At 11:51 pm on the night of October 30, a three-stage, 50-foot, 420-tonne GSLV-F18 rocket will rise from Sriharikota carrying far more than the 2,250-kg NVS-03 satellite. Delayed repeatedly from a planned late-2025 date, it carries a quiet national embarrassment, the hopes of thousands of engineers, and a decision breaking with 51 years of ISRO tradition.&nbsp;It will reportedly be the first time ever that an Indian satellite will leave the ground with its pyro valves already open. Picture a pyro valve as a sealed door whose only key is a tiny firecracker: once an electrical command fires the charge, the door bursts open and can never shut again. Its job is to keep fuel and oxidiser, the chemical that lets fuel burn in airless space, locked in their tanks until the engines are needed.&nbsp;Why abandon the sealed door? Because on January 29, 2025, NVS-02 was stranded. GSLV-F15 delivered it to the Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, the stretched, egg-shaped parking lane from which satellites climb to their final home, but the signal meant to fire the oxidiser pyro valve never arrived. Starved of oxidiser, the Liquid Apogee Motor, the small onboard engine meant to make that climb to about 37,023 km, stayed silent. A high-level investigation team, the Apex Committee, blamed a loose or disconnected contact inside a connector that broke both the main and backup electrical paths.&nbsp;Pre-opening the valves simply deletes the step that failed. Yet experts warn the risk has moved, not vanished. Think of it this way: the one-time explosive door is already open, so an ordinary electric door further down the pipe, the Isolation Latch Valve, must now do the sealing job through ground handling and the violent vibration, pressure swings and acceleration of launch. Leaking propellant could reach it; if it refuses to open in orbit, the mission dies. One specialist feels ISRO may eventually switch to latch valves entirely. ISRO Chairman Dr V Narayanan did not reply when asked what extra checks were done, whether the committee's connector fixes were adopted, or whether primary and backup signals now travel through physically separate connectors. NVS-04 and NVS-05, the remaining second-generation satellites, will inherit whatever NVS-03 teaches.&nbsp;The stakes reach back to the Kargil War of 1999, when Indian soldiers were denied American GPS data on the battlefield. India resolved never again to borrow its sense of place. The answer was NavIC, Navigation with Indian Constellation, formally the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System: seven satellites parked high above the subcontinent, covering India and 1,500 km beyond its borders with 10-metre accuracy for all, plus a sharper paid service for the armed forces and large construction projects. Since GPS signals reach India slanting in from afar, NavIC's overhead satellites serve deep valleys and thick forests better. Already 8,700 of 12,000 targeted trains carry NavIC trackers for live monitoring.&nbsp;The dream has faltered. Since July 2013, when IRNSS-1A flew, ISRO has launched 11 navigation satellites costing nearly ₹2,250 crore. Six have failed, mostly because imported atomic clocks died. These clocks time a radio signal's journey so precisely that a receiver can turn it into distance; without them, there is no navigation. A 2018 CAG report added a painful footnote: receivers for phones were developed only from 2017, so the four satellites orbiting by 2015 spent years broadcasting to almost nobody, their 10-year lives ticking away. Two replacements were lost: IRNSS-1H when the PSLV's protective heat shield failed to separate, and NVS-02.&nbsp;Earlier this year, the government told Parliament that only IRNSS-1B, IRNSS-1I and NVS-01 remain usable, one short of the four needed to fix a position. NavIC still delivers precise time, but it cannot tell anyone where they are.&nbsp;The second generation, begun with NVS-01 in May 2023, is built to change that. These satellites carry Indian-made atomic clocks alongside purchased ones, last 12 years, and broadcast on L1 as well as L5 and S. L1 is the frequency GPS speaks, so smartwatches and low-power single-frequency chips can finally hear NavIC.&nbsp;Globally, GPS runs about 32 satellites, GLONASS 24, Galileo 27 and BeiDou 30, mostly circling 19,000 to 24,000 km up in Medium Earth Orbit, though BeiDou also uses higher orbits; Japan's four-satellite QZSS, like NavIC, sits high to strengthen GPS over Asia and Oceania, and India has long discussed widening NavIC's own reach.&nbsp;That must wait. On the night of October 30, with several hundred crore and the country's defence and security riding along, one valve left deliberately open must simply hold so that India can regain the quiet dignity of finding itself.

The stakes reach back to the Kargil War of 1999, when Indian soldiers were denied American GPS data on the battlefield. India resolved never again to borrow its sense of place. The answer was NavIC, Navigation with Indian Constellation, formally the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System

At 11:51 pm on the night of October 30, a three-stage, 50-foot, 420-tonne GSLV-F18 rocket will rise from Sriharikota carrying far more than the 2,250-kg NVS-03 satellite. Delayed repeatedly from a planned late-2025 date, it carries a quiet national embarrassment, the hopes of thousands of engineers, and a decision breaking with 51 years of ISRO tradition. It will reportedly be the first time ever that an Indian satellite will leave the ground with its pyro valves already open. Picture a pyro valve as a sealed door whose only key is a tiny firecracker: once an electrical command fires the charge, the door bursts open and can never shut again. Its job is to keep fuel and oxidiser, the chemical that lets fuel burn in airless space, locked in their tanks until the engines are needed. Why abandon the sealed door? Because on January 29, 2025, NVS-02 was stranded. GSLV-F15 delivered it to the Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, the stretched, egg-shaped parking lane from which satellites climb to their final home, but the signal meant to fire the oxidiser pyro valve never arrived. Starved of oxidiser, the Liquid Apogee Motor, the small onboard engine meant to make that climb to about 37,023 km, stayed silent. A high-level investigation team, the Apex Committee, blamed a loose or disconnected contact inside a connector that broke both the main and backup electrical paths. Pre-opening the valves simply deletes the step that failed. Yet experts warn the risk has moved, not vanished. Think of it this way: the one-time explosive door is already open, so an ordinary electric door further down the pipe, the Isolation Latch Valve, must now do the sealing job through ground handling and the violent vibration, pressure swings and acceleration of launch. Leaking propellant could reach it; if it refuses to open in orbit, the mission dies. One specialist feels ISRO may eventually switch to latch valves entirely. ISRO Chairman Dr V Narayanan did not reply when asked what extra checks were done, whether the committee's connector fixes were adopted, or whether primary and backup signals now travel through physically separate connectors. NVS-04 and NVS-05, the remaining second-generation satellites, will inherit whatever NVS-03 teaches. The stakes reach back to the Kargil War of 1999, when Indian soldiers were denied American GPS data on the battlefield. India resolved never again to borrow its sense of place. The answer was NavIC, Navigation with Indian Constellation, formally the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System: seven satellites parked high above the subcontinent, covering India and 1,500 km beyond its borders with 10-metre accuracy for all, plus a sharper paid service for the armed forces and large construction projects. Since GPS signals reach India slanting in from afar, NavIC's overhead satellites serve deep valleys and thick forests better. Already 8,700 of 12,000 targeted trains carry NavIC trackers for live monitoring. The dream has faltered. Since July 2013, when IRNSS-1A flew, ISRO has launched 11 navigation satellites costing nearly ₹2,250 crore. Six have failed, mostly because imported atomic clocks died. These clocks time a radio signal's journey so precisely that a receiver can turn it into distance; without them, there is no navigation. A 2018 CAG report added a painful footnote: receivers for phones were developed only from 2017, so the four satellites orbiting by 2015 spent years broadcasting to almost nobody, their 10-year lives ticking away. Two replacements were lost: IRNSS-1H when the PSLV's protective heat shield failed to separate, and NVS-02. Earlier this year, the government told Parliament that only IRNSS-1B, IRNSS-1I and NVS-01 remain usable, one short of the four needed to fix a position. NavIC still delivers precise time, but it cannot tell anyone where they are. The second generation, begun with NVS-01 in May 2023, is built to change that. These satellites carry Indian-made atomic clocks alongside purchased ones, last 12 years, and broadcast on L1 as well as L5 and S. L1 is the frequency GPS speaks, so smartwatches and low-power single-frequency chips can finally hear NavIC. Globally, GPS runs about 32 satellites, GLONASS 24, Galileo 27 and BeiDou 30, mostly circling 19,000 to 24,000 km up in Medium Earth Orbit, though BeiDou also uses higher orbits; Japan's four-satellite QZSS, like NavIC, sits high to strengthen GPS over Asia and Oceania, and India has long discussed widening NavIC's own reach. That must wait. On the night of October 30, with several hundred crore and the country's defence and security riding along, one valve left deliberately open must simply hold so that India can regain the quiet dignity of finding itself.

The stakes reach back to the Kargil War of 1999, when Indian soldiers were denied American GPS data on the battlefield. India resolved never again to borrow its sense of place. The answer was NavIC, Navigation with Indian Constellation, formally the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System

Born from Kargil, tested in orbit: Can NVS-03 rescue India’s faltering constellation?

On Wednesday, 18 November 2026, at 5:16:07 a.m. US Eastern time, which is 3:46:07 p.m. in India, a machine built by human hands will cross a line nothing human-made has ever crossed. Voyager 1 will be exactly one light-day from Earth. In plain words, a torch beam switched on here would need a full 24 hours to touch it. That works out to roughly 2,590 crore kilometres, and the spacecraft will have taken 49 years, 2 months and 11 days to cover a gap that light clears in a single day.&nbsp;To feel the size of that number, it helps to understand why astronomers measure space in light at all. Nothing in the universe outruns light, which races along at about 3 lakh kilometres every second. Radio waves, microwaves, infrared, X-rays and gamma rays all move at the very same pace, because they are all forms of the same electromagnetic energy. So scientists simply ask how long light needs to cover a gap. One light-day is the stretch light covers in 24 hours. One light-year is what it covers in a full year, about 9.46 lakh crore kilometres.&nbsp;Think of it like describing a journey by travel time rather than by odometer reading. The Moon sits roughly 3,84,400 km away. Astronauts on NASA's Artemis II mission needed around three days to get there; light needs 1.3 seconds. Sunlight has to travel nearly 15 crore kilometres, so it reaches us 8 minutes and 20 seconds after leaving the Sun. The warmth on your face this morning is, quite literally, eight-minute-old news. Mars and Earth keep shifting positions as they circle the Sun, so a light signal between them takes anywhere from 3 to 22 minutes. Every command sent to a spacecraft near Mars, and every reply, obeys that same waiting time.&nbsp;Go further out and the numbers swell. Neptune, the farthest planet, averages about 450 crore kilometres from Earth, a distance light crosses in 4 hours and 10 minutes. Voyager 2, racing at nearly 56,327 km per hour, needed about 12 years to get there. Beyond our solar system, the nearest star with planets, Proxima Centauri, lies 4.24 light-years, or 40.15 lakh crore kilometres, away. The Andromeda galaxy, one of our closest large neighbours, is 25 lakh light-years off; its glow left home before our ancestors learnt to make fire.&nbsp;Where does all this sit? Picture India as the universe, Bengaluru as the Milky Way galaxy, Jayanagar as our solar system, and a single house in Jayanagar as Earth. The house belongs to the locality, the locality to the city, the city to the country. Earth is a planet, the Sun is a star, the Milky Way is our galaxy, and a galaxy holds millions or billions of stars inside a universe holding billions of galaxies. Voyager 1 has merely stepped out of the house and walked to the end of the lane.&nbsp;Both Voyagers left Earth in 1977. NASA sent Voyager 2 on a longer road so it could visit Uranus and Neptune, which is why it will reach its own one-light-day mark only in November 2035, about nine years later. Voyager 1, speeding at nearly 61,000 km per hour, took the more direct route. Fast as that sounds, against light it is a snail on a highway. Light is roughly 18,000 times faster than Voyager 1.&nbsp;Where is the snail headed? It is heading towards a faint star called Gliese 445 (also catalogued as AC +79 3888) in the constellation of Ursa Minor, the Little Bear that many of us know as the Little Dipper. Its light takes more than 17 years to reach us. Voyager 1 will need about 40,000 years just to reach its nearest point to that star, and even then it will not arrive. It will slip past at a gap of 1.7 light-years, a distance light itself would need one year and about eight months to cross.&nbsp;And that is the humbling heart of this story. Half a century of patient engineers, some long retired, some no longer alive, kept a 1970s machine alive and listening. For a country like ours, now nursing its own ambitions beyond Earth's orbit, the lesson is plain: great distances are conquered not by speed alone but by stubborn, generational persistence. On 18 November, when a signal from Voyager 1 finally takes a full day to come home, it will carry with it the quiet pride of everyone who refused to stop listening.

Voyager 1 will reach one light-day from Earth, 2,590 crore km away, on 18 November, 2026. Launched nearly 49 years ago, it crosses a distance light travels in 24 hours at 3 lakh km/s.

