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Friday, January 9, 2026
TopicSpacecraft

Topic: Spacecraft

A 1972 Soviet-era spacecraft never reached Venus. Stuck in space for 50 yrs, it’s now crashing back down

ScientiFix, our weekly feature, offers you a summary of the top global science stories of the week, with links to their sources.

Texas-based firm achieves first moon landing in more than half a century with private spacecraft

The six-legged robot lander, dubbed Odysseus, touched down at about 6:23 pm EST (2323 GMT), the company and NASA commentators said.

Japan working on 1st ever biodegradable satellite, made of magnolia wood

Kyoto University engineers plan to launch the tiny wooden satellite, LignoSat, to reduce space pollution. It is expected to fly this yr and operate in space for at least 6 months.

Aditya-L1 gets ‘send off’ from Earth’s orbit after ISRO performs key manouevre

Aditya-L1 is the first Indian space-based observatory to study the Sun from a halo orbit around first Sun-Earth Lagrangian point (L1), located roughly 1.5 million km from earth.

Chandrayaan-3 shows more than just ISRO’s excellence. It’s the STEM catalyst India needed

Having millions of young Indians enthusiastically engaging with science and technology is a huge return on investment on a mission like Chandrayaan-3. It will create several ripple effects.

On Camera

Why Pinarayi Vijayan is going soft on an Ezhava leader’s anti-Muslim hate speech

Pinarayi Vijayan once called Vellappally Natesan, the general secretary of SNDP Yogam, Kerala’s Pravin Togadia. Now he is giving his hate speech a free pass.

500% tariffs ahead for India? Trump’s lined up a big bad Bill for countries buying Russian oil

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham says bill will be 'well-timed, as Ukraine is making concessions for peace and Putin is all talk, continuing to kill the innocent'.

2025: Pakistan’s deadliest year in over a decade

Islamabad-based think-tank PICSS's new report says Pakistan saw 'pronounced escalation' in violence last year, with 3,413 conflict-related deaths compared to 1,950 in previous year.

A year-end Mea Culpa in National Interest—The Army-Islam combo doesn’t kill democracy

Many of you might think I got something so wrong in National Interest pieces written this year. I might disagree! But some deserve a Mea Culpa. I’d deal with the most recent this week.