(1) Vikram-S, first private rocket, launches
India crossed a milestone in its space journey on Friday with the first-ever launch of a rocket made by an Indian private company. Vikram-S reached an altitude of 89.5 km before splashing down into the Bay of Bengal off Sriharikota in Tamil Nadu. Launch to splashdown took around five minutes.
Globally, private rocket launches have increased. In India, it is a different picture. India’s technological improvements are known for making missions extremely affordable. However, its private sector participation had been locked out of the arena till 2020. A SpaceTech Analytics report put India’s share in the world’s space-tech companies at 3.6% or the sixth largest. The United States’ share is at 56.4%.
In 2020, the government introduced wide-ranging reforms. It established the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe) to free up regulations. Now, private companies could step into ISRO’s planetary exploration missions. ISRO’s facilities would now be open for private companies to use. This could mean saving expenses by renting out infrastructure and using ISRO’s facilities for assembling and testing satellites.
Also read | Space companies await the fineprint of reforms with big hope
Vikram-S’s maker Skyroot became the first company to take advantage of these reforms. It entered into an agreement with ISRO to use its facilities for test launches, along with ISRO’s technical expertise. Skyroot estimates that around 20,000 small satellites will be launched in the coming decade.
(2) Historic deal struck at COP27
After two-day long and exhausting negotiations, the countries have adopted a hard-fought final agreement at the COP27 climate summit that sets up a fund to help poor countries being battered by climate disasters. Financing or a new fund to deal with loss and damage was a long-pending demand of poor and developing countries, including India. Loss and damage, the most contentious issue at the conference, refers to the most severe impacts of extreme weather on the physical and social infrastructure of poor countries, and the financial assistance needed to rescue and rebuild them. The rich countries have - until now - resisted the discussion over financing for 30 years fearing that since they historically played a major role in causing climate change, they will have to pay for it for centuries to come. Experts in India welcomed it as a testament to the tenacity of climate-vulnerable countries and a warning shot to polluters that they can no longer go scot-free with their climate destruction. However, the deal was far from perfect, with several key elements flawed or lacking. Some countries said the commitments to limiting temperatures to 1.5C represented no progress at the COP26 conference in Glasgow last year, and the language on phasing out fossil fuels was weak.
Also read | Who should pay for climate damage?
In the sessions, India has made it clear that the world is facing a climate crisis today because of the excessive historic cumulative emissions by the developed nations (Chart 2). India accused the rich nations of not wanting to change their lifestyles to reduce emissions and are “searching for cheaper solutions abroad”. There would be no climate crisis if emissions of the entire world were at the same per capita level as India, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav said at the U.N. climate summit in Egypt. At 2.4 tCO2e (tonne carbon dioxide equivalent), India’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions are far below the world average of 6.3 tCO2e, according to a report released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) last month (Chart 2). Per capita emissions in the U.S. are far above the global average, followed by Russia, China, Brazil, Indonesia, and the European Union.
Also read | What is India’s future strategy on emissions?
Meanwhile, India rose two spots to rank eighth out of 63 in the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) 2023 (Chart 3), thanks to its low emissions and the increasing use of renewable energy. The rankings by Germanwatch, New Climate Institute and the Climate Action Network are based on how well the countries are doing to halve their emissions by 2030 — an essential aspect to keep the 1.5-degree Celsius goal within reach and prevent dangerous climate change.
(3) Rajiv Gandhi assassination case convicts released
As the six remaining convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case are released, an appalling chapter that began with India’s catastrophic involvement in Sri Lanka’s internal strife in the 1980s, concludes. The assassination in May 1991, ordered by the LTTE leadership and carried out by a suicide bomber, caused revulsion. However, over time, the prolonged incarceration of the seven persons ultimately found guilty evoked some public sympathy. Nalini was released from the Special Prison for Women, Vellore. Murugan and Santhan were freed from the Central Prison, Vellore, Robert Payas and Jayakumar from the Central Prison, Puzhal, and Ravichandran were freed from the Central Prison, Madurai. Here’s a detailed timeline of events leading up to the Centre seeking a review of the Supreme Court order to release Rajiv Gandhi case convicts.
(4) The FTX collapse
The crypto world never sees an uneventful day, but FTX’s collapse has made the ride especially bumpy. The crypto-exchange’s bankruptcy announcement last week came after its famous owner Sam Bankman-Fried built a reputation as the ‘bailout’ man for other suffering crypto companies. FTX was seen as a rock in the choppy, volatile crypto seas. Now, investors including Temasek Holdings, Softbank Group’s Corp’s vision fund and Sequoia Capital have marked their FTX investments down to zero. Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, was down by 20.6 percent from November 2 when CoinDesk’s report came out. It touched a two-year low price. Ethereum is down by 25.5 percent as of Saturday.
FTX’s crisis came under spotlight when CoinDesk released a report questioning the financial strength of Bankman-Fried’s crypto trading firm Alameda Research. New FTX CEO John Ray says FTX’s meltdown is a story of “unprecedented” mistakes within the company like untrustworthy financial information, and a lack of corporate control. It may have been about the company, but FTX’s collapse is only the latest in this year’s crypto crashes. Earlier this year, beginning from June to July, the crypto world saw bankruptcies filed by Voyager and Celsius, and layoffs at Coinbase.
However, FTX’s crash is different from the Celsius and Voyager cases. FTX is a case of a trusted, familiar crypto player like Bankman-Fried falling out of grace because of botched balance sheets. It marks a shift in consumer trust.
(5) NASA’s mightiest rocket lifts off 50 years after Apollo
NASA’s next generation rocketship was on course for a crewless voyage around the moon and back, launched from Florida on its debut flight half a century after the final lunar mission of the Apollo era. The much-delayed launch kicked off Apollo’s successor programme, Artemis, aimed at returning astronauts to the lunar surface this decade and establishing a sustainable base there as a stepping stone to future human exploration of Mars.
The 32-storey-tall Space Launch System rocket blasted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 1.47 a.m. EST (12.17 p.m. IST), piercing the blackness over Cape Canaveral with a reddish-orange tail of fire. About 90 minutes after launch, the rocket’s upper stage successfully thrust the Orion capsule out of Earth orbit and on its trajectory to the moon, NASA announced. Liftoff came on the third attempt at launching the multibillion-dollar rocket, after 10 weeks beset by technical mishaps, back-to-back hurricanes, and two excursions trundling the spacecraft out of its hangar to the launch pad. With this mission, NASA aims to contribute to scientific discovery and economic benefits and inspire a new generation of explorers. The following series of graphics explores the onset of Lunar exploration, Moon missions by various countries and their landing sites.