On Wednesday, 18 November 2026, at 5:16:07 a.m. US Eastern time, which is 3:46:07 p.m. in India, a machine built by human hands will cross a line nothing human-made has ever crossed. Voyager 1 will be exactly one light-day from Earth. In plain words, a torch beam switched on here would need a full 24 hours to touch it. That works out to roughly 2,590 crore kilometres, and the spacecraft will have taken 49 years, 2 months and 11 days to cover a gap that light clears in a single day. To feel the size of that number, it helps to understand why astronomers measure space in light at all. Nothing in the universe outruns light, which races along at about 3 lakh kilometres every second. Radio waves, microwaves, infrared, X-rays and gamma rays all move at the very same pace, because they are all forms of the same electromagnetic energy. So scientists simply ask how long light needs to cover a gap. One light-day is the stretch light covers in 24 hours. One light-year is what it covers in a full year, about 9.46 lakh crore kilometres. Think of it like describing a journey by travel time rather than by odometer reading. The Moon sits roughly 3,84,400 km away. Astronauts on NASA's Artemis II mission needed around three days to get there; light needs 1.3 seconds. Sunlight has to travel nearly 15 crore kilometres, so it reaches us 8 minutes and 20 seconds after leaving the Sun. The warmth on your face this morning is, quite literally, eight-minute-old news. Mars and Earth keep shifting positions as they circle the Sun, so a light signal between them takes anywhere from 3 to 22 minutes. Every command sent to a spacecraft near Mars, and every reply, obeys that same waiting time. Go further out and the numbers swell. Neptune, the farthest planet, averages about 450 crore kilometres from Earth, a distance light crosses in 4 hours and 10 minutes. Voyager 2, racing at nearly 56,327 km per hour, needed about 12 years to get there. Beyond our solar system, the nearest star with planets, Proxima Centauri, lies 4.24 light-years, or 40.15 lakh crore kilometres, away. The Andromeda galaxy, one of our closest large neighbours, is 25 lakh light-years off; its glow left home before our ancestors learnt to make fire. Where does all this sit? Picture India as the universe, Bengaluru as the Milky Way galaxy, Jayanagar as our solar system, and a single house in Jayanagar as Earth. The house belongs to the locality, the locality to the city, the city to the country. Earth is a planet, the Sun is a star, the Milky Way is our galaxy, and a galaxy holds millions or billions of stars inside a universe holding billions of galaxies. Voyager 1 has merely stepped out of the house and walked to the end of the lane. Both Voyagers left Earth in 1977. NASA sent Voyager 2 on a longer road so it could visit Uranus and Neptune, which is why it will reach its own one-light-day mark only in November 2035, about nine years later. Voyager 1, speeding at nearly 61,000 km per hour, took the more direct route. Fast as that sounds, against light it is a snail on a highway. Light is roughly 18,000 times faster than Voyager 1. Where is the snail headed? It is heading towards a faint star called Gliese 445 (also catalogued as AC +79 3888) in the constellation of Ursa Minor, the Little Bear that many of us know as the Little Dipper. Its light takes more than 17 years to reach us. Voyager 1 will need about 40,000 years just to reach its nearest point to that star, and even then it will not arrive. It will slip past at a gap of 1.7 light-years, a distance light itself would need one year and about eight months to cross. And that is the humbling heart of this story. Half a century of patient engineers, some long retired, some no longer alive, kept a 1970s machine alive and listening. For a country like ours, now nursing its own ambitions beyond Earth's orbit, the lesson is plain: great distances are conquered not by speed alone but by stubborn, generational persistence. On 18 November, when a signal from Voyager 1 finally takes a full day to come home, it will carry with it the quiet pride of everyone who refused to stop listening.

Voyager 1 will reach one light-day from Earth, 2,590 crore km away, on 18 November, 2026. Launched nearly 49 years ago, it crosses a distance light travels in 24 hours at 3 lakh km/s.

Voyager 1 will be one light-day from Earth on 18 November — and that changes everything

In April 2026, four astronauts aboard the Orion capsule ended the Artemis II mission not on a runway, not on a desert plain, but in the open ocean. For the families waiting on shore, the final minutes of that journey carried as much tension as the launch itself. A rocket leaving Earth draws crowds and cheers; a capsule coming home draws quiet prayers. Both moments matter equally, because a mission is only complete when its crew is safely back among us.Once Orion settled on the waves, the crew climbed out of the capsule and onto an inflatable rescue raft. Military helicopters hovered overhead, lifted the astronauts one by one, and flew them to a Navy ship waiting nearby, where doctors examined them. The capsule itself was not left floating in the sea. Navy divers fixed a sturdy cable to it, and a winch — simply a strong motorised pulling machine — gently drew the spacecraft into a special storage bay on the ship. From there, Orion was prepared for its journey back to the Kennedy Space Center.Why do spacefaring nations choose water at all? The answer lies in the hard physics of return. When a capsule comes back from orbit and touches down, it is still moving at roughly the speed of a car on a highway. Hitting solid ground at that speed would be devastating. Water, however, yields. Think of a diver entering a swimming pool compared with falling onto concrete. The water spreads the blow over a slightly longer moment and absorbs part of the shock. That is the mercy the ocean offers.Yet a splashdown is anything but gentle. As Splash Gear Media has often reminded its readers, even with water cushioning the impact, the force that travels through the capsule is huge, and every bolt, seam and heat shield must be strong enough to take it. Engineers cannot leave this to chance, because inside sit human beings who have already survived the fire of re-entry.The sea offers one more gift: sheer size. Oceans cover most of the planet, so a returning crew has an enormous target to aim at rather than a narrow strip of land. This generosity, however, comes with its own risks. Weather is the great uncertainty. Strong winds can push a descending capsule away from its intended spot, and once it is floating, powerful currents can carry it further still. When that happens, recovery teams must begin a search across open water for both the spacecraft and the people inside it — a race in which every minute counts.History holds a sobering lesson here. In 1961, the Liberty Bell 7 capsule began taking on water after its hatch — the small door through which astronauts enter and leave — gave trouble shortly after splashdown. NASA astronaut Gus Grissom managed to get out of the sinking craft and was pulled from the sea alive. The episode taught the world that touching water is not the end of danger.That lesson shaped everything that followed. Today, the United States Navy and dedicated recovery teams take charge the moment a capsule touches water. These crews undergo special training for exactly this work, because conditions at sea can quickly turn an ordinary recovery into a difficult one. Helicopters stand ready to lift both people and hardware. Flotation collars — large inflatable rings strapped around the capsule — keep it bobbing on the surface instead of slipping beneath it, closing the very gap that nearly cost Grissom his life.Behind the Artemis II recovery lay years of quiet preparation that few people ever see. At the Langley Research Center in Virginia, NASA engineers spent several years testing different versions of the Orion capsule in water, carefully measuring what the structure and the crew would feel at the moment of impact. Data from the earlier Artemis I mission was folded into this work. Every test sharpened the computer models that predict how Orion behaves when it meets the sea, so that when real astronauts strapped in, engineers already knew what the ocean would do.For India, which is preparing its own human spaceflight ambitions, the Artemis II story is more than a distant news item. It shows that bringing people home demands as much courage, science and national will as sending them up. The ocean, vast and indifferent, becomes a partner only when human ingenuity prepares for it.

The sea offers one more gift: sheer size. Oceans cover most of the planet, so a returning crew has an enormous target to aim at rather than a narrow strip of land. This generosity, however, comes with its own risks.

In April 2026, four astronauts aboard the Orion capsule ended the Artemis II mission not on a runway, not on a desert plain, but in the open ocean. For the families waiting on shore, the final minutes of that journey carried as much tension as the launch itself. A rocket leaving Earth draws crowds and cheers; a capsule coming home draws quiet prayers. Both moments matter equally, because a mission is only complete when its crew is safely back among us. Once Orion settled on the waves, the crew climbed out of the capsule and onto an inflatable rescue raft. Military helicopters hovered overhead, lifted the astronauts one by one, and flew them to a Navy ship waiting nearby, where doctors examined them. The capsule itself was not left floating in the sea. Navy divers fixed a sturdy cable to it, and a winch — simply a strong motorised pulling machine — gently drew the spacecraft into a special storage bay on the ship. From there, Orion was prepared for its journey back to the Kennedy Space Center. Why do spacefaring nations choose water at all? The answer lies in the hard physics of return. When a capsule comes back from orbit and touches down, it is still moving at roughly the speed of a car on a highway. Hitting solid ground at that speed would be devastating. Water, however, yields. Think of a diver entering a swimming pool compared with falling onto concrete. The water spreads the blow over a slightly longer moment and absorbs part of the shock. That is the mercy the ocean offers. Yet a splashdown is anything but gentle. As Splash Gear Media has often reminded its readers, even with water cushioning the impact, the force that travels through the capsule is huge, and every bolt, seam and heat shield must be strong enough to take it. Engineers cannot leave this to chance, because inside sit human beings who have already survived the fire of re-entry. The sea offers one more gift: sheer size. Oceans cover most of the planet, so a returning crew has an enormous target to aim at rather than a narrow strip of land. This generosity, however, comes with its own risks. Weather is the great uncertainty. Strong winds can push a descending capsule away from its intended spot, and once it is floating, powerful currents can carry it further still. When that happens, recovery teams must begin a search across open water for both the spacecraft and the people inside it — a race in which every minute counts. History holds a sobering lesson here. In 1961, the Liberty Bell 7 capsule began taking on water after its hatch — the small door through which astronauts enter and leave — gave trouble shortly after splashdown. NASA astronaut Gus Grissom managed to get out of the sinking craft and was pulled from the sea alive. The episode taught the world that touching water is not the end of danger. That lesson shaped everything that followed. Today, the United States Navy and dedicated recovery teams take charge the moment a capsule touches water. These crews undergo special training for exactly this work, because conditions at sea can quickly turn an ordinary recovery into a difficult one. Helicopters stand ready to lift both people and hardware. Flotation collars — large inflatable rings strapped around the capsule — keep it bobbing on the surface instead of slipping beneath it, closing the very gap that nearly cost Grissom his life. Behind the Artemis II recovery lay years of quiet preparation that few people ever see. At the Langley Research Center in Virginia, NASA engineers spent several years testing different versions of the Orion capsule in water, carefully measuring what the structure and the crew would feel at the moment of impact. Data from the earlier Artemis I mission was folded into this work. Every test sharpened the computer models that predict how Orion behaves when it meets the sea, so that when real astronauts strapped in, engineers already knew what the ocean would do. For India, which is preparing its own human spaceflight ambitions, the Artemis II story is more than a distant news item. It shows that bringing people home demands as much courage, science and national will as sending them up. The ocean, vast and indifferent, becomes a partner only when human ingenuity prepares for it.

The sea offers one more gift: sheer size. Oceans cover most of the planet, so a returning crew has an enormous target to aim at rather than a narrow strip of land. This generosity, however, comes with its own risks.

