Recent 6 months news in Science

Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has inaugurated the first Integrated Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) field laboratory facility in India at the IIT Bombay.

The facility is established under the ‘Bharat Innovates 2026’ initiative to advance research and development in carbon management. It is to be noted that the CCUS technology used in the laboratory is being promoted by UrjanovaC.

The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), under the Department of Consumer Affairs, has organized the 35th Plenary and Working Groups meetings of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee (TC) 20 / Subcommittee (SC) 14. The meetings for the ‘Space Systems and Operations’ subcommittee were hosted for the first time in India at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi.

The event saw the participation of 131 international delegates from 13 countries. It is to be noted that the ISO/TC 20/SC 14 is responsible for developing international standards for space systems to ensure safety and sustainability in global space activities.

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research – Central Road Research Institute (CSIR-CRRI) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) have developed “Phoenix Geocell”, India’s first technical textile geocell made from 100% end-of-life mixed plastic waste.

The technology uses a 3-dimensional (3D) honeycomb-like structure made from processed mixed plastic waste. It is to be noted that the innovation has been recognized by the “India Book of Records” and “Asia Book of Records” during a ceremony at the CSIR-CRRI auditorium in New Delhi.

The IIT Madras Global Research Foundation has announced the establishment of its first international centre in Menlo Park, California.

The centre is designed to provide Indian deep-tech enterprises with access to international capital, markets, professional mentorship, and global partnerships. A total investment of $7.5 million is planned for the project.

Union Minister Jitendra Singh has unveiled two AI-enabled weather forecasting models to provide hyperlocal monsoon and rainfall data. The models were collaboratively developed by the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, and the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF).

The “AI-Enabled Monsoon Advance Forecasting System” provides subdistrict or block-level forecasting for the first time, covering 3,196 blocks across 15 states and 1 Union Territory (UT) in the rainfed monsoon core zone of India. It is to be noted that the system predicts monsoon progression up to 4 weeks in advance with an error margin of 4 days.

The “High Spatial Resolution Rainfall Forecast” is a pilot project in Uttar Pradesh that uses the “Mithuna” weather model to downscale 12.5-km grids to a 1-km resolution. It generates specific rainfall forecasts for up to 10 days in advance.

Prabhat Kumar, the High Commissioner of India to South Africa, has handed over the official banner of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) to the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) in Cape Town. The banner will be permanently displayed at the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) facility.

It is to be noted that the IUCAA, situated in Pune, is an institution dedicated to research and education in the fields of astronomy and astrophysics.

The first green methanol production facility of India is being established at the Deendayal Port Authority (DPA) in Kutch, Gujarat.

The project is being executed by Thermax Ltd for Synthesis in collaboration with Ankur Scientific. The plant has an initial production capacity of 5 tonnes per day. It is to be noted that the facility uses advanced biomass gasification technology to convert Prosopis juliflora (an invasive shrub locally known as ‘Gando Baval’) into green marine fuel for ocean-going vessels.

OP Jindal Global University (JGU), located in Sonipat, Haryana, has become the first Institute of Eminence (IoE) in India to receive accreditation from the Data Science Council of America (DASCA). The accreditation was granted under the “World Data Sciences & AI Initiative” (WDSAI) and remains valid until 2031.

OpenAI has launched a cybersecurity-focused initiative named “Daybreak” to assist software developers and security teams in detecting vulnerabilities, validating fixes, and accelerating system patching using AI tools.

It is to be noted that the launch follows the introduction of “Mythos” by Anthropic, which is an advanced cybersecurity AI system developed under the “Project Glasswing” initiative.

Pixxel, a space technology enterprise, has secured a contract from the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) of the USA under the Commercial Systems Program Office (CSPO).

The agreement focuses on the development of advanced hyperspectral remote sensing capabilities, a technology used to identify materials and chemical processes, utilizing the Firefly satellite constellation.

SpaceX has launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, USA.

