shared by the Ministry of Defence on a day India returned to space after 41 years, as Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla from India and three other astronauts set forth on a landmark space odyssey on Wednesday. Sharma had spent eight days in orbit in the erstwhile Soviet Union's Salyut-7 space station in 1984. Live Events Shukla scripted history by embarking on space travel, along with three others from the US, Poland and Hungary, to the International Space Station as part of a commercial mission by Axiom Space. Asked about the future of Indian space travel, Sharma said, "We will be going farther and farther from planet Earth." "We really need to preserve what we have, which means we need to end conflicts, we need to forget about our planet belongs to everyone, it is not a sole preserve," he underlined. On a more generic note, Sharma said space exploration will "keep marching ahead". "I am hoping that India will be a modern leader in the years to come, and India will succeed in its (space) mission, which I am quite confident we will," he said.
Mint
a day ago
- Science
- Mint
Space mission Axiom 4: The universe can be a family one day
Group captain Shubhanshu Shukla of the Air Force has become the second Indian astronaut to visit space after wing commander Rakesh Sharma's journey aboard the Soyuz T-11 spacecraft back in 1984. After being postponed multiple times on account of technical glitches, Axiom Mission-4 set pulses racing in a nation of over 1.4 billion when the Crew Dragon Grace lifted off from Nasa's Kennedy Space Center in the US on 25 June. This spacecraft was sent up by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, the reusable bulk of which returned swiftly to its pre-launch clasps on the ground after delivering the necessary thrust. Designed to travel on, the crew capsule docked on Thursday at the International Space Station (ISS), which has been in low-earth orbit with seven astronauts aboard. They've been joined by Axiom-4's team of four led there by American astronaut Peggy Whitson, described by Nasa as a 'frequent flyer." Apart from Shukla, the mission's pilot, its other members are scientists Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland on behalf of the European Space Agency and Tibor Kapu of Hungary. Scientific, engineering and technological research will be the bedrock of Axiom-4. This mission is chock-a-block with projects. It has brought aboard the ISS as many as 60 studies from 31 countries. Common to all are the conditions of microgravity—or near weightlessness—under which experiments will be conducted. This could prepare the ground for replication in deep space someday. Seven of these projects are from India, selected by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro). They include tests with three strains of edible micro-algae, which will be compared with algae grown on earth; the sprouting of salad and food crop seeds, which is broadly about space farming; and gauging the effects of metabolic supplements on muscle strength, which may help us work out how to address the atrophy that astronauts suffer on long missions. Another experiment involves studying cyanobacteria (also known as blue-green algae) to see if they can grow in microgravity with urea and nitrate from human waste as fertilizer. The idea is to explore if this could be a source of nutrition in space. It can potentially yield a 'superfood'—think of Spirulina, which is valued for the protein and vitamins it packs in—that lays a path to human survival away from the home planet for prolonged stretches. Crop seeds grown in orbit will be brought back and grown under a lens for several generations. Yet another project will study the physical and cognitive effect of computer use, aiming to develop screens suitable for long-duration space missions. Isro has also sent up Tardigrades, known as 'water bears.' These are microscopic aquatic invertebrates that can survive extreme conditions—from volcanoes to radiation. How well these 'extremophiles' handle microgravity will be of interest. India's participation in Axiom-4 offers hope for our collective future. Health, food security and our ability to withstand extremes of weather triggered by climate change—all these are vital fields of study. What we learn from those tests will advance human knowledge for the benefit of all, even as this quest fosters a scientific temper. The need to explore the habitability of space should also concentrate minds on the future of the planet we inhabit. In Gaganyaan, Isro has its own crewed space mission lined up for 2027. But for Axiom-4, we have global collaboration to thank. As universal truths go, it's self-evident that the world must learn to collaborate on earth too.