Why astronauts land in the ocean: The science and peril of space splashdowns

Picture a young jawan posted on a wind-lashed ridge in Ladakh, with nothing but rock and ice between him and the nearest town. For him, the difference between isolation and safety is a single thing: a working link to his commanders. By the middle of 2028, that link is expected to come from a satellite the Indian Army can finally call its own.&nbsp;Today, oddly enough, the Army has no such satellite. The Air Force and the Navy each have one, but the Army has been sharing the Air Force's satellite, GSAT-7A. Think of it as several families drawing water from one neighbour's tap. It works, but there is only so much to go around, and the owner's needs come first. For a force with lakhs of personnel scattered across deserts, jungles and the highest mountains on Earth, that arrangement has long felt inadequate.&nbsp;Senior officials said on Monday, 19 October, that ISRO is expected to launch the Army’s first dedicated communication satellite around mid-2028. Named GSAT-7B, it was originally due in November 2027, but technical difficulties have pushed the launch back by about six months. The groundwork was laid in March 2023, when the Ministry of Defence signed a ₹3,000-crore contract with NewSpace India Limited, better known as NSIL, the commercial company through which ISRO builds satellites for paying customers. That contract answered a need the Army had been raising for years.&nbsp;What will this satellite actually do? At five tonnes, or 5,000 kilograms, it will be the heaviest communication satellite India has ever built. It will sit in what engineers call a geostationary orbit, which simply means it travels around the Earth at exactly the speed the planet turns, so from the ground it seems to hang motionless over the same spot, like a lamp post fixed high above the subcontinent. From that height, a radio message can be bounced off the satellite from one valley to another, leaping over the mountains that ordinarily block signals. It will connect soldiers, units, weapon systems, aircraft and other essential equipment, letting commanders issue orders, coordinate troops and manage both routine duties and battlefield operations around the clock, securely and without interruption, even at the remotest border post.&nbsp;The real test, officials say, comes in war. One of the first things an enemy does is cut the ground communication lines, by striking towers and cutting cables. A satellite overhead keeps the conversation going when everything below has gone silent.&nbsp;But there is a catch, and it has a name: China. Beijing is rapidly expanding its space capabilities and already has jammers, which are devices that flood a satellite's frequency with electronic noise, much like shouting over someone to drown out their voice. It is also known to be developing weapons meant to disable or destroy satellites altogether. The lesson for India is sobering. Owning a satellite is only half the task; the other half is keeping it safe.&nbsp;GSAT-7B is one piece of a larger plan. The Navy received its new satellite, GSAT-7R, last November, when ISRO launched it to replace the ageing Rukmini. Built entirely in India, it lets warships, submarines, aircraft and shore-based control centres talk securely across the open sea. Just last week, the Ministry of Defence signed a second contract with NSIL, worth ₹2,563 crore, for a fresh Air Force satellite called GSAT-7C, also fully Indian-made, so that aircraft and ground systems can stay in constant touch. In short, each service will soon have its own voice in space.&nbsp;Talking is one thing; watching is another. Alongside these communication satellites, India is building a separate fleet of satellites whose job is to observe the ground, in effect unblinking watchmen above the planet. In October 2024, the Cabinet Committee on Security, the Prime Minister's top body for security decisions, approved the third phase of the Space Based Surveillance programme. The ₹26,968-crore plan will put 52 military satellites into orbit over the next three years. It is run by the Defence Space Agency, which sits under the Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff, the office that helps the three services work as one. ISRO will build and launch 21 of these satellites, and private Indian companies will supply the remaining 31.&nbsp;All of this rests on a shared rulebook. Last September, at the Combined Commanders' Conference in Kolkata, the armed forces released the Joint Military Space Doctrine, which lays out how the Army, Navy and Air Force should use space together. A National Military Space Policy is now being drafted to protect India's satellites and prepare for threats beyond the atmosphere.&nbsp;For the soldier on that frozen ridge, every policy and programme comes down to one assurance: when he calls, someone will hear.

GSAT-7B is one piece of a larger plan. The Navy received its new satellite, GSAT-7R, last November, when ISRO launched it to replace the ageing Rukmini. Built entirely in India, it lets warships, submarines, aircraft and shore-based control centres talk securely across the open sea. 

Picture a young jawan posted on a wind-lashed ridge in Ladakh, with nothing but rock and ice between him and the nearest town. For him, the difference between isolation and safety is a single thing: a working link to his commanders. By the middle of 2028, that link is expected to come from a satellite the Indian Army can finally call its own. Today, oddly enough, the Army has no such satellite. The Air Force and the Navy each have one, but the Army has been sharing the Air Force's satellite, GSAT-7A. Think of it as several families drawing water from one neighbour's tap. It works, but there is only so much to go around, and the owner's needs come first. For a force with lakhs of personnel scattered across deserts, jungles and the highest mountains on Earth, that arrangement has long felt inadequate. Senior officials said on Monday, 19 October, that ISRO is expected to launch the Army’s first dedicated communication satellite around mid-2028. Named GSAT-7B, it was originally due in November 2027, but technical difficulties have pushed the launch back by about six months. The groundwork was laid in March 2023, when the Ministry of Defence signed a ₹3,000-crore contract with NewSpace India Limited, better known as NSIL, the commercial company through which ISRO builds satellites for paying customers. That contract answered a need the Army had been raising for years. What will this satellite actually do? At five tonnes, or 5,000 kilograms, it will be the heaviest communication satellite India has ever built. It will sit in what engineers call a geostationary orbit, which simply means it travels around the Earth at exactly the speed the planet turns, so from the ground it seems to hang motionless over the same spot, like a lamp post fixed high above the subcontinent. From that height, a radio message can be bounced off the satellite from one valley to another, leaping over the mountains that ordinarily block signals. It will connect soldiers, units, weapon systems, aircraft and other essential equipment, letting commanders issue orders, coordinate troops and manage both routine duties and battlefield operations around the clock, securely and without interruption, even at the remotest border post. The real test, officials say, comes in war. One of the first things an enemy does is cut the ground communication lines, by striking towers and cutting cables. A satellite overhead keeps the conversation going when everything below has gone silent. But there is a catch, and it has a name: China. Beijing is rapidly expanding its space capabilities and already has jammers, which are devices that flood a satellite's frequency with electronic noise, much like shouting over someone to drown out their voice. It is also known to be developing weapons meant to disable or destroy satellites altogether. The lesson for India is sobering. Owning a satellite is only half the task; the other half is keeping it safe. GSAT-7B is one piece of a larger plan. The Navy received its new satellite, GSAT-7R, last November, when ISRO launched it to replace the ageing Rukmini. Built entirely in India, it lets warships, submarines, aircraft and shore-based control centres talk securely across the open sea. Just last week, the Ministry of Defence signed a second contract with NSIL, worth ₹2,563 crore, for a fresh Air Force satellite called GSAT-7C, also fully Indian-made, so that aircraft and ground systems can stay in constant touch. In short, each service will soon have its own voice in space. Talking is one thing; watching is another. Alongside these communication satellites, India is building a separate fleet of satellites whose job is to observe the ground, in effect unblinking watchmen above the planet. In October 2024, the Cabinet Committee on Security, the Prime Minister's top body for security decisions, approved the third phase of the Space Based Surveillance programme. The ₹26,968-crore plan will put 52 military satellites into orbit over the next three years. It is run by the Defence Space Agency, which sits under the Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff, the office that helps the three services work as one. ISRO will build and launch 21 of these satellites, and private Indian companies will supply the remaining 31. All of this rests on a shared rulebook. Last September, at the Combined Commanders' Conference in Kolkata, the armed forces released the Joint Military Space Doctrine, which lays out how the Army, Navy and Air Force should use space together. A National Military Space Policy is now being drafted to protect India's satellites and prepare for threats beyond the atmosphere. For the soldier on that frozen ridge, every policy and programme comes down to one assurance: when he calls, someone will hear.

GSAT-7B is one piece of a larger plan. The Navy received its new satellite, GSAT-7R, last November, when ISRO launched it to replace the ageing Rukmini. Built entirely in India, it lets warships, submarines, aircraft and shore-based control centres talk securely across the open sea.&nbsp;

Skyborne sentinels: How GSAT-7B gives the Indian Army its own eye in orbit

Somewhere off the coast, a fishing boat has no business being where it is. A patrol vessel must shadow it without starting a war. Elsewhere, a cyclone has torn through a coastal district and survivors need doctors before roads reopen. In a third place, a new radar must be tried at sea before the Navy trusts it on a frontline warship. Three unrelated problems, one answer: INS Samarthak, commissioned at the Karwar Naval Base on October 16, 2026.&nbsp;Most warships are specialists. Samarthak is the fleet's generalist, the first of two vessels in its class, built to take on the jobs that keep a navy functioning but rarely make headlines. Larsen &amp; Toubro constructed it under the Make in India initiative after the Ministry of Defence signed a ₹887 crore contract on March 25, 2022, for a pair of such ships. Its twin, INS Utkarsh, was launched on January 14, 2025, and is now going through technical checks and sea trials, the demanding examinations that confirm a ship behaves as designed before the Navy formally accepts it. Together they advance a long-term plan to build the fleet's support ships at home rather than abroad.&nbsp;Consider first the quiet work of testing. Every radar, sonar or missile must prove itself somewhere, and Samarthak is that somewhere. Radars find objects by bouncing radio waves off them; sonars do the same beneath the surface using sound. The Defence Research and Development Organisation and private firms can bring such systems aboard and watch how they perform in real waves and real weather, catching faults long before they reach a ship in combat.&nbsp;Also read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/hidden-secrets-of-submarines-that-most-people-never-know-1779894322628">WION Decodes | Hidden secrets of submarines that most people never know</a>&nbsp;Testing needs targets, and Samarthak provides those too. It launches, tows and recovers fast-moving targets on the surface and in the air, giving crews across the fleet live practice in gunnery, in beating back aircraft and in hunting submarines. The ship can also act as a mothership for unmanned craft, sending out, directing and retrieving robotic boats and aerial drones. The human cost of this is zero: machines go into hazardous waters while every sailor remains on board.&nbsp;Then there is the work of watching. Samarthak monitors sea traffic, patrols sensitive stretches of water and handles small security missions, such as intercepting suspicious boats or confronting pirates, that fall short of outright battle and are classified as Low Intensity Maritime Operations. It can tow heavy or crippled vessels, pull lost ships and equipment from the seabed, and clean up oil spills and other pollution. When disaster strikes a coastline, it turns to Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief, carrying rescue and relief operations ashore, and it can even be reconfigured as a small hospital ship with limited medical facilities.&nbsp;Also read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/opinions/sky-fortress-india-4th-russian-s-400-squadron-lands-ai-powered-defence-goes-live-1780670809429">Sky Fortress India: 4th Russian S-400 squadron lands, AI-powered defence goes live</a>&nbsp;None of this would be possible if the ship could not defend itself, and its defences are built in layers. A single combat system binds Indian-made sensors, weapons and electronics into one coordinated whole. Against surface threats it fires a 76 mm main gun, the OTO Melara, supported by fast-firing 30 mm cannons called CRN-91. A Stabilised Remote Controlled Gun lets operators aim and shoot from safety inside the hull, its barrel staying level while the deck heaves beneath it. Against submarines it launches guided torpedoes, the Indian-made Varunastra and Shyena, and fires RBU-6000 rockets that explode in the water above a lurking enemy.&nbsp;The electronic layer guards against threats no eye can see. SANKET Mk III, an Electronic Support Measures system, listens for radar and other signals from nearby vessels, the way a watchman recognises an unfamiliar engine in the dark. Should a radar-guided missile approach, the Kavach system fires chaff rockets that fill the sky with reflective fragments, creating false targets so the missile loses the real one. A stern deck hosts the HAL Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter, another Indian design. A Dynamic Positioning System uses engines and thrusters to pin the ship to one exact spot despite wind, waves and current, vital when a task cannot tolerate drift.&nbsp;The numbers describe a sturdy, long-legged vessel. Samarthak displaces 3,750 tonnes, the weight of water it pushes aside while floating. It measures 107 metres long and 18.6 metres wide, reaches 15 knots, about 28 kilometres an hour, and ranges 4,500 nautical miles, roughly 8,334 kilometres, on one fuelling. It houses 116 crew, eight of them officers.Its crest shows an Indian elephant rising from the waves, a symbol of strength, intelligence and nimble movement. Its motto, "विजयार्थम एकनिष्ठता," means "Victory is Our Sole Aim." For a ship whose victories will mostly be quiet ones, that is a promise worth keeping.

While most warships specialise, Samarthak is the fleet's generalist—the first in its class built for vital, unheralded naval support roles.

