India loses contact with spacecraft trying to land on Moon

1 / 4
Videographic on the Chandrayaan-2 mission. The Indian probe is set to land on the lunar South Pole on Saturday. (AFP)
Updated 07 September 2019
Follow

India loses contact with spacecraft trying to land on Moon

  • A successful landing would make India just the fourth country to land a vessel on the lunar surface, and only the third nation to operate a robotic rover there

BANGALORE, INDIA: India lost contact with its unmanned spacecraft just before it was due to land on the Moon on Saturday, in a blow to the country’s ambitious low-cost lunar program.
India had hoped to become just the fourth country after the United States, Russia and China to successfully land on the Moon.
But as Prime Minister Narendra Modi looked on, the mood in mission control in the southern city of Bangalore soon deteriorated when it became clear that everything was not going according to plan.
After several tense minutes as the expected landing time came and went, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) chairman Kailasavadivoo Sivan announced that communication with the lander had been lost.
“The ‘Vikram’ lander descent was (going) as planned and normal performance was observed,” until the craft had descended to 2.1 kilometers (1.3 miles) above the South Pole region, Sivan said.
“Subsequently the communication from the lander to the ground station was lost. The data is being analyzed,” he said, surrounded by grim-faced engineers and technicians in the control room.
Modi told them after Sivan’s announcement that “what you have done (already) is not a small achievement.” The prime minister was due to address the nation at 0230 GMT.

Chandrayaan-2 — or Moon Chariot 2 — took off on July 22 carrying an orbiter, lander and rover almost entirely designed and made in India, a week after an initial launch was halted just before blast-off.
ISRO had acknowledged before the soft landing that it was a complex maneuver, which Sivan called “15 minutes of terror.”
The lander — named after Vikram A. Sarabhai, the father of India’s space program — aimed to be the first to reach the lunar South Pole region.
It was carrying rover Pragyan, wisdom in the Sanskrit language, which was due to emerge several hours after touchdown.
The rover was expected to explore craters for clues on the origin and evolution of the Moon, and also for evidence on how much water the polar region contains.
The 2.4-ton (5,300-pound) orbiter remains in operation and will circle the Moon for about a year, taking images of the surface, looking for signs of water, and studying the atmosphere.
According to Mathieu Weiss, a representative in India for France’s space agency CNES, analizing the South Pole is vital to determining whether humans could one day spend extended periods on the Moon.
Scientists believe that large amounts of water are in the area, making human settlement there more viable.
If people can survive on the Moon, then this means it could be used as a pitstop on the way to Mars, the next objective of governments and private interests such as Elon Musk’s Space X.

Asia’s third-largest economy also hopes to secure lucrative commercial satellite and orbiting deals in the competitive market.
The Chandrayaan-2 space mission — India’s most ambitious so far — stood out because of its low cost of about $140 million. The United States spent the equivalent of more than $100 billion on its Apollo missions.
India is preparing Gaganyaan, its first manned space mission, with the air force announcing Friday that the first level of selection of potential astronauts was complete.
The South Asian nation also hopes to land a probe on Mars. In 2014, it became only the fourth nation to put a satellite into orbit around the Red Planet.
China in January became the first nation to land a rover on the far side of the Moon. And in April, Israel’s attempt failed at the last minute when its craft suffered an engine failure and apparently crashed onto the lunar surface.
During a live videocast of that mission, control staff could be heard saying that engines meant to slow the craft’s descent and allow a soft landing had failed and contact with it had been lost.
 


Russian attacks kill 18 civilians in Ukraine as Zelensky seeks more Western help

Updated 3 sec ago
Follow

Russian attacks kill 18 civilians in Ukraine as Zelensky seeks more Western help

Zelensky is keen to lock in additional military support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s bigger army
A Russian ballistic missile attack on Dnipro hit multiple civilian sites, killing nine people and injuring more than 100

KYIV: Russian drones, missiles and artillery killed at least 18 civilians and injured more than 100 others in Ukraine, officials said Tuesday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sought guarantees of further Western military aid for his country’s efforts to repel Russia’s invasion.