The mission deployed the CAS500-2 Earth observation satellite of the Republic of Korea and 45 secondary rideshare payloads into a Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO). It is to be noted that the operation was conducted as a multi-customer rideshare mission to facilitate the orbital placement of various technological instruments.

M Ravichandran, Secretary of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), has inaugurated the Open-Field Observatory of the Coastal Atmospheric Research Testbed (C-ART) at Andhra University in Visakhapatnam.

The facility, established by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), will serve as a specialized coastal weather research center. It is developed under ‘Mission Mausam’ at an estimated cost of ₹180 crore. It is to be noted that this is the first such weather testbed on the east coast of India.

Skyroot Aerospace has become the first space-technology unicorn of India after raising $60 million (₹570 crore) in a funding round, reaching a valuation of $1.1 billion. The company will use the capital to scale manufacturing operations and accelerate the development of the ‘Vikram’ series of rockets.

The Bengaluru City Police has launched a multilingual AI integration within the ‘Namma 112’ Emergency Response Support System (ERSS) to enhance accessibility and inclusivity. This is the first-of-its-kind initiative in India.

The integration utilizes the Multilingual Voice AI for Nationwide Key Interventions (VANKI) system, which was developed in collaboration with technical partners Monday Ventures and Aeos.

Bengaluru-based GalaxEye has launched “Mission Drishti”, the largest and heaviest privately developed Earth observation satellite (EOS) of India to date. The 190 kg satellite was launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket of SpaceX from California, USA. It is the world’s first operational “OptoSAR” satellite, which combines Electro-Optical (EO) sensors and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) on a single platform. This allows for 24/7 all-weather surveillance through clouds, rain, and darkness, providing high-resolution imagery at 1.5-meter.

It is to be noted that the EOS uses the NVIDIA Jetson Orin platform for onboard AI to process data in orbit for faster results. This mission is the first step toward a planned constellation of 8 to 12 satellites by 2029 to 2030 for real-time global coverage.

Pixxel has partnered with Sarvam to develop and operate the first orbital data centre satellite of India named “Pathfinder”. The 200 kg-class spacecraft is projected to be deployed in orbit by the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2026.

It is to be noted that Pixxel will handle the design, construction, and launch of the satellite, while Sarvam will integrate an AI framework to facilitate on-orbit training and inference through full-stack language models.

Telangana CM A Revanth Reddy has flagged off the flight hardware of “Vikram-1”, the first privately developed orbital rocket of India, from the Skyroot Aerospace Max-Q campus in Hyderabad to the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota.

Vikram-1 is a multi-stage launch vehicle designed to transport satellites weighing up to 350 kg into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which covers the region from 160 km to 2,000 km above the Earth. The maiden flight, tentatively scheduled for June 2026, will be a demonstration mission to validate the orbital capabilities of the vehicle through the deployment of several CubeSats. It is to be noted that the mission is subject to final approval from the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Center (IN SPACe).

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has launched the Pakistan Remote Sensing Satellite–Earth Observation-3 (PRSC-EO3) of Pakistan onboard the Long March-6 rocket.

The mission, conducted from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Shanxi, China, successfully placed the satellite into its designated orbit. It is to be noted that this marks the 640th mission of the Long March series of rockets.

NASA has unveiled the “Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope”, a wide-field observatory designed to survey the universe and detect exoplanets. The telescope is named after Nancy Grace Roman, the first Chief Astronomer of NASA who is known as the ‘mother of the Hubble Space Telescope’.

It is to be noted that the project, developed over 10 years at a cost of $4 billion, will be stationed 1.5 million km from the Earth. The system is capable of transmitting 11 terabytes (TB) of data daily to the Earth.

Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos, has launched the BlueBird 7 communications satellite of AST SpaceMobile onboard the New Glenn rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The mission failed to reach the intended orbit during its third flight. It is to be noted that the New Glenn rocket is recognized as the first commercial rocket to reach orbit on its maiden flight in January 2025.