Somewhere off the coast, a fishing boat has no business being where it is. A patrol vessel must shadow it without starting a war. Elsewhere, a cyclone has torn through a coastal district and survivors need doctors before roads reopen. In a third place, a new radar must be tried at sea before the Navy trusts it on a frontline warship. Three unrelated problems, one answer: INS Samarthak, commissioned at the Karwar Naval Base on October 16, 2026. Most warships are specialists. Samarthak is the fleet's generalist, the first of two vessels in its class, built to take on the jobs that keep a navy functioning but rarely make headlines. Larsen & Toubro constructed it under the Make in India initiative after the Ministry of Defence signed a ₹887 crore contract on March 25, 2022, for a pair of such ships. Its twin, INS Utkarsh, was launched on January 14, 2025, and is now going through technical checks and sea trials, the demanding examinations that confirm a ship behaves as designed before the Navy formally accepts it. Together they advance a long-term plan to build the fleet's support ships at home rather than abroad. Consider first the quiet work of testing. Every radar, sonar or missile must prove itself somewhere, and Samarthak is that somewhere. Radars find objects by bouncing radio waves off them; sonars do the same beneath the surface using sound. The Defence Research and Development Organisation and private firms can bring such systems aboard and watch how they perform in real waves and real weather, catching faults long before they reach a ship in combat. Also read: WION Decodes | Hidden secrets of submarines that most people never know Testing needs targets, and Samarthak provides those too. It launches, tows and recovers fast-moving targets on the surface and in the air, giving crews across the fleet live practice in gunnery, in beating back aircraft and in hunting submarines. The ship can also act as a mothership for unmanned craft, sending out, directing and retrieving robotic boats and aerial drones. The human cost of this is zero: machines go into hazardous waters while every sailor remains on board. Then there is the work of watching. Samarthak monitors sea traffic, patrols sensitive stretches of water and handles small security missions, such as intercepting suspicious boats or confronting pirates, that fall short of outright battle and are classified as Low Intensity Maritime Operations. It can tow heavy or crippled vessels, pull lost ships and equipment from the seabed, and clean up oil spills and other pollution. When disaster strikes a coastline, it turns to Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief, carrying rescue and relief operations ashore, and it can even be reconfigured as a small hospital ship with limited medical facilities. Also read: Sky Fortress India: 4th Russian S-400 squadron lands, AI-powered defence goes live None of this would be possible if the ship could not defend itself, and its defences are built in layers. A single combat system binds Indian-made sensors, weapons and electronics into one coordinated whole. Against surface threats it fires a 76 mm main gun, the OTO Melara, supported by fast-firing 30 mm cannons called CRN-91. A Stabilised Remote Controlled Gun lets operators aim and shoot from safety inside the hull, its barrel staying level while the deck heaves beneath it. Against submarines it launches guided torpedoes, the Indian-made Varunastra and Shyena, and fires RBU-6000 rockets that explode in the water above a lurking enemy. The electronic layer guards against threats no eye can see. SANKET Mk III, an Electronic Support Measures system, listens for radar and other signals from nearby vessels, the way a watchman recognises an unfamiliar engine in the dark. Should a radar-guided missile approach, the Kavach system fires chaff rockets that fill the sky with reflective fragments, creating false targets so the missile loses the real one. A stern deck hosts the HAL Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter, another Indian design. A Dynamic Positioning System uses engines and thrusters to pin the ship to one exact spot despite wind, waves and current, vital when a task cannot tolerate drift. The numbers describe a sturdy, long-legged vessel. Samarthak displaces 3,750 tonnes, the weight of water it pushes aside while floating. It measures 107 metres long and 18.6 metres wide, reaches 15 knots, about 28 kilometres an hour, and ranges 4,500 nautical miles, roughly 8,334 kilometres, on one fuelling. It houses 116 crew, eight of them officers. Its crest shows an Indian elephant rising from the waves, a symbol of strength, intelligence and nimble movement. Its motto, "विजयार्थम एकनिष्ठता," means "Victory is Our Sole Aim." For a ship whose victories will mostly be quiet ones, that is a promise worth keeping.

While most warships specialise, Samarthak is the fleet's generalist—the first in its class built for vital, unheralded naval support roles.

An elephant rises at Sea: Meet INS Samarthak

Every aircraft that thunders across an Indian sky carries more than fuel and firepower. It carries the labour of a technician who checked each bolt before dawn, the nerve of a pilot trusting that work with his life, and the quiet worry of a family waiting at home. On 8 October 2026, the nation salutes all of them as the Indian Air Force completes 94 years of service.The story began on 8 October 1932, when India was still under British rule and the young force existed only to assist Britain's Royal Air Force. Its first operational unit, No. 1 Squadron, took shape in 1933. When India became a republic in 1950, the prefix "Royal" was dropped, and the force became wholly the nation's own. Since then it has been tested repeatedly: in the Jammu and Kashmir operations of 1947–48, in the wars of 1965 and 1971, on the heights of Kargil, and most recently in Operation Sindoor. That is why this date matters. It honours the bravery, commitment and sacrifice of everyone in blue, from pilots to ground crew to support staff, who together keep the country's airspace safe.From those modest beginnings has grown one of the world's most formidable air arms. The Global Air Powers Ranking 2026 places the IAF sixth overall, on a list that also counts other flying branches of a country's military, such as the aviation wings of the US Navy and US Army. The top five are the United States Air Force (242.9 points, 5,004 active aircraft), the United States Navy (142.4 points, 2,504 aircraft), the Russian Air Force (114.2 points, 3,677 aircraft), United States Army Aviation (112.6 points, 4,333 aircraft) and United States Marine Corps Aviation (85.3 points, 1,211 aircraft). Compare only independent air forces, however, and India stands third, behind just the United States Air Force and Russia.The IAF scores 69.4 points on the TrueValue Rating, or TVR, with 1,716 active aircraft. Think of TVR as a report card for an air force. It does not merely count aeroplanes; it weighs what kinds of aircraft a force has and how well that mix can handle different jobs.This year's theme sums up that spirit in three words: "Indian Air Force – Infallible, Impervious and Precise." Infallible means something you can always count on, like a goalkeeper who never lets the ball slip past; for the IAF, it means completing an important mission successfully. Impervious means so well protected that nothing harmful gets through, like a good raincoat in a downpour; for the IAF, it means defending against an enemy attack. Precise means exactly on target, like an archer whose arrow lands in the centre of the board; for the IAF, it means hitting the intended target accurately. Last year's theme, "Saksham, Sashakt, Atmanirbhar" (capable, powerful and self-reliant), celebrated India's effort to build its own aircraft, such as the Tejas, the AMCA and the Light Combat Helicopter.The heart of the celebrations will beat at Hindon Air Force Station in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, near Delhi, which hosts the official parade after three years. A full rehearsal was completed on 6 October. Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh will review the marching contingents, after which Presidential Awards will be presented. Mi-17 helicopters will fly past bearing the National Flag, the IAF flag and the Operation Sindoor flag. Then comes the grand flypast: Rafale, Su-30MKI, MiG-29 and Tejas fighters, the giant C-17 transport, and Apache helicopters. The Air Chief has described the day as a chance to reflect on the past year and thank the veterans who built the force.On the same day, Jodhpur Air Force Station will host a major air show led by the Suryakiran Aerobatic Team, whose aircraft fly together and perform carefully coordinated manoeuvres. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is expected to attend, along with NCC cadets.The festivities then travel to Kashi. A public air show over the Ganga at Varanasi is planned for 24, 25 and 26 October, with the main display on 25 October near Namo Ghat. Fighters, transport aircraft and aerobatic teams will take part in what is being described as a historic public air show for the region.All this unfolds alongside Tarang Shakti 2026, an international air exercise running from 26 September to 12 October, where Indian crews train with foreign air forces, sharpen their coordination and share proven methods. In New Delhi, veterans will be honoured at special gatherings and anniversary meetings at Air Force stations and auditoriums.Today the IAF guards the skies, fights for control of the air, ferries troops and supplies, keeps watch through surveillance, and reaches people struck by natural disasters. Ninety-four years on, those who serve remain its greatest strength. &nbsp;

Indian Air Force Day 2026 marks 94 years of the IAF, with celebrations at Hindon, an air show in Jodhpur and a public display planned in Varanasi.

Every aircraft that thunders across an Indian sky carries more than fuel and firepower. It carries the labour of a technician who checked each bolt before dawn, the nerve of a pilot trusting that work with his life, and the quiet worry of a family waiting at home. On 8 October 2026, the nation salutes all of them as the Indian Air Force completes 94 years of service. The story began on 8 October 1932, when India was still under British rule and the young force existed only to assist Britain's Royal Air Force. Its first operational unit, No. 1 Squadron, took shape in 1933. When India became a republic in 1950, the prefix "Royal" was dropped, and the force became wholly the nation's own. Since then it has been tested repeatedly: in the Jammu and Kashmir operations of 1947–48, in the wars of 1965 and 1971, on the heights of Kargil, and most recently in Operation Sindoor. That is why this date matters. It honours the bravery, commitment and sacrifice of everyone in blue, from pilots to ground crew to support staff, who together keep the country's airspace safe. From those modest beginnings has grown one of the world's most formidable air arms. The Global Air Powers Ranking 2026 places the IAF sixth overall, on a list that also counts other flying branches of a country's military, such as the aviation wings of the US Navy and US Army. The top five are the United States Air Force (242.9 points, 5,004 active aircraft), the United States Navy (142.4 points, 2,504 aircraft), the Russian Air Force (114.2 points, 3,677 aircraft), United States Army Aviation (112.6 points, 4,333 aircraft) and United States Marine Corps Aviation (85.3 points, 1,211 aircraft). Compare only independent air forces, however, and India stands third, behind just the United States Air Force and Russia. The IAF scores 69.4 points on the TrueValue Rating, or TVR, with 1,716 active aircraft. Think of TVR as a report card for an air force. It does not merely count aeroplanes; it weighs what kinds of aircraft a force has and how well that mix can handle different jobs. This year's theme sums up that spirit in three words: "Indian Air Force – Infallible, Impervious and Precise." Infallible means something you can always count on, like a goalkeeper who never lets the ball slip past; for the IAF, it means completing an important mission successfully. Impervious means so well protected that nothing harmful gets through, like a good raincoat in a downpour; for the IAF, it means defending against an enemy attack. Precise means exactly on target, like an archer whose arrow lands in the centre of the board; for the IAF, it means hitting the intended target accurately. Last year's theme, "Saksham, Sashakt, Atmanirbhar" (capable, powerful and self-reliant), celebrated India's effort to build its own aircraft, such as the Tejas, the AMCA and the Light Combat Helicopter. The heart of the celebrations will beat at Hindon Air Force Station in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, near Delhi, which hosts the official parade after three years. A full rehearsal was completed on 6 October. Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh will review the marching contingents, after which Presidential Awards will be presented. Mi-17 helicopters will fly past bearing the National Flag, the IAF flag and the Operation Sindoor flag. Then comes the grand flypast: Rafale, Su-30MKI, MiG-29 and Tejas fighters, the giant C-17 transport, and Apache helicopters. The Air Chief has described the day as a chance to reflect on the past year and thank the veterans who built the force. On the same day, Jodhpur Air Force Station will host a major air show led by the Suryakiran Aerobatic Team, whose aircraft fly together and perform carefully coordinated manoeuvres. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is expected to attend, along with NCC cadets. The festivities then travel to Kashi. A public air show over the Ganga at Varanasi is planned for 24, 25 and 26 October, with the main display on 25 October near Namo Ghat. Fighters, transport aircraft and aerobatic teams will take part in what is being described as a historic public air show for the region. All this unfolds alongside Tarang Shakti 2026, an international air exercise running from 26 September to 12 October, where Indian crews train with foreign air forces, sharpen their coordination and share proven methods. In New Delhi, veterans will be honoured at special gatherings and anniversary meetings at Air Force stations and auditoriums. Today the IAF guards the skies, fights for control of the air, ferries troops and supplies, keeps watch through surveillance, and reaches people struck by natural disasters. Ninety-four years on, those who serve remain its greatest strength.

Indian Air Force Day 2026 marks 94 years of the IAF, with celebrations at Hindon, an air show in Jodhpur and a public display planned in Varanasi.

Skies of courage: India's air warriors turn ninety-four

Picture a fighter jet that first flew for India more than twenty years ago. One morning it is rolled into a hangar. Months later it comes out looking almost the same from outside — but inside, it is very nearly a new machine. That, in a single image, is the Super Sukhoi.&nbsp;The aircraft is the Sukhoi-30MKI. Around 260 of them serve in the Indian Air Force. It is a heavy, twin-engine fighter, and it is the one India counts on for two demanding jobs: winning control of the sky, and striking deep inside hostile territory. For two decades it has carried that weight. But the sky around it has changed. There are now stealth fighters that barely show up on radar.&nbsp;There are missiles that can kill from far beyond what the eye can see. There are electronic systems that can blind an aircraft without firing a single shot. Staying relevant in such a sky is not a matter of pride. It is survival.&nbsp;This is why India began the Super Sukhoi programme, also called Super 30. Think of it as a mid-life overhaul — the way a senior athlete rebuilds training, diet and technique to stay competitive against younger rivals. The goal is to keep these jets fighting effectively into the 2050s.&nbsp;The biggest change is the jet's eyesight. The old Russian Bars radar makes way for Virupaksha, designed and built in India. Virupaksha is an AESA radar — Active Electronically Scanned Array. In plain words, it does not turn a dish to look around. It is made of thousands of tiny transmitters that shift the beam electronically, almost instantly. It carries roughly 2,400 such modules, built from gallium nitride, a material that handles heat and power far better than older parts — rather like moving from an ordinary bulb to a bright, efficient LED.&nbsp;ALSO READ: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/opinions/the-verdict-mecca-a-red-line-and-the-houthis-who-refuse-to-go-away-1789574184763">The Verdict | Mecca, a 'red line' and the Houthis who refuse to go away</a>&nbsp;What does that buy a pilot? Reported figures put detection at 300 to 400 kilometres for fighter-sized targets, and up to about 200 kilometres against a very small stealth-type aircraft. The radar can watch many threats at once and is much harder to jam. In air combat, seeing first is usually the same as winning first.&nbsp;The cockpit is being rebuilt too, with new mission computers, modern displays, and computers that help the pilot sort threats faster. One idea here is worth learning: sensor fusion. Instead of the pilot reading several instruments and joining the story together mentally, the aircraft joins it for him and shows one clear picture. In a fight measured in seconds, that saved effort can save a life.&nbsp;An advanced Indian electronic warfare suite is also going in. Electronic warfare is the invisible half of modern combat — confusing the other side's radars while shielding your own aircraft from the same treatment.&nbsp;The jet will be harder to spot as well. Indian radar-absorbent material will be applied to its skin to reduce its radar signature. This does not make a large fighter invisible. It makes it look fainter and smaller to a searching radar, like wearing dark clothes on a moonless night.&nbsp;Then come the weapons: the Astra air-to-air missile and the supersonic BrahMos cruise missile, turning the upgraded fighter into a genuinely lethal multi-role platform.&nbsp;The first phase covers about 84 aircraft, with more of the fleet to follow. HAL and DRDO lead the work, and the Indian content is deliberately kept high. The programme is valued at roughly ₹65,000 crore.&nbsp;The radar passed its first power-on test, called First Light, in February 2026. Deliveries are aimed at mid-2027, flight trials on a modified Su-30MKI from early 2028, and the first 84 upgraded jets after 2030.&nbsp;ALSO READ: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/opinions/the-verdict-hostile-to-whom-canada-looks-to-europe-and-trump-threatens-tariffs-1789663067987">The Verdict | Hostile to whom? Canada looks to Europe — and Trump threatens tariffs</a>&nbsp;One honest note belongs here. These performance numbers are programme claims, not yet proven in flight. The paperwork and clearances are still moving. This is a promise being built, not a delivery already made.&nbsp;Aircraft do not defend a country by themselves. They are flown by young men and women who quietly trust every wire and every weld, and who lift off knowing that the border far below them will not wait for perfect equipment.&nbsp;And behind that promise are people. Every radar module and every line of code stands for Indian engineers who spent years in laboratories, testing, failing and testing again, so that the country need not queue up for someone else's technology. Behind them are families who barely see them through a trial season, and technicians on the flight line whose hands have grown old with these aircraft.&nbsp;In plain terms, Super Sukhoi is India's intelligent answer to a hard question: how do you become far stronger without waiting years for a brand-new fighter? The answer is a proven airframe given Indian eyes, an Indian brain and Indian missiles — and told, quite firmly, that its work is not finished yet. &nbsp;

