Parallel Spirals

Standing on the shores of space-time…

Blog

  • Vikram 1 Mission Aagaman Successful

    Vikram 1 lifted-off as if in a hurry from the First Launch Pad on 18 July 2026 at 12:05 PM. It cleared the launch pad and headed to orbit and placed two satellites in orbit. We now have India’s first successful launch of a launch vehicle by a non-governmental entity.

    I live-tooted on Mastodon where things remain calm. People just went crazy on X. A stream of congratulations followed.

    Before lift-off

    I have been recovering after a surgery earlier in the week. Hence, my father was also at home. I casted the webcast on YouTube on my TV. I was active on WhatsApp, Mastodon, and X.

    The webcast commentary frequently spoke over the callouts. You could hear the callouts better on the X webstream. However, I was not able to cast the X webstream on the TV.

    The lift-off reached a hold 5 minutes before lift-off scheduled for 11:30 AM. We saw that it was a Navigation Monitoring Failure hold. After a few minutes of discussions, the Automatic Launch Sequence was re-started with the lift-off time set to 12:05 PM. There were some anxious faces in the Mission Control Center.

    Countdown and Lift-off

    I breathed the first sigh of relief when the countdown went beyond the 5 minute mark. As the countdown went into 5 second call outs to each second countdown to zero, there was a great sense of being part of history.

    I felt there was a brief pause before the launch vehicle leaped off the launch pad. Lift-off and clearing the launch pad was an important launch milestone. The launch vehicle had not exploded on or off the launch pad. That was an achievement!

    The camera angle immediately after lift-off felt weird. The cheers from the Skyroot Aerospace team went over the calls for MaxQ. The graphs were textbook for the first two stages.

    There were some beautiful on-board camera views. The blue Earth just beyond the plume of the solid stage was a sight to behold.

    Trouble (that did not affect the overall launch) seems to start after the Stage III cutoff. There was a combined coast phase where the spent third stage flew with the fourth stage. When the third stage separated, it seemed to push towards the fourth stage and hit it gently.

    There seemed to be worry also when there seemed to be a temporary loss of signal from the vehicle a little after fourth stage ignition and well before satellite separation.

    It may have been because the signal switch between Indonesia and Australia or because the stage may have rolled.

    We got back to images of the Earth in the background. There was another round of celebration. More followed when the satellites separated. The indications on the screen seemed to indicate they had planned somethings that didn’t work but they skipped mentioning them until they happened.

    Payloads on-board Vikram 1 Mission Aagaman
    Dawn of a new era of private Indian rocketeers

    The image of the Sun rising over the payloads seen through the Cosmic diamond was just a goosebump-inducing experience.

    I switched off the webcast after the end of the stream with the announcement of completion of a mission. I then hung out on X asking questions and listening to answers.

    Payloads

    Grahaa Space announced that it has achieved mission objectives.

    Cosmoserve Space said that “The robotic petals which were supposed to open could not do so due to an unusual settling of the petals which might have been caused by a combination of extreme space conditions.”

    There was nothing heard about the Skyroot’s SCOPE satellite.

    There was independent confirmation of mission success by Space Force.

    Congratulations and God Speed! Skyroot Aerospace.

    The live webcast was taken down and a new trimmed video was uploaded after the Prime Minister’s mobile number leaked on the live webcast.

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  • Skyroot’s Historic Launch

    I understand if you could not be a part of history in 1980.

    https://x.com/i/status/2073705836665516043

    I hope you will take the time to watch the attempt on 18 July 2026 at 11:30 am (IST). India’s launch of the first private sector-built launch vehicle from Sriharikota. Watch here.

  • Vikram 1

    Before the launch of Vikram 1, I wanted to put together what is known from various online sources about the launch vehicle and the various payloads that will fly.

    The first launch by a private launch vehicle from Indian soil is on the horizon. The latest NOTAM put out seems to point at a launch sometime after July 12 (and latest by August 4) from the First Launch Pad at Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota. NOTAMs can change. The first mission of Vikram 1 is the Flight Test 1 or Mission Aagaman (Arrival).

    [Update [10 July 2026]: The latest NOTAM puts the launch at after July 18.]

    Vikram 1 is a four stage launch vehicle. The first three stages are solid and the fourth stage is liquid. The first three stages are powered by the Kalam 1200, Kalam 250, and Kalam 100 engines respectively. The fourth stage is called an Orbital Adjustment Module is powered by four Raman 2 engines.