Russian forces have relentlessly blasted civilian areas of Ukraine throughout the war, which is now in its fourth year. More than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed, according to the United Nations. Ukraine has also launched long-range drones against Russia, hitting residential areas.

Zelensky was set to meet Tuesday with Western leaders attending a NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands. He is keen to lock in additional military support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s bigger army, as recent direct peace talks have delivered no progress on a possible settlement.

Key US military commitments to Ukraine left over from the Biden administration are expected to run out within months, according to analysts, and there is uncertainty over whether US President Donald Trump is willing to provide more.

A Russian ballistic missile attack on Dnipro hit multiple civilian sites in the central Ukrainian city around midday on Tuesday, killing nine people and injuring more than 100, local officials said.

In the nearby town of Samar, an attack killed two people and injured 11, Dnipro’s regional administration head Serhii Lysak wrote on Telegram.

The barrage damaged 19 schools, 10 kindergartens, a vocational school, a music school and a social welfare office, as well as eight medical facilities, according to Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov. One of the blasts blew out the windows of a passenger train.

Russia also shelled residential neighborhoods and critical infrastructure across Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, killing four civilians and wounding at least eleven others, according to Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the regional military administration.

In the Sumy region of northeastern Ukraine, a drone attack late Monday killed three civilians, including a 5-year-old boy, and injured six others, local authorities said.

Among the injured were two 17-year-old girls and a 12-year-old boy, according to officials.

Russian air defense forces overnight shot down 20 Ukrainian drones, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Tuesday morning. It said 14 were downed over the Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, while two had been flying over the Moscow province.

One drone slammed into a tower block on the outskirts of the Russian capital, sparking a fire on its 17th floor, local Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said Tuesday. He said a 34-year-old resident suffered shrapnel wounds to his arm and leg. Two other drones were shot down on the approach to Moscow, according to Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.

Air traffic was briefly halted as a precaution at two major Moscow airports, Vnukovo and Sheremetyevo, a representative of Russia’s aviation authority Rosaviatsiya said.

Merz says NATO spending boost to counter Russia — not please Trump

Updated 24 June 2025
Follow

Merz says NATO spending boost to counter Russia — not please Trump

  • Merz has been racing to build up Germany’s long-neglected armed forces, with the aim of turning them into the ‘strongest conventional army’ in Europe

BERLIN: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz insisted a pledge by NATO allies to boost defense spending at a “historic” summit starting on Tuesday would not just aim to please US President Donald Trump.
“We are not doing this, as some claim, to do the United States and its president a favor,” he told the German parliament before setting off for the gathering in The Hague.
“We are doing this based on our own observations and convictions. Russia, above all, is actively and aggressively threatening security and freedom” across Europe, he added.
“We have to fear that Russia will continue its war beyond Ukraine.”
The summit has been viewed as heavily focused on keeping Trump happy after he made comments that sparked concern about Washington’s commitment to NATO and insisted that other member states spend at least five percent of their GDP on defense.
NATO’s 32 countries have thrashed out a compromise deal to dedicate 3.5 percent to core military spending by 2035, and 1.5 percent to broader security-related areas such as cybersecurity and infrastructure.
On Monday, Europe’s biggest economy revealed plans to reach the 3.5 percent level for core spending six years early — in 2029 — with the vast extra outlays necessary made possible after Germany eased its rules on taking on debt.
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Tuesday that he would head to the NATO summit with the message that “external security and defense capability are once again an absolute priority in (German) government policy.”
“We are bringing about a historic turnaround in defense spending.”
On the summit, he said there were “good signs” about “the broad consensus on how to proceed... I see no reason to assume that we will be given the cold shoulder.”
Since taking office in May, Merz has been racing to build up Germany’s long-neglected armed forces, with the aim of turning them into the “strongest conventional army” in Europe — a radical shift in a country with strong pacifist traditions due to its dark wartime past.
A drive has been launched to boost military personnel, which aims to attract 11,000 fresh recruits this year alone — and Pistorius has suggested conscription, which was halted in Germany in 2011, could be reintroduced if too few people sign up voluntarily.
Germany is also building up a permanent military brigade in Lithuania — the country’s first such overseas deployment since World War II — to bolster NATO’s eastern flank against Russia.