Around 260 of Sukhoi-30MKI serve in the Indian Air Force. It is a heavy, twin-engine fighter, and it is the one India counts on for two demanding jobs: winning control of the sky, and striking deep inside hostile territory.

Picture a fighter jet that first flew for India more than twenty years ago. One morning it is rolled into a hangar. Months later it comes out looking almost the same from outside — but inside, it is very nearly a new machine. That, in a single image, is the Super Sukhoi. The aircraft is the Sukhoi-30MKI. Around 260 of them serve in the Indian Air Force. It is a heavy, twin-engine fighter, and it is the one India counts on for two demanding jobs: winning control of the sky, and striking deep inside hostile territory. For two decades it has carried that weight. But the sky around it has changed. There are now stealth fighters that barely show up on radar. There are missiles that can kill from far beyond what the eye can see. There are electronic systems that can blind an aircraft without firing a single shot. Staying relevant in such a sky is not a matter of pride. It is survival. This is why India began the Super Sukhoi programme, also called Super 30. Think of it as a mid-life overhaul — the way a senior athlete rebuilds training, diet and technique to stay competitive against younger rivals. The goal is to keep these jets fighting effectively into the 2050s. The biggest change is the jet's eyesight. The old Russian Bars radar makes way for Virupaksha, designed and built in India. Virupaksha is an AESA radar — Active Electronically Scanned Array. In plain words, it does not turn a dish to look around. It is made of thousands of tiny transmitters that shift the beam electronically, almost instantly. It carries roughly 2,400 such modules, built from gallium nitride, a material that handles heat and power far better than older parts — rather like moving from an ordinary bulb to a bright, efficient LED. ALSO READ: The Verdict | Mecca, a 'red line' and the Houthis who refuse to go away What does that buy a pilot? Reported figures put detection at 300 to 400 kilometres for fighter-sized targets, and up to about 200 kilometres against a very small stealth-type aircraft. The radar can watch many threats at once and is much harder to jam. In air combat, seeing first is usually the same as winning first. The cockpit is being rebuilt too, with new mission computers, modern displays, and computers that help the pilot sort threats faster. One idea here is worth learning: sensor fusion. Instead of the pilot reading several instruments and joining the story together mentally, the aircraft joins it for him and shows one clear picture. In a fight measured in seconds, that saved effort can save a life. An advanced Indian electronic warfare suite is also going in. Electronic warfare is the invisible half of modern combat — confusing the other side's radars while shielding your own aircraft from the same treatment. The jet will be harder to spot as well. Indian radar-absorbent material will be applied to its skin to reduce its radar signature. This does not make a large fighter invisible. It makes it look fainter and smaller to a searching radar, like wearing dark clothes on a moonless night. Then come the weapons: the Astra air-to-air missile and the supersonic BrahMos cruise missile, turning the upgraded fighter into a genuinely lethal multi-role platform. The first phase covers about 84 aircraft, with more of the fleet to follow. HAL and DRDO lead the work, and the Indian content is deliberately kept high. The programme is valued at roughly ₹65,000 crore. The radar passed its first power-on test, called First Light, in February 2026. Deliveries are aimed at mid-2027, flight trials on a modified Su-30MKI from early 2028, and the first 84 upgraded jets after 2030. ALSO READ: The Verdict | Hostile to whom? Canada looks to Europe — and Trump threatens tariffs One honest note belongs here. These performance numbers are programme claims, not yet proven in flight. The paperwork and clearances are still moving. This is a promise being built, not a delivery already made. Aircraft do not defend a country by themselves. They are flown by young men and women who quietly trust every wire and every weld, and who lift off knowing that the border far below them will not wait for perfect equipment. And behind that promise are people. Every radar module and every line of code stands for Indian engineers who spent years in laboratories, testing, failing and testing again, so that the country need not queue up for someone else's technology. Behind them are families who barely see them through a trial season, and technicians on the flight line whose hands have grown old with these aircraft. In plain terms, Super Sukhoi is India's intelligent answer to a hard question: how do you become far stronger without waiting years for a brand-new fighter? The answer is a proven airframe given Indian eyes, an Indian brain and Indian missiles — and told, quite firmly, that its work is not finished yet.

Around 260 of Sukhoi-30MKI serve in the Indian Air Force. It is a heavy, twin-engine fighter, and it is the one India counts on for two demanding jobs: winning control of the sky, and striking deep inside hostile territory.

Inside the lethal rebirth of India’s super Sukhoi

Somewhere off India's western coast, oil workers ending a long shift on a steel platform will soon see a helicopter built in their own country arriving to take them home. That moment captures what Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) will mark on 18 September 2026, when it delivers three home-grown aircraft at its Aircraft Division in Vimanapura, Bengaluru. The ceremony runs from 5 to 6 pm, with entry through Gate 20 of the HAL Airport premises. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Civil Aviation Minister K. Rammohan Naidu will attend.&nbsp;That helicopter is the Dhruv NG, the next-generation civilian version of HAL's Advanced Light Helicopter. Mr Naidu flagged off its first flight in Bengaluru on 30 December 2025. Now it moves from display to duty. Pawan Hans has ordered ten for more than ₹1,800 crore. Four arrive now, and the rest follow this financial year. The first is likely to ferry ONGC crews to and from offshore rigs.&nbsp;The 5.5-tonne Dhruv NG runs on two Indian-made Shakti engines, so if one fails, the other keeps it flying. Its digital cockpit carries civil approval, its seats absorb the shock of a crash, and its fuel tanks seal small leaks on their own. It cruises at about 285 kmph, covers some 630 km with fuel in reserve, stays aloft for about three hours 40 minutes, and climbs to about 6,000 metres, enough for many Himalayan and plateau routes. The cabin can take four to six VIP seats, up to 14 passengers, or four stretchers with medical crew, which makes it a flying ambulance. Built largely from Indian material, it supports HAL's plan to grow civil work from a small share to nearly a quarter of turnover within ten years.&nbsp;ALSO READ: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/opinions/brics-summit-2026-was-played-down-dismissed-or-nearly-blacked-out-by-western-media-that-didn-t-work-1789450655670">BRICS Summit 2026 was played down, dismissed or nearly blacked out by Western media. That didn't work</a>&nbsp;Leading this shift is Ravi Kota, HAL's 22nd Chairman and Managing Director since 1 May 2026, after D.K. Sunil retired. Defence circles still call him the "LCA man." He is a mechanical engineer from Malnad College of Engineering and an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad and Toulouse. He headed the Tejas division, helped bring the fleet into service, and worked on contracts for 180 Tejas jets and 156 Prachand light combat helicopters. He wants a globally competitive HAL driven by innovation, Artificial Intelligence, operational excellence and its people.&nbsp;That fighter background shows in the second delivery, the LCA FOC trainer. It is a two-seat Tejas Mk-1 built to Final Operational Clearance, cleared for real combat flying. The trainee sits in front and the instructor behind, under a lengthened canopy, so young pilots practise combat flying in a jet that handles just like the single-seat fighter. These twin-seaters complete the first 40-aircraft Tejas order. They came last because the single-seat fighters were built first. They arrive as the Indian Air Force expands its Tejas family with 83 Mk-1A jets and then 97 more, many of them two-seaters. A third line at Nashik is raising yearly output.&nbsp;HAL is also speeding up Tejas output on the factory floor, working with Bengaluru-based ADD Engineering Components on robotic drilling for the fighter's wings. A robot places each of the thousands of fastener holes in a wing the same way every time, cutting rework and freeing skilled technicians for tasks that need human judgement.&nbsp;The third aircraft is where every fighter pilot's journey begins. For years, Indian cadets learned first take-offs, landings, instrument flying and recovery from sudden rolls on the Swiss-built Pilatus PC-7 Mk II. The Hindustan Turbo Trainer-40 (HTT-40) now takes over. The first three, two from Bengaluru and one from Nashik, belong to a March 2023 order for 70 aircraft worth about ₹6,838 crore.&nbsp;The HTT-40 seats two, one behind the other, and is fully aerobatic. Its air-conditioned glass cockpit replaces old dials with digital screens, like a modern car dashboard. Its Martin-Baker "zero-zero" ejection seats can save both occupants even when the aircraft is standing still on the ground. A Honeywell TPE331-12B turboprop, a turbine engine that spins a propeller, gives it a top speed near 450 kmph, a range of about 1,000 km and a ceiling of about 6,000 metres.&nbsp;The road tested everyone's patience. Engine shortages pushed deliveries past the original 2025–26 target until Honeywell supplies began in 2026. HAL's two lines can now build about 20 trainers a year between them. Indian content, close to 56 per cent today, is set to cross 60 per cent. A nation that cannot train its own pilots cannot grow its own air force.&nbsp;Late engines and long waits are part of this story, but so is persistence. On 18 September, India hands over machines that will train its pilots, guard its skies and carry its people across sea and mountain. &nbsp;

The 5.5-tonne Dhruv NG runs on two Indian-made Shakti engines, so if one fails, the other keeps it flying. Its digital cockpit carries civil approval, its seats absorb the shock of a crash, and its fuel tanks seal small leaks on their own.