    Skyroot Aerospace has been building a launch vehicle since their first test of Kalam 5 in December 2020. Their subsequent tests tested out bigger size solid motors – the Kalam 250 in March 2024. They also worked on the liquid fuelled Raman 2 engines since July 2023.

    Visit the Skyroot Aerospace YouTube channel for some wonderful videos.

    Skyroot Aerospace’s first launch was the Vikram S. Named after Dr. Vikram Sarabhai—the father of India’s space program—it successfully reached a peak altitude of 89.5 km during its historic maiden flight on November 18, 2022, from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre. They launched from their own launch pad.

    There have been reports in regional media about the launch as the rocket segments moved from their factory in Hyderabad to Sriharikota. The fuel that the solid stages were to be used were to be filled at ISRO Solid Propellant Plant (SPP) at Sriharikota.

    Skyroot announced the payloads on 6 July 2026.

    Dcubed (Deployables Cubed GmbH) is a German NewSpace hardware manufacturer headquartered near Munich, specializing in in-space manufacturing and deployable space technologies. They are widely known for producing high-performance micro-actuators, release nuts, launch locks, and deployable solar arrays designed to maximize payload power while minimizing launch volume. Dcubed plans to demonstrate its proprietary space hardware technologies: the uD3PP (micro Dcubed Pin Puller) and the mD3RN (micro Dcubed Release Nut).

    Grahaa Space (legally registered as zSpaze Technologies Pvt. Ltd.) is a prominent Bengaluru-based Indian spacetech startup focused on Earth observation. Founded by former ISRO scientist Dr. Loganathan Muthuswamy and ex-IBM/Dell executive Ramesh Kumar V, the company is building an advanced constellation of nano-satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) designed to stream near-real-time, high-resolution geospatial video data.

    Their first mission, Solaras S2 which flew on South Korea’s HANBIT-NANO operated by Innospace launched on December 23, 2025, from the Alcântara Space Center in Brazil due to a launch failure. This is their next mission.

    Cosmoserve Space is an emerging Indian space technology startup specialized in Active Debris Removal (ADR) and space sustainability. Founded in 2025 by former ISRO scientist Chiranjeevi Phanindra, the company is headquarted in Hyderabad. They are developing autonomous, robotic spacecraft designed to safely de-orbit dead satellites and dangerous orbital clutter.

    The founders page on the Cosmoserve website puts Skyroot’s founder Pawan Chandana as a Founding Partner. Pawan gets to play a role in both putting satellites in orbit and helping with their end of mission.

    Cosmoserve released their mission patch in a video on LinkedIn. Varun Guru posted a nice explainer on how the mission is expected to work on X.

    There is very little known about the satellite that Skyroot has built.

    Cosmos Diamonds is sending a lab grown orbit into space. Watch this video for more:

    I hope they also reveal the story behind the micro sculpture. I was able to find the website of the artist Ajay Kumar Mattewada.

    While the focus will primarily be on the launch vehicle, I had fun learning about these ‘payloads’ as well.

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  • World TechComm Day 2026 in Pune

    The Society for Technical Communications (STC) India chapter held the World TechComm Day 2026 celebrations simultaneously in Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Mumbai on 6 June 2026.

    I went to the venue with Rakesh ettan in his car, Hatchi. We reached on time and met up with some former colleagues. One of my former colleagues was also presenting.

    Building a Strategic AI Roadmap

    The first session that I liked was on Building a Strategic Artificial Intelligence (AI) Roadmap for Technical Communication by Snehal Yerawadekar of Philips. The talk was about implementing AI in a technical communications team within a highly regulated sector – medical devices.

    Snehal began by talking about why AI matters in technical writing. She says that product and content complexity, faster release cycles, localization demands, and higher customer expectations. AI enables TechComm teams to meet this demand.

    She continues that an AI strategy must provide business value (align the AI strategy with the business unit strategy), focus on the key aspects (turn the priorities in the business unit into measurable outcomes), keeping with the trend (anticipate and adapt to the latest trends and review organizational policies and change existing business models to advance the TechComm team), and Collaboration.

    She then spoke about having an AI ready team (with an AI mindset), manage processes with Management, and leveraging technology by using solutions that align with the strategy. She then went ahead about how she used these principles to implement an AI strategy in Philips and the future projects that they are working on.

    Shifting Style Guides to AI Skills

    The second talk I want to talk about is Editing at AI Speed: Shifting Style Guides to AI Skills by Amruta Hungund at Salesforce.

    She begins by saying that human is at the center at Salesforce. It is AI + human. She says that all the style guides that technical writers so adore must be rethought of as a rules engine for AI.

