India Reaches Orbit — Privately — Today's Space News

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Anna: Good day and welcome to Astronomy Daily.

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I'm Anna.

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Avery: And I'm, um, avery. It's Monday, the 20th of

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July, 2026, and here's a lovely bit of

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timing to start us off. 57 years ago

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today, two human beings first set their boots

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down in the dust of another world.

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Anna: Apollo 11, 20

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July 1969. And on the very

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anniversary of that first arrival, our

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lead story today is about an arrival of a

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different kind. A young private company half

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a world away announcing itself to the cosmos

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for the first time.

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Avery: Plus a spacecraft that swung past Mars and

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came away with a scientific treasure chest.

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A, uh, Mars rover reading a 4 billion year

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old diary of cosmic violence. A nearby

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world that looks like it's holding onto an

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atmosphere, shrimp learning to

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Anna: eat in weightlessness, and black holes

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that ring like bells. Quite the menu.

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Let's get into it.

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So our lead On Saturday morning,

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18 July, a rocket called

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Vikram 1 lifted off from the Satish

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Dhawan Space center at Sri

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Harikoda on India's east coast.

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And 17 minutes later, mission Control could

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say the words everyone had been holding their

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breath for brand success.

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Avery: And the reason that matters, Anna, is who

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built it. Bikram 1 was developed by

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Skyroot Aerospace, a private company out of

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Hyderabad founded back in 2018 by two

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former ISRO engineers. This wasn't a

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government launch. This was India's first

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ever private orbital rocket reaching space.

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Anna: Which puts India in a very small club.

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With this flight, India becomes just the

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third nation on Earth with a private orbital

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launch capability alongside the United States

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and China. That's the whole company on that

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list. 3.

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Avery: The rocket itself is a neat piece of

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engineering. It's about 22 meters tall, four

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stages, three solid, one liquid, and

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it can put around 350 kilograms into

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low earth orbit. The mission was named

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Agaman, which is Sanskrit for arrival,

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hence our episode titled Today.

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Anna: And it delivered a genuinely charming

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payload. Multiple technology demonstration

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satellites went up to about

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450km, including a

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satellite from G' Raha Space, a debris

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capture robotic arm from a company called

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cosmoserve, and Sky Root's own

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scope satellite.

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Avery: But my favorite bits are the symbolic ones.

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There was a handwritten postcard from Prime

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Minister Modi carried to orbit. There was

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a floral artwork called Cosmic Bloom.

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And then there's this. An 18 karat

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gold micro rocket carrying

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microscopic sculptures of three giants of

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Indian science. Sivi Raman, Bikram

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Sarabhai and A.P.J. abdul

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Kalam.

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Anna: Each sculpture smaller than a grain of rice.

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Avery: Smaller than a grain of rice. I love that

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you launch your first orbital rocket and you

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find room to honor the people whose shoulders

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you're standing on. The rocket is even named

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after Sarabhai, often called the father of

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India's space program.

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Anna: It's a beautiful gesture, and it caps a

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journey that began with Sky Roots suborbital

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Vikram s back in 2022.

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This is the moment they graduate from reached

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space to reached orbit. One Sky Root

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commentator called it the dawn of a new space

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era. And for India's commercial sector, that

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doesn't feel like hyperbole.

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Avery: Now, meanwhile, on the other side of the

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launch world, we're all still waiting on a

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rather larger rocket.

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Anna: We are Starship Flight 13.

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Longtime listeners know we've been tracking

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this one. SpaceX tried to fly it on Thursday,

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but the countdown aborted right at T0

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when a few of the 33 Raptor engines

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engines on the super heavy booster didn't

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light, the vehicle safely detanked, no harm

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done.

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Avery: And Elon Musk said afterwards that to be

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confident of a clean flight, two Raptors

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would be pooled and replaced. So the target

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has been sliding around. But as we record,

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the working date is no earlier than the 23rd

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to 24th of July.

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Anna: So keep your eyes on this space literally

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later this week, when Flight 13 does

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fly, it's aiming to deploy the first batch of

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the big new V3 Starlink satellites

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and eventually to attempt catching the upper

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stage with the launch tower. But, uh, for

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today, the launch success story belongs to

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Skyroot.

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Avery: Small rocket, huge milestone.

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Sometimes that's exactly how history arrives.

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Story two takes us out into the solar system

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with NASA's Psyche spacecraft. The mission on

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its way to that strange metal rich asteroid

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on also called Psyche, out in the main belt.