Somewhere off India's western coast, oil workers ending a long shift on a steel platform will soon see a helicopter built in their own country arriving to take them home. That moment captures what Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) will mark on 18 September 2026, when it delivers three home-grown aircraft at its Aircraft Division in Vimanapura, Bengaluru. The ceremony runs from 5 to 6 pm, with entry through Gate 20 of the HAL Airport premises. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Civil Aviation Minister K. Rammohan Naidu will attend. That helicopter is the Dhruv NG, the next-generation civilian version of HAL's Advanced Light Helicopter. Mr Naidu flagged off its first flight in Bengaluru on 30 December 2025. Now it moves from display to duty. Pawan Hans has ordered ten for more than ₹1,800 crore. Four arrive now, and the rest follow this financial year. The first is likely to ferry ONGC crews to and from offshore rigs. The 5.5-tonne Dhruv NG runs on two Indian-made Shakti engines, so if one fails, the other keeps it flying. Its digital cockpit carries civil approval, its seats absorb the shock of a crash, and its fuel tanks seal small leaks on their own. It cruises at about 285 kmph, covers some 630 km with fuel in reserve, stays aloft for about three hours 40 minutes, and climbs to about 6,000 metres, enough for many Himalayan and plateau routes. The cabin can take four to six VIP seats, up to 14 passengers, or four stretchers with medical crew, which makes it a flying ambulance. Built largely from Indian material, it supports HAL's plan to grow civil work from a small share to nearly a quarter of turnover within ten years. ALSO READ: BRICS Summit 2026 was played down, dismissed or nearly blacked out by Western media. That didn't work Leading this shift is Ravi Kota, HAL's 22nd Chairman and Managing Director since 1 May 2026, after D.K. Sunil retired. Defence circles still call him the "LCA man." He is a mechanical engineer from Malnad College of Engineering and an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad and Toulouse. He headed the Tejas division, helped bring the fleet into service, and worked on contracts for 180 Tejas jets and 156 Prachand light combat helicopters. He wants a globally competitive HAL driven by innovation, Artificial Intelligence, operational excellence and its people. That fighter background shows in the second delivery, the LCA FOC trainer. It is a two-seat Tejas Mk-1 built to Final Operational Clearance, cleared for real combat flying. The trainee sits in front and the instructor behind, under a lengthened canopy, so young pilots practise combat flying in a jet that handles just like the single-seat fighter. These twin-seaters complete the first 40-aircraft Tejas order. They came last because the single-seat fighters were built first. They arrive as the Indian Air Force expands its Tejas family with 83 Mk-1A jets and then 97 more, many of them two-seaters. A third line at Nashik is raising yearly output. HAL is also speeding up Tejas output on the factory floor, working with Bengaluru-based ADD Engineering Components on robotic drilling for the fighter's wings. A robot places each of the thousands of fastener holes in a wing the same way every time, cutting rework and freeing skilled technicians for tasks that need human judgement. The third aircraft is where every fighter pilot's journey begins. For years, Indian cadets learned first take-offs, landings, instrument flying and recovery from sudden rolls on the Swiss-built Pilatus PC-7 Mk II. The Hindustan Turbo Trainer-40 (HTT-40) now takes over. The first three, two from Bengaluru and one from Nashik, belong to a March 2023 order for 70 aircraft worth about ₹6,838 crore. The HTT-40 seats two, one behind the other, and is fully aerobatic. Its air-conditioned glass cockpit replaces old dials with digital screens, like a modern car dashboard. Its Martin-Baker "zero-zero" ejection seats can save both occupants even when the aircraft is standing still on the ground. A Honeywell TPE331-12B turboprop, a turbine engine that spins a propeller, gives it a top speed near 450 kmph, a range of about 1,000 km and a ceiling of about 6,000 metres. The road tested everyone's patience. Engine shortages pushed deliveries past the original 2025–26 target until Honeywell supplies began in 2026. HAL's two lines can now build about 20 trainers a year between them. Indian content, close to 56 per cent today, is set to cross 60 per cent. A nation that cannot train its own pilots cannot grow its own air force. Late engines and long waits are part of this story, but so is persistence. On 18 September, India hands over machines that will train its pilots, guard its skies and carry its people across sea and mountain.

The 5.5-tonne Dhruv NG runs on two Indian-made Shakti engines, so if one fails, the other keeps it flying. Its digital cockpit carries civil approval, its seats absorb the shock of a crash, and its fuel tanks seal small leaks on their own.

Salt air to sound waves: HAL’s homegrown trio takes wing

Somewhere on a high Himalayan ridge, where the air is thin and the snow never fully leaves, a soldier waits for the sound of rotor blades. That sound can mean food, a spare part, a way home, or in the worst hours, a stretcher and a chance to live. Behind that one simple landing sit years of patient engineering, and the newest chapter of that work is about something most of us never think about while looking up at a helicopter: shaking.&nbsp;Hindustan Aeronautics Limited says its Light Utility Helicopter, the LUH, now shakes far less than before. After careful changes to the body of the aircraft itself, overall shaking has come down by 30 to 40 per cent. In one important kind of up-and-down shaking, the drop is close to 50 per cent. On paper these look like dry numbers from a test report. In real life, they touch almost everything the machine is meant to do.&nbsp;Think of a jeep on a bad village road. Passengers feel every bump, bags rattle, and bolts slowly loosen. A helicopter lives with a far harsher version of the same problem. The big main rotor keeps cutting through the air, the engine keeps producing power, the gearbox keeps sending that power upward, and the small tail rotor works without pause to hold the nose straight. All of this creates shake, and that shake travels into the body of the aircraft.&nbsp;What it reaches is what matters. It reaches the pilot, whose hands must stay steady after long hours in the air. It reaches soldiers and the wounded being carried out. It reaches radios, instruments and medical equipment that were never meant to be rattled for years on end. Over time it also reaches the metal and composites themselves, quietly wearing them out. Less shake therefore means a less tired crew, safer patients, longer-lasting parts, easier maintenance, and a helicopter that stays flying instead of sitting in a hangar.&nbsp;The need becomes sharper when you see where this machine must serve. The LUH is a single-engine helicopter of about 3.15 tonnes, built for moving troops, watching the ground, bringing out the injured, and carrying stores across difficult country. Above all, it is meant for India's high Himalayas, and height is a harsh teacher. The air grows thin, so the rotor has less to bite and the engine has less to breathe. Landing spots shrink to a ledge of rock. Weather can turn within minutes. Steep walls and narrow valleys leave almost no room for error. In such places, every extra kilogram and every extra shake becomes a risk.&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/brics-summit-2026-brics-of-the-future-from-partner-country-expansion-to-trade-mechanisms-what-could-change-what-might-not-1789297302659">BRICS of the future: From partner country expansion to trade mechanisms - what could change, what might not</a>&nbsp;This is also a story of taking over. The LUH is meant to replace the ageing Chetak and Cheetah helicopters that have served the Indian Armed Forces for decades, flying to some of the highest military posts on earth. Their record is a proud one, and that is exactly why their successor must earn trust the hard way.&nbsp;What makes this achievement interesting is how the shaking was reduced. Engineers did not simply add more pads and dampers. They changed the structure itself. Picture a wooden table that wobbles. You can push folded paper under one leg, or you can open up the joint and fix it properly. The second way is harder, and it is also far better. Small changes in shape, in where weight sits, and in stiffness can change how the whole aircraft behaves.&nbsp;Such care is necessary because of the way the LUH is built. Its main rotor does not use the old-style hinges, and its tail rotor does not use the old-style bearings. Older helicopters needed many moving joints so the blades could flap and flex. Here, that movement comes from the natural spring of composite materials, rather like a fishing rod bending where a hinge would otherwise open. Fewer moving parts mean less trouble later, but they also demand that the body of the helicopter be designed with great precision.&nbsp;The quiet lesson sits underneath the numbers. Building an Indian helicopter is only the first step. The harder work begins after the first flight: measure, question, improve, and keep improving until the crew who fly it, and the soldier waiting on a freezing ridge, can place their lives in it without a second thought. That is the real revolution here, not merely a new machine, but a machine that shakes less exactly where shaking can cost lives.

HAL has reduced vibrations in its Light Utility Helicopter by up to 40 per cent, improving its reliability and suitability for demanding high-altitude Himalayan operations.

Somewhere on a high Himalayan ridge, where the air is thin and the snow never fully leaves, a soldier waits for the sound of rotor blades. That sound can mean food, a spare part, a way home, or in the worst hours, a stretcher and a chance to live. Behind that one simple landing sit years of patient engineering, and the newest chapter of that work is about something most of us never think about while looking up at a helicopter: shaking. Hindustan Aeronautics Limited says its Light Utility Helicopter, the LUH, now shakes far less than before. After careful changes to the body of the aircraft itself, overall shaking has come down by 30 to 40 per cent. In one important kind of up-and-down shaking, the drop is close to 50 per cent. On paper these look like dry numbers from a test report. In real life, they touch almost everything the machine is meant to do. Think of a jeep on a bad village road. Passengers feel every bump, bags rattle, and bolts slowly loosen. A helicopter lives with a far harsher version of the same problem. The big main rotor keeps cutting through the air, the engine keeps producing power, the gearbox keeps sending that power upward, and the small tail rotor works without pause to hold the nose straight. All of this creates shake, and that shake travels into the body of the aircraft. What it reaches is what matters. It reaches the pilot, whose hands must stay steady after long hours in the air. It reaches soldiers and the wounded being carried out. It reaches radios, instruments and medical equipment that were never meant to be rattled for years on end. Over time it also reaches the metal and composites themselves, quietly wearing them out. Less shake therefore means a less tired crew, safer patients, longer-lasting parts, easier maintenance, and a helicopter that stays flying instead of sitting in a hangar. The need becomes sharper when you see where this machine must serve. The LUH is a single-engine helicopter of about 3.15 tonnes, built for moving troops, watching the ground, bringing out the injured, and carrying stores across difficult country. Above all, it is meant for India's high Himalayas, and height is a harsh teacher. The air grows thin, so the rotor has less to bite and the engine has less to breathe. Landing spots shrink to a ledge of rock. Weather can turn within minutes. Steep walls and narrow valleys leave almost no room for error. In such places, every extra kilogram and every extra shake becomes a risk. Also Read: BRICS of the future: From partner country expansion to trade mechanisms - what could change, what might not This is also a story of taking over. The LUH is meant to replace the ageing Chetak and Cheetah helicopters that have served the Indian Armed Forces for decades, flying to some of the highest military posts on earth. Their record is a proud one, and that is exactly why their successor must earn trust the hard way. What makes this achievement interesting is how the shaking was reduced. Engineers did not simply add more pads and dampers. They changed the structure itself. Picture a wooden table that wobbles. You can push folded paper under one leg, or you can open up the joint and fix it properly. The second way is harder, and it is also far better. Small changes in shape, in where weight sits, and in stiffness can change how the whole aircraft behaves. Such care is necessary because of the way the LUH is built. Its main rotor does not use the old-style hinges, and its tail rotor does not use the old-style bearings. Older helicopters needed many moving joints so the blades could flap and flex. Here, that movement comes from the natural spring of composite materials, rather like a fishing rod bending where a hinge would otherwise open. Fewer moving parts mean less trouble later, but they also demand that the body of the helicopter be designed with great precision. The quiet lesson sits underneath the numbers. Building an Indian helicopter is only the first step. The harder work begins after the first flight: measure, question, improve, and keep improving until the crew who fly it, and the soldier waiting on a freezing ridge, can place their lives in it without a second thought. That is the real revolution here, not merely a new machine, but a machine that shakes less exactly where shaking can cost lives.

HAL has reduced vibrations in its Light Utility Helicopter by up to 40 per cent, improving its reliability and suitability for demanding high-altitude Himalayan operations.

HAL’s LUH: Quiet over the ridges, curing the Himalayan wobble

For many years India has built helicopters with real skill. The harder task has always been building the engine inside them. An aero engine is no ordinary part. It is the costliest and most closely guarded technology on any aircraft. That is why the fresh contract between Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Safran Helicopter Engines, and their joint company, SAFHAL, is far more than a business announcement. It is a serious step towards designing a powerful helicopter engine on Indian soil.&nbsp;The engine is named Aravalli, after one of the oldest mountain ranges in the country. It belongs to the 3,500 to 4,000 shaft horsepower class, much stronger than the Shakti engines that today fly the Dhruv, Prachanda and Light Utility Helicopter. Aravalli will power two future HAL machines—the 13-ton Indian Multi-Role Helicopter, or IMRH, and its naval version, the Deck-Based Multi-Role Helicopter, or DBMRH. Both are twin-engine, so their success rests on this engine.&nbsp;Signed on 26 August 2026, the contract covers the engine’s full life—design, development, manufacture, supply, and long-term support. HAL’s Director of Engineering and R&amp;D, Ajay Kumar Shrivastava, and Olivier Savin of SAFHAL signed the papers before HAL Chairman and Managing Director Ravi K and Safran Helicopter Engines CEO Cédric Goubet.&nbsp;India has worked with Safran for decades—first the Artouste engines of the Cheetah and Chetak, later the Shakti family for lighter helicopters. Those programmes taught Indian industry to manufacture, assemble and support engines, but never handed over the hardest skill, the original design of a high-power engine. Aravalli aims to change that. Indian engineers will sit with French engineers through design, testing and certification, gaining depth in the high-pressure compressor, power turbine, fuel and oil systems, accessory gearbox and the systems that keep an engine alive in heat, dust, salt air and thin mountain air.&nbsp;Such learning cannot be bought from a catalogue; it must be earned on a real programme. Safran says this is the first time it is co-developing an engine of this power class—a shift from “you build what we designed” to “we design together.”&nbsp;The IMRH fills a serious gap. The Air Force still depends on ageing Russian-origin Mi-17 helicopters, which cannot fly forever. A 13-ton Indian helicopter carrying troops, lifting loads, climbing mountains and working in punishing heat is a national need. The Navy’s DBMRH faces a harder life—ship decks, salt spray, tight space and rough seas. If India imports both helicopter and engine, dependence continues for decades. If it builds only the body, the dependence simply shifts from one box to another.&nbsp;A civilian side exists too. This engine class can later serve offshore oil flights, utility work and VVIP travel. After production comes maintenance, repair and overhaul, where lasting jobs and real industrial strength are created.&nbsp;HAL is no silent partner. It designs both helicopters, holds a 50:50 share in SAFHAL, and must turn drawings into machines the forces can trust. Under Chairman and Managing Director Ravi K, HAL is trying to grow from a production house into a design house. That road is tougher, because production can be planned while design brings risk, delay, failed tests and patient money. Ravi K has framed Aravalli as a step towards self-reliance in aero-engine technology and a stronger Indian aerospace ecosystem. His clear focus on design capability gives the programme direction and seriousness.&nbsp;An engine succeeds only when many firms rise with it — alloy makers, casting units, precision machine shops, electronics companies, test facilities and repair workshops. Karnataka sits at the centre of this story. Programme information shared with industry says the Aravalli manufacturing set-up is expected at Tumakuru, where HAL already has a large helicopter base. If that plan holds, Tumakuru will not merely assemble airframes; it will work on compressors, turbines and test beds, giving young engineers in the state a chance to learn real engine technology.&nbsp;Think of an engine as a small factory needing special alloys, finely cut blades, gearboxes, pumps, sensors, software and test cells. A long programme creates steady demand, and demand pushes companies to invest. Aravalli helps in five clear ways. It gives private firms a reason to enter high-end engine work. It trains engineers through design reviews, failure analysis and certification. It builds repair capability at home and saves foreign exchange. It gives HAL ownership of what it designs. And it prepares a team that will not start from zero on the next engine India needs.&nbsp;None of this is automatic. Development work is expected to run into the early 2030s, and both helicopters still await full government clearance. Engine programmes usually take longer than first promised. Honestly seen, this contract is the starting gun, not the finish line.&nbsp;The idea is simple. A helicopter without a dependable engine is only a beautiful body, and India long built the body better than the heart. The Aravalli hills are old, strong and still standing. This journey will also be long, but with HAL under Ravi K’s leadership and a manufacturing base expected in Tumakuru, it can build lasting skills, companies and confidence that will help India for many years to come.