Vietnam aims to sign nuclear power plant deal with Russia in August

Updated 24 June 2025
Follow

Vietnam aims to sign nuclear power plant deal with Russia in August

  • The move follows Vietnam’s restart of plans to develop nuclear power plants
  • It is expected to be online between 2030 and 2035

HANOI: Vietnam’s government said on Tuesday it aims to sign an agreement with its Russian counterpart in August to build the Southeast Asian country’s first nuclear power plant.

Site clearance for development of the plant in Ninh Thuan province is to be completed by the end of this year, the government said in a statement.

The move follows Vietnam’s restart of plans to develop nuclear power plants that were suspended nearly a decade ago, as part of its efforts to ramp up its power generation capacity to support its fast-growing economy.

The government has previously said it expected the first nuclear power plants with a combined capacity of up to 6.4 gigawatts to be online between 2030 and 2035.

The government said on Tuesday it has told the finance ministry, central bank, state energy firm Petrovietnam and utility firm EVN to work with related parties on loans for the project.


Indonesian researchers unearth 500,000-year-old elephant fossils in Java

Updated 24 June 2025
Follow

Indonesian researchers unearth 500,000-year-old elephant fossils in Java

  • Researchers say found elephant fossils may be almost complete 
  • Central Java is also location of archaeological site Sangiran, where ‘Java Man’ was found

Jakarta: Indonesian researchers have discovered fossils of a prehistoric elephant in Central Java, which they estimate are around 500,000 years old. 

The fossils were found in Patiayam, an archaeological site and mountainous area situated on the border of the Kudus and Pati regencies in Central Java, where, throughout the years, ancient animal fossils have been found.

In 2024, a collaborative team organized by the Center for Prehistory and Austronesian Studies, the Dharma Bakti Lestari Foundation and the National Research and Innovation Agency, known locally as BRIN, launched a research project at the site to explore fossil possibilities. 

Though the initial discovery was made then, researchers postponed the project until this year and expanded the site of excavation, which is still ongoing. 

“Based on the geological formation of the site where it was found, we estimate that the fossils are at least 500,000 years old, give or take. We have yet to conduct a direct dating of the fossils, so this is based on a relative dating of the soil layer,” Mohammad Ruly Fauzi, researcher at CPAS and BRIN, told Arab News. 

“We have been able to identify that these belong to an elephas type, but not the specific species … What’s clear is that this is a very big elephant, nothing like elephants today …. It’s prehistoric, not early historic period.”

He said the excavation has made about 50 percent progress and that the elements found so far make up the front part of an elephant. 

“It’s interesting because this is shaping up to be an almost complete fossil … They are all situated pretty closely.” 

Once the excavation is completed, the fossils will be preserved as part of a collection at the Patiayam Archaeological Museum. The discovery might help Patiayam gain recognition as a cultural heritage site, Fauzi added. 

“Every site has its own unique qualities, but Patiayam site is particularly interesting and very deserving to gain status as a national cultural heritage site in our opinion … This research can help serve as a foundation for officials to decide,” he said. 

Central Java, where Patiayam is located, is also home to the Sangiran Early Man Site, a UNESCO World Heritage site renowned for its significant collection of Homo erectus fossils, dating from 1.1 million to 800,000 years ago, including the “Java Man.” 


Ukraine has cleared 20 percent of mined land, PM says

Updated 24 June 2025
Follow

Ukraine has cleared 20 percent of mined land, PM says

KYIV: Ukraine has intensified efforts to clear land mines and has cut the affected area to around 137,000 square km (53,000 square miles), a 20 percent reduction from the end of 2022, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Tuesday.
Most of the remaining mined areas are farmland, Shmyhal added.
Ukraine is a global major grain grower but it reduced harvests sharply after Russia’s 2022 invasion left large areas occupied and mined.
Shmyhal said about 9,000 people from 112 specialized companies are now involved in mine clearance.
Military analysts say Ukraine needs at least 10 years to demine all territories.