As part of the Transporter-18 rideshare mission, several Indian payloads representing four space startups were successfully placed into orbit using SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. The launch took place at 00:02 Indian Standard Time on Friday, October 2nd.
One of these payloads belongs to MIRA, a company developing a pilot project for a planned constellation of small satellites. This flight occurred after the company faced the cancellation of previous launch plans due to the loss of the PSLV-C62 mission on January 12th.
Chetan Kumar, Senior Assistant Editor at The Times of India, specializes in science and space topics. Additionally, he has covered various subjects extensively, with a particular focus on defense issues, politics, and data analysis. Throughout his nearly eighteen-year career, he has worked from numerous locations, including Houston, Florida, Kochi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Sriharikota (AP), New Delhi, and others, with his primary base being in Bengaluru, India's scientific hub where ISRO is headquartered.