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Anna: Right, and to get there, Psyche needed a

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gravitational boost. Back on 15

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May, it swung past Mars for a gravity assist

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dealing a little of the planet's orbital

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momentum to slingshot itself onward. And

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this week, JPL released the full science hall

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from that flyby, which is

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Avery: really a dress rehearsal that turned into a

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bonus science session. Because a flyby like

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this is the perfect chance to switch on your

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instruments against a real planetary body and

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check that everything works before you arrive

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at your actual target in 2029.

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Anna: And everything did work. The gamma ray and

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neutron spectrometer got its first proper

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workout measuring a real world. But the

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headline for me is the magnetometer. Because

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during the Mars pass, it made its first ever

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measurement of the magnetic environment

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around another body.

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Avery: And that instrument really matters for the

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mission's big question. When Psyche reaches

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the asteroid, one of the things scientists

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most want to know is whether it has or once

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had magnetic field, because that would be a

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fingerprint of a molten metal core, a clue

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that this object might be the exposed heart

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of a shattered baby planet.

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Anna: So proving the magnetometer works cleanly at

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Mars gives the team real confidence. For

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2029, JPL also released a, uh,

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lovely timelapse of Mars growing and then

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shrinking in the spacecraft's view as it

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swept past.

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Avery: It's a good reminder that, um, on these long

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cruises, the journey itself does science. You

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don't just coast to the destination, you

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rehearse, you calibrate. And sometimes you

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get a free look at a neighbor along the way.

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Anna: Story three keeps us at Mars, but on the

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surface with the Perseverance Rover, which

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has been climbing the rim of Jezero Crater.

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Avery: And it's found something remarkable up there.

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A new study in the Journal of Geophysical

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Research Planets, led by researchers at

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Imperial College London, describes a

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75 meter thick stack of rock on the crater

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rim that they're calling the Broom Point

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member.

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Anna: And this stack is essentially a diary,

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layer after layer of what geologists call

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breccia rock that's been smashed,

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melted and welded back together by repeated

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asteroid impacts. And the timing is the

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astonishing part. This terrain is older than

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Jezero Crater

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Avery: itself, which makes it some of the oldest

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ground any Mars rover has ever laid its

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instruments on. We're talking roughly 4

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billion years back in a chapter of solar

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system history, sometimes called the era of

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heavy bombardment, when impacts were

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relentless.

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Anna: So perseverance is effectively reading a

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weather report from the most violent period

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the inner solar system has known. Each

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layer records another blow. And because

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Earth's surface has been endlessly recycled

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by plate tectonics and erosion, we've lost

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almost all of our own rocks from that age.

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Avery: That's the quiet profundity of it. Mars kept

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the receipts that Earth threw away to

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understand the bombardment that shaped our

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own young planet, the very era when life may

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have been getting started here, we may have

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to read the story off the rocks of Mars.

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Anna: And these are exactly the kinds of samples

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Perseverance has been caching for a future

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return to Earth. Imagine getting a four

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billion year old page of that diary into a

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laboratory.

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Avery: Story four is a big one for the exoplanet

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hunters. And Ana, Uh, I want to flag

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something right up front for our regular

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listeners.

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Anna: Please do, because this could sound familiar

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and it isn't exactly.

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Avery: A few days ago, in Friday's episode, we led

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with a story about the first detection of an

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atmosphere on a rocky world. This is a

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completely different planet, a different

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research team, and a different paper. So

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don't adjust your sets. This is fresh news

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about a different world.

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Anna: The world in question is LHS

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1140 B, a super Earth about

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49 light years away, orbiting a small

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red dwarf star. And it's long been one

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of the most tantalizing planets we know

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because it sits in the habitable zone where

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liquid water could in principle exist.

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Avery: And in a new paper in the journal Science

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published on 16 July, a team

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led from Harvard detected helium

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escaping from the planet. They used the

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Magellan Clay telescope in Chile to catch it.

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Anna: Now, on its own planet, losing gas might

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sound like bad news for an atmosphere, but

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here's the clever twist. Given how old this

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system is, the planet should have lost all

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its primordial helium long ago. The

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fact that we can still detect it escaping

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means something must be replenishing it.

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Avery: And that points to a substantial actively

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maintained atmosphere, rather than a bare

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airless rock, which is exactly the property

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you need if a habitable zone planet is going

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to be genuinely habitable. An atmosphere

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regulates temperature, shields the surface,

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and can hold onto water.

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Anna: This has been one of the great open questions

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for planets around red dwarf stars. Those

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stars are prone to flares that can strip a,

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uh, planet's air away. So finding strong

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evidence that LHS 1140 B

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is holding onto and refreshing an

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atmosphere is a genuinely significant step.

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Avery: It moves this world from promising a dress

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toward address. Worth a very close look.

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And you can bet the James Webb Telescope's

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name is already on the waiting list.