The engine is named Aravalli, after one of the oldest mountain ranges in the country. It belongs to the 3,500 to 4,000 shaft horsepower class, much stronger than the Shakti engines that today fly the Dhruv, Prachanda and Light Utility Helicopter.

For many years India has built helicopters with real skill. The harder task has always been building the engine inside them. An aero engine is no ordinary part. It is the costliest and most closely guarded technology on any aircraft. That is why the fresh contract between Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Safran Helicopter Engines, and their joint company, SAFHAL, is far more than a business announcement. It is a serious step towards designing a powerful helicopter engine on Indian soil. The engine is named Aravalli, after one of the oldest mountain ranges in the country. It belongs to the 3,500 to 4,000 shaft horsepower class, much stronger than the Shakti engines that today fly the Dhruv, Prachanda and Light Utility Helicopter. Aravalli will power two future HAL machines—the 13-ton Indian Multi-Role Helicopter, or IMRH, and its naval version, the Deck-Based Multi-Role Helicopter, or DBMRH. Both are twin-engine, so their success rests on this engine. Signed on 26 August 2026, the contract covers the engine’s full life—design, development, manufacture, supply, and long-term support. HAL’s Director of Engineering and R&D, Ajay Kumar Shrivastava, and Olivier Savin of SAFHAL signed the papers before HAL Chairman and Managing Director Ravi K and Safran Helicopter Engines CEO Cédric Goubet. India has worked with Safran for decades—first the Artouste engines of the Cheetah and Chetak, later the Shakti family for lighter helicopters. Those programmes taught Indian industry to manufacture, assemble and support engines, but never handed over the hardest skill, the original design of a high-power engine. Aravalli aims to change that. Indian engineers will sit with French engineers through design, testing and certification, gaining depth in the high-pressure compressor, power turbine, fuel and oil systems, accessory gearbox and the systems that keep an engine alive in heat, dust, salt air and thin mountain air. Such learning cannot be bought from a catalogue; it must be earned on a real programme. Safran says this is the first time it is co-developing an engine of this power class—a shift from “you build what we designed” to “we design together.” The IMRH fills a serious gap. The Air Force still depends on ageing Russian-origin Mi-17 helicopters, which cannot fly forever. A 13-ton Indian helicopter carrying troops, lifting loads, climbing mountains and working in punishing heat is a national need. The Navy’s DBMRH faces a harder life—ship decks, salt spray, tight space and rough seas. If India imports both helicopter and engine, dependence continues for decades. If it builds only the body, the dependence simply shifts from one box to another. A civilian side exists too. This engine class can later serve offshore oil flights, utility work and VVIP travel. After production comes maintenance, repair and overhaul, where lasting jobs and real industrial strength are created. HAL is no silent partner. It designs both helicopters, holds a 50:50 share in SAFHAL, and must turn drawings into machines the forces can trust. Under Chairman and Managing Director Ravi K, HAL is trying to grow from a production house into a design house. That road is tougher, because production can be planned while design brings risk, delay, failed tests and patient money. Ravi K has framed Aravalli as a step towards self-reliance in aero-engine technology and a stronger Indian aerospace ecosystem. His clear focus on design capability gives the programme direction and seriousness. An engine succeeds only when many firms rise with it — alloy makers, casting units, precision machine shops, electronics companies, test facilities and repair workshops. Karnataka sits at the centre of this story. Programme information shared with industry says the Aravalli manufacturing set-up is expected at Tumakuru, where HAL already has a large helicopter base. If that plan holds, Tumakuru will not merely assemble airframes; it will work on compressors, turbines and test beds, giving young engineers in the state a chance to learn real engine technology. Think of an engine as a small factory needing special alloys, finely cut blades, gearboxes, pumps, sensors, software and test cells. A long programme creates steady demand, and demand pushes companies to invest. Aravalli helps in five clear ways. It gives private firms a reason to enter high-end engine work. It trains engineers through design reviews, failure analysis and certification. It builds repair capability at home and saves foreign exchange. It gives HAL ownership of what it designs. And it prepares a team that will not start from zero on the next engine India needs. None of this is automatic. Development work is expected to run into the early 2030s, and both helicopters still await full government clearance. Engine programmes usually take longer than first promised. Honestly seen, this contract is the starting gun, not the finish line. The idea is simple. A helicopter without a dependable engine is only a beautiful body, and India long built the body better than the heart. The Aravalli hills are old, strong and still standing. This journey will also be long, but with HAL under Ravi K’s leadership and a manufacturing base expected in Tumakuru, it can build lasting skills, companies and confidence that will help India for many years to come.

The engine is named Aravalli, after one of the oldest mountain ranges in the country. It belongs to the 3,500 to 4,000 shaft horsepower class, much stronger than the Shakti engines that today fly the Dhruv, Prachanda and Light Utility Helicopter.

Designing the beast: HAL and Safran unite to power India’s 13-ton copters

The Government of India has opened one of the biggest defence purchases in the country's history. A tender worth about one lakh crore rupees has been floated for sixty multi-role transport aircraft. These planes will modernise the transport fleet of the Indian Air Force. What makes this tender special is that it is open not only to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited but also to private Indian companies. This shows a intention to build such aircraft at home and to strengthen our tactical and strategic airlift power for the next several decades.&nbsp;To understand why this is needed, we must look at the Antonov AN-32. For nearly forty years this Russian-origin plane has been the backbone of medium transport work in the Air Force. Around 125 of them joined service from 1984 onwards, and each can carry six to seven tonnes of load. They have done almost every job asked of them: carrying soldiers, dropping cargo by parachute, shifting the injured, helping during floods and earthquakes, running daily supply runs and supporting special missions. In the cold heights of Ladakh they fed forward posts. Over Siachen they have made life-saving airdrops. In the North-East, where proper roads were rare through the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, these aircraft kept far-off drop zones and small landing grounds alive. Their service has been outstanding. But age spares nobody. The instruments inside are now old-fashioned, the lifting ability has fallen, and keeping them serviceable has become a daily struggle.&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/why-aircraft-carriers-matter-more-than-ever-for-india-s-navy-1786809313616">Why aircraft carriers matter more than ever for India's navy</a>&nbsp;India did try to give these planes a longer life. In 2009 an agreement was signed with Ukraine, the original maker, to upgrade 105 AN-32s. Some aircraft did receive the promised improvements. But after the Russia-Ukraine conflict began in 2014 over Crimea, the work could not be completed. So today the fleet is only partly modernised and continues to grow older. The Air Force has now decided that patchwork will not help. A full replacement is the only answer.&nbsp;In other categories, new aircraft are already arriving. Fifty-six Airbus C-295s are replacing the old Avro HS-748 planes. Sixteen came ready-made from abroad, while the remaining forty are being built at a new factory in Vadodara. The first fully Indian-made C-295 has completed its test flights and joined service. Indian content in it began near 35 per cent, has already touched 40 to 45 per cent, and is expected to reach 70 per cent. The Air Force also flies twelve C-130J Super Hercules bought in 2011, which lift about nineteen tonnes. For heavier loads there is the C-17 Globemaster, carrying seventy to eighty tonnes, and the older IL-76 of the mid-1980s, carrying around forty tonnes.&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/photos/why-the-massive-f-35-relies-on-only-one-engine-instead-of-two-1786802156312">Why the massive F-35 relies on only one engine instead of two</a>&nbsp;The present plan began in 2022, when the Air Force sought eighty multi-role transport aircraft and issued a Request for Information. Later the requirement was fixed at a payload band of eighteen to thirty tonnes. Three aircraft are now in the race: the Lockheed Martin C-130, the Embraer C-390 Millennium and the Airbus A400M. Indian firms have already picked their partners. Tata has joined hands with Lockheed Martin and wants to build the C-130 here. Mahindra has tied up with Embraer for the C-390. Airbus, which already works with Tata Advanced Systems on the C-295, has said it is ready to make the A400M in India.&nbsp;As Air Marshal Sanjeev Kapoor has rightly pointed out, the chosen aircraft must perform dependably in every Indian condition — short high-altitude strips, hot coastal belts, damp tropical air, bare airfields and half-prepared runways — while staying affordable and easy to support for forty long years.&nbsp;Each contender has its own strength. The C-130 is already known to Indian crews and has proved itself in real missions, including evacuations from Afghanistan and Yemen, so it would be easiest to absorb. The C-390 comes at a competitive price and carries about twenty-six tonnes. The A400M is the strongest of the three, lifting thirty to thirty-five tonnes and easing the load on the tired IL-76 fleet, but it is also the costliest.&nbsp;The conditions of the tender clearly reflect Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat. Only twelve aircraft will come in fly-away condition. The remaining forty-eight must be built on Indian soil. Complete maintenance, repair and overhaul facilities will also be set up here. Indigenous content is fixed at sixty per cent, with Indian companies placed in the supply chain from day one. Even licensing and export rights are to be settled at the start, so that India can one day sell such aircraft to other nations.&nbsp;Besides paradrops, casualty evacuation, assault landing and troop movement, the new aircraft must also serve the Army by carrying light armoured vehicles like the BMP-2 Sarath and artillery guns straight to forward posts. This programme is not merely about buying planes. It is about building a self-reliant fleet for the next forty years. &nbsp;

India has floated a ₹1 lakh crore tender for 60 multi-role transport aircraft to replace its ageing AN-32 fleet. The programme will prioritise domestic production, with 48 aircraft to be built in India, strengthening the IAF’s airlift capabilities and boosting defence manufacturing.