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Anna: Dory5 is a little lighter and I have

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to say, rather delightful.

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Avery, we need to talk about

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spacestream.

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Avery: Words I did not expect to say today, but here

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we are. Researchers at the Okayama University

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of Science in Japan have published the first

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results from something called the Space

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Aquaculture Project. And the question they're

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asking is deeply practical. Can we grow

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seafood in space?

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Anna: Because if we are serious about long stays on

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the moon or Mars, we can't just keep shipping

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up freeze dried meals forever. We need

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closed loop food systems, little self

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sustaining ecosystems that recycle nutrients.

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And a food chain needs more than just plants,

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right?

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Avery: So the team built a clever device, a high

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speed clinostat, essentially a rig that

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spins at around 130 rotations per

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minute to simulate the effects of

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microgravity here on the ground. And into

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that they placed juvenile shrimp along with

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tiny brine shrimp Artemia as their food.

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Anna: And the Key finding is, charmingly,

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the shrimp could still feed. Catching and

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eating prey when your body doesn't know which

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way is down is not trivial. A lot of

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feeding behavior relies on gravity cues. But

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the shrimp managed what suggests

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crustaceans

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Avery: could be a viable link in a future space food

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chain. And it's the published paper in the

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journal Microgravity Science and Technology

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that makes this more than a fun idea. It's an

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actual first data point.

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Anna: A prawn on the barbie Orbital edition.

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Somewhere down the line, an astronaut's

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dinner might start life spinning in a lab

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like this one.

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Avery: Clear skies and apparently clear water.

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And for our last story, we go to the most

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extreme physics in the universe. Because it

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turns out, black holes ring.

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Anna: They do. When two black holes spiral

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together and merge, the newborn black hole

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that results doesn't just settle down

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quietly. It, for a fraction of a second,

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wobbles, it vibrates, and it sheds

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that energy as gravitational waves at very

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specific frequencies. Scientists call it the

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ring down.

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Avery: And the analogy everyone reaches for is a

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bell. Strike a bell and it rings at

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particular tones that depend on its shape,

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its size, its material. A black

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hole is much simpler. Its ring depends on

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essentially just two things, its mass and

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its spin.

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Anna: And that simplicity is the gift. A major

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new review, bringing together researchers

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from the University of Birmingham, Johns

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Hopkins and the University of Lisbon in the

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journal Classical and Quantum Gravity, lays

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out how black hole spectroscopy is

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maturing from a beautiful theory into a real

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working experimental science.

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Avery: And the reason it matters is that it's one of

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the cleanest tests of Einstein we have.

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General relativity makes a very precise

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prediction for what those ring down tones

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should be. If we listen carefully and the

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tones match, Einstein passes another

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brutal exam. If they don't quite match,

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then we

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Anna: might be hearing the first whisper of new

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physics. A crack in the theory under the most

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extreme conditions imaginable.

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Avery: And we're on the cusp of hearing this

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properly. Today's detectors catch hints of

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the ring, but the next generation, the

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Einstein telescope, cosmic explorer and the

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space based LISA mission, will hear these

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black hole bells with real clarity.

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Anna: It's a wonderful thought. The most silent,

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invisible objects in the cosmos, and we're

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learning to listen to them chime before we

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go, our sky watch. And this one's for our

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friends down south, which is a lot of us.

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Avery: There's a large coronal hole on the sun

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that's rotated around to face Earth, and it's

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sending a stream of fast solar wind our way.

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The forecaster is expected to arrive around

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the 21st to 22nd of July.

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Anna: So midweek, which brings a chance,

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and I'll stress chance of some minor

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aurora australis activity for the fall far

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southern latitudes. We're talking Tasmania,

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the south of the south island of New Zealand,

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and similar high magnetic latitude spots.

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Avery: Let's keep expectations sensible. This is a

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modest event, not one of the great storms

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we've had this cycle. Geomagnetic activity in

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the kp3.5 range, so no

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guarantees of curtains of light. But if

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you're somewhere dark and far south midweek,

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it's worth a look toward the southern horizon

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after dark.

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Anna: And with solar maximum conditions still

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lingering, these chances keep coming around.

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Wrap up warm. It is winter down here after

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all.

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Avery: That's our lot for today. From India's first

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private rocket reaching orbit. To shrimp

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learning to dine in free fall. To black holes

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ringing across spacetime. What a spread.

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Anna: Thanks for spending part of your day with us.

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You can find us at astronomydaily,

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IO and on all the socials at

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AstroDailyPod We're back tomorrow.

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Avery: Um, until then, I'm Avery.

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Anna: And I'm Anna. Clear skies everyone.

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Avery: Mhm.