The Government of India has opened one of the biggest defence purchases in the country's history. A tender worth about one lakh crore rupees has been floated for sixty multi-role transport aircraft. These planes will modernise the transport fleet of the Indian Air Force. What makes this tender special is that it is open not only to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited but also to private Indian companies. This shows a intention to build such aircraft at home and to strengthen our tactical and strategic airlift power for the next several decades. To understand why this is needed, we must look at the Antonov AN-32. For nearly forty years this Russian-origin plane has been the backbone of medium transport work in the Air Force. Around 125 of them joined service from 1984 onwards, and each can carry six to seven tonnes of load. They have done almost every job asked of them: carrying soldiers, dropping cargo by parachute, shifting the injured, helping during floods and earthquakes, running daily supply runs and supporting special missions. In the cold heights of Ladakh they fed forward posts. Over Siachen they have made life-saving airdrops. In the North-East, where proper roads were rare through the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, these aircraft kept far-off drop zones and small landing grounds alive. Their service has been outstanding. But age spares nobody. The instruments inside are now old-fashioned, the lifting ability has fallen, and keeping them serviceable has become a daily struggle. Also Read: Why aircraft carriers matter more than ever for India's navy India did try to give these planes a longer life. In 2009 an agreement was signed with Ukraine, the original maker, to upgrade 105 AN-32s. Some aircraft did receive the promised improvements. But after the Russia-Ukraine conflict began in 2014 over Crimea, the work could not be completed. So today the fleet is only partly modernised and continues to grow older. The Air Force has now decided that patchwork will not help. A full replacement is the only answer. In other categories, new aircraft are already arriving. Fifty-six Airbus C-295s are replacing the old Avro HS-748 planes. Sixteen came ready-made from abroad, while the remaining forty are being built at a new factory in Vadodara. The first fully Indian-made C-295 has completed its test flights and joined service. Indian content in it began near 35 per cent, has already touched 40 to 45 per cent, and is expected to reach 70 per cent. The Air Force also flies twelve C-130J Super Hercules bought in 2011, which lift about nineteen tonnes. For heavier loads there is the C-17 Globemaster, carrying seventy to eighty tonnes, and the older IL-76 of the mid-1980s, carrying around forty tonnes. Also Read: Why the massive F-35 relies on only one engine instead of two The present plan began in 2022, when the Air Force sought eighty multi-role transport aircraft and issued a Request for Information. Later the requirement was fixed at a payload band of eighteen to thirty tonnes. Three aircraft are now in the race: the Lockheed Martin C-130, the Embraer C-390 Millennium and the Airbus A400M. Indian firms have already picked their partners. Tata has joined hands with Lockheed Martin and wants to build the C-130 here. Mahindra has tied up with Embraer for the C-390. Airbus, which already works with Tata Advanced Systems on the C-295, has said it is ready to make the A400M in India. As Air Marshal Sanjeev Kapoor has rightly pointed out, the chosen aircraft must perform dependably in every Indian condition — short high-altitude strips, hot coastal belts, damp tropical air, bare airfields and half-prepared runways — while staying affordable and easy to support for forty long years. Each contender has its own strength. The C-130 is already known to Indian crews and has proved itself in real missions, including evacuations from Afghanistan and Yemen, so it would be easiest to absorb. The C-390 comes at a competitive price and carries about twenty-six tonnes. The A400M is the strongest of the three, lifting thirty to thirty-five tonnes and easing the load on the tired IL-76 fleet, but it is also the costliest. The conditions of the tender clearly reflect Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat. Only twelve aircraft will come in fly-away condition. The remaining forty-eight must be built on Indian soil. Complete maintenance, repair and overhaul facilities will also be set up here. Indigenous content is fixed at sixty per cent, with Indian companies placed in the supply chain from day one. Even licensing and export rights are to be settled at the start, so that India can one day sell such aircraft to other nations. Besides paradrops, casualty evacuation, assault landing and troop movement, the new aircraft must also serve the Army by carrying light armoured vehicles like the BMP-2 Sarath and artillery guns straight to forward posts. This programme is not merely about buying planes. It is about building a self-reliant fleet for the next forty years.

India has floated a ₹1 lakh crore tender for 60 multi-role transport aircraft to replace its ageing AN-32 fleet. The programme will prioritise domestic production, with 48 aircraft to be built in India, strengthening the IAF’s airlift capabilities and boosting defence manufacturing.

Battle for the Skies: Who Will Replace the AN-32?

The rocket stage that hit the Moon on August 5 did not choose its target. Nobody was steering it. It had no fuel, no engine power and no plan. Travelling at about 8,700 kilometres per hour, the spent upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 — leftover from the January 2025 launch of a lunar lander — struck the far edge of the Moon near Einstein crater, most likely throwing up a plume of dust and digging a fresh hole in the surface.&nbsp;It is a dramatic picture. But the real lesson is much closer to home, right above our heads.&nbsp;At this moment, more than 33,000 objects are being tracked in orbit around the Earth, moving at roughly 28,000 kilometres per hour. That is only what we can see and follow. Countless smaller bits are invisible to our instruments.&nbsp;A new study, The Space Debris Report (<a href="https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.accu.co.uk%2Fp%2F525-the-space-debris-report&amp;data=05%7C02%7CAjaypal.Choudhary%40wionews.com%7C1c16254212514d43d7f308def2d7800f%7Cd9454a4401f64fa99ad115ee73b1b80d%7C0%7C0%7C639215204536441993%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=reu8xRdPWXH6wzofGn6G99Yt5RrM5rkLTVmw2eh1wIQ%3D&amp;reserved=0">https://www.accu.co.uk/p/525-the-space-debris-report</a>), published by Accu Components, a precision engineering components supplier, has put numbers to this mess. The figures come from the Space-Track catalogue maintained by the US Space Surveillance Network, analysed by Accu, along with European Space Agency data showing about 15,800 tonnes of material trapped in orbit as of early 2026. Public catalogues today show slightly higher totals, since launches keep adding to the count month by month.&nbsp;Break the 33,269 tracked objects down and the picture becomes clearer. Of these, 17,682 are payloads, meaning working or dead satellites. Another 2,396 are rocket bodies — exactly the same category as the Falcon 9 stage that hit the Moon. A huge 12,550 are debris fragments, and 641 are unassigned.That means nearly 47 per cent of all tracked objects are junk. And since many satellites counted as payloads have stopped working, the real share of useless, uncontrollable objects is even higher. Put simply, for every 10 satellites in orbit there are 7 tracked pieces of rubbish.&nbsp;Why should this worry an ordinary person on the ground? Because these satellites are not distant toys. They run your phone's GPS, your weather forecasts, your television signal and, increasingly, your internet. A single collision can end a mission in a second.&nbsp;And size does not protect you. A tiny fleck of paint once chipped a window on the International Space Station. At orbital speed, even a small chip hits like a bullet. That is why spacecraft today must be built with heavier shielding and greater tolerance to impacts, which adds cost and weight to every launch.The most worrying part is that the problem feeds itself. Emily Sacchi, Aerodynamics Engineer at the Bath University Rocketry Team, warns that even if all launches stopped today, debris levels would keep rising, because collisions and break-ups create new fragments faster than old ones fall back and burn up.&nbsp;Who is responsible? The data shows the load is not shared equally, largely because of how long each actor has been launching and a few unusual events. Three actors account for 96 per cent of the 12,550 debris objects in orbit — China, the CIS (the former Soviet states) and the United States together account for 12,041 of them.&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/china-hits-back-at-us-after-fresh-tariffs-blacklists-six-firms-curbs-drone-exports-1785925926486">China hits back at US after fresh tariffs, blacklists six firms, curbs drone exports</a>&nbsp;China's share comes largely from its 2007 anti-satellite weapons test, widely seen as one of the worst debris-creating events in the history of spaceflight. Thousands of fragments from that single test are still circling the Earth. The CIS figure reflects decades of Soviet-era activity. The American figure comes from a very long launch history plus the 2009 crash between the dead Russian satellite Kosmos 2251 and the working Iridium 33 satellite. That accident alone produced thousands of pieces, and hundreds were still in orbit more than a decade later.&nbsp;There is another useful way to read the data — the debris intensity score, meaning the number of debris objects in orbit for every active satellite an operator has. The global average is 0.71. China, France and the CIS have the highest scores, running three to five times above average, with China at close to 4. The European Space Agency, Canada, Germany and the UK show near-zero scores, suggesting a cleaner way of working.&nbsp;Solutions are being built. Under the idea of Active Debris Removal, engineers are testing laser brooms, magnetic capture systems and other methods to pull dead objects down. Ben Imber, Project Lead at Sheffield Hallam's Rocketry Team, says bigger organisations are already designing satellites that burn up fully on re-entry, or that plan their own exit path at the end of life.&nbsp;But he adds a caution. The field is still new and mostly limited to larger players. With many new companies entering, he says a common agreement or inspection process is needed as low Earth orbit becomes crowded.&nbsp;One question remains open. When debris burns up on re-entry, it does not vanish — it leaves fine metallic particles high in the atmosphere. Scientists are watching this closely because such particles may affect the ozone layer and cloud formation, and nobody yet knows how much the atmosphere can absorb.&nbsp;The Moon crash was the same story, only where we could see it plainly. Up there, one abandoned rocket found an empty crater. Down here, thousands of them are still circling — among satellites we use every day.

The Moon crash has highlighted the growing threat of space debris, with tens of thousands of objects orbiting Earth and raising concerns over satellite safety, future space missions and the long-term sustainability of space activities.

The rocket stage that hit the Moon on August 5 did not choose its target. Nobody was steering it. It had no fuel, no engine power and no plan. Travelling at about 8,700 kilometres per hour, the spent upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 — leftover from the January 2025 launch of a lunar lander — struck the far edge of the Moon near Einstein crater, most likely throwing up a plume of dust and digging a fresh hole in the surface. It is a dramatic picture. But the real lesson is much closer to home, right above our heads. At this moment, more than 33,000 objects are being tracked in orbit around the Earth, moving at roughly 28,000 kilometres per hour. That is only what we can see and follow. Countless smaller bits are invisible to our instruments. A new study, The Space Debris Report (https://www.accu.co.uk/p/525-the-space-debris-report), published by Accu Components, a precision engineering components supplier, has put numbers to this mess. The figures come from the Space-Track catalogue maintained by the US Space Surveillance Network, analysed by Accu, along with European Space Agency data showing about 15,800 tonnes of material trapped in orbit as of early 2026. Public catalogues today show slightly higher totals, since launches keep adding to the count month by month. Break the 33,269 tracked objects down and the picture becomes clearer. Of these, 17,682 are payloads, meaning working or dead satellites. Another 2,396 are rocket bodies — exactly the same category as the Falcon 9 stage that hit the Moon. A huge 12,550 are debris fragments, and 641 are unassigned. That means nearly 47 per cent of all tracked objects are junk. And since many satellites counted as payloads have stopped working, the real share of useless, uncontrollable objects is even higher. Put simply, for every 10 satellites in orbit there are 7 tracked pieces of rubbish. Why should this worry an ordinary person on the ground? Because these satellites are not distant toys. They run your phone's GPS, your weather forecasts, your television signal and, increasingly, your internet. A single collision can end a mission in a second. And size does not protect you. A tiny fleck of paint once chipped a window on the International Space Station. At orbital speed, even a small chip hits like a bullet. That is why spacecraft today must be built with heavier shielding and greater tolerance to impacts, which adds cost and weight to every launch. The most worrying part is that the problem feeds itself. Emily Sacchi, Aerodynamics Engineer at the Bath University Rocketry Team, warns that even if all launches stopped today, debris levels would keep rising, because collisions and break-ups create new fragments faster than old ones fall back and burn up. Who is responsible? The data shows the load is not shared equally, largely because of how long each actor has been launching and a few unusual events. Three actors account for 96 per cent of the 12,550 debris objects in orbit — China, the CIS (the former Soviet states) and the United States together account for 12,041 of them. Also Read: China hits back at US after fresh tariffs, blacklists six firms, curbs drone exports China's share comes largely from its 2007 anti-satellite weapons test, widely seen as one of the worst debris-creating events in the history of spaceflight. Thousands of fragments from that single test are still circling the Earth. The CIS figure reflects decades of Soviet-era activity. The American figure comes from a very long launch history plus the 2009 crash between the dead Russian satellite Kosmos 2251 and the working Iridium 33 satellite. That accident alone produced thousands of pieces, and hundreds were still in orbit more than a decade later. There is another useful way to read the data — the debris intensity score, meaning the number of debris objects in orbit for every active satellite an operator has. The global average is 0.71. China, France and the CIS have the highest scores, running three to five times above average, with China at close to 4. The European Space Agency, Canada, Germany and the UK show near-zero scores, suggesting a cleaner way of working. Solutions are being built. Under the idea of Active Debris Removal, engineers are testing laser brooms, magnetic capture systems and other methods to pull dead objects down. Ben Imber, Project Lead at Sheffield Hallam's Rocketry Team, says bigger organisations are already designing satellites that burn up fully on re-entry, or that plan their own exit path at the end of life. But he adds a caution. The field is still new and mostly limited to larger players. With many new companies entering, he says a common agreement or inspection process is needed as low Earth orbit becomes crowded. One question remains open. When debris burns up on re-entry, it does not vanish — it leaves fine metallic particles high in the atmosphere. Scientists are watching this closely because such particles may affect the ozone layer and cloud formation, and nobody yet knows how much the atmosphere can absorb. The Moon crash was the same story, only where we could see it plainly. Up there, one abandoned rocket found an empty crater. Down here, thousands of them are still circling — among satellites we use every day.

The Moon crash has highlighted the growing threat of space debris, with tens of thousands of objects orbiting Earth and raising concerns over satellite safety, future space missions and the long-term sustainability of space activities.

Today's Moon crash: A warning we can't ignore

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Zee News Rajasthan

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Girish Linganna

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