    She says there are two types of checks one does against a style guide. One is deterministic checks (which are yes/no rules) like spell check, grammar rules, punctuation rules, mandatory format requirements etc., AI can fix these easily without needing a human in the loop. For probabilistic checks, like context and meaning, nuanced tone adjustments, logic flow and arguments, etc., it is better to have humans in the loop.

    She says that the Rules Engine does not need conversational essays on brand philosophy, basic grammar remediation, sometimes rules etc. She suggests that rules must have a list of negative constraints, versioning, product names, voice and tone, sentence simplification, etc.

    The style guide must then be optimized for the use as an AI rules engine. This means having conditions like “max_words_per_sentence”: 25 instead of “Avoid overly long sentences to ensure readability and clear flow.” After optimizing the style guide, she suggests using Google Gems (or your stand-in for skills). She defines a Gem as an addition of a prompt to a rules engine.

    She also suggests using a Gem to collect data from the style guide to optimize the Gem.

    She asked what was the job of human in the loop – governance, conflict resolution, and understanding the larger context.

    She suggested a podcast towards the end of her talk – The Culture of Writing podcast. Episode 30, in particular. But, it is a Salesforce channel podcast.

    Quiz

    I was part of a team that won a quiz. Mugdha (who took my interview at my present workplace), Rakesh, and I were in the team.

    We wrote answers in the first round on a piece of a paper as a team. After we submitted the paper, we ended up as one of four teams that was part of an oral round which we topped after breaking a tie-breaker.

    Overall

    We loved the tea and snacks at the venue. This was my first networking event as a technical writer and felt that it was quite well organized and I enjoyed the quality of people and conversations we had. I didn’t take any photographs. Will add them if I get them with due credits. 🙂

    Snehal wrote this nice appreciation post on LinkedIn.

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  • Weekly Notes 27/2026

    I didn’t do a good job with keeping a daily note this week.

    Manuel Moreale who runs a People and Blogs series had an interview with a blogger, Andy Baio whose answers really resonated with me.

    He says, “I wanted a place of my own online, somewhere to experiment and write about weird corners of internet culture, online community, and copyright, as well as a sandbox for new experimental projects of my own.“

    And further: “My frequency of posting has waned over the years, first cannibalized by social media and then by larger life and work stuff. I’ve recently found myself drawn back to it, posting more regularly, trying to wake those atrophied writing muscles. Even if I’ve slowed down, it’s hard to ever imagine stopping entirely.“

    This could easily be me explaining my blog post writing statistics to you.

    I find that people are writing on their own websites again, even if not as a blog per se. I think they want to put out their version of things themselves.

    As Baio writes, “The ability to directly reach the people who care most about your work, outside of the capricious nature of social media algorithms, is essential.“

    I want to invest some time in re-acquainting myself with the Bullet Journal method.

    It has been raining endlessly through the weekend. It has been gloomy and there has been some water logging in the areas where I live.

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  • Weekly Notes 26/2026

    Sun, 22 June 2026

    I had fallen off from using my Bullet Journal since I went to Kerala. I had hoped to revive the practice on this day. I couldn’t.

    I have started thinking again about my usage of social media apps. I am increasingly using Instagram more than X or Mastodon. Many of the people I follow on YouTube have also become more active on Instagram. One of the reasons I remain on X is because most of the space ecosystem hangs out there.

    I am also re-evaluating my software licenses and payments made to them.

    Mon, 23 June 2026

    Kunal Shah announced that he was joining WhatsApp as its Global Head on X. The statement specifically says that Meta will not have access to CRED data (which could include firms under it like Kuvera, an investment app).

    This has me worried about software dependencies which I had been thinking about since Sunday.

    Vivek Raju’s comment also on X was interesting. He spotted something:

    A common trend seen among loss-making tech startups is their founders being to looksmaxx around the time profitability kicks in.

    This sounded like a strategy similar to that Chris Camillo mentioned in an episode of MyFirstMillion podcast. Camillo says that he looks at TikTok and social media for signals about companies to invest in given that financial data does not give everyone enough leverage in picking stocks.

    Talking about investments, Saurabh Mukherjea has a video out promoting Marcellus’ Multi-Asset portfolio, in which he suggests a portfolio that invests 20% each in Nifty 50, S&P 500, Debt, Gold, and Cash.

    I also heard a nice talk by author G Madhusoodanan in Malayalam about living a life when we are surrounded by so many crises around us. He has a book called Life in the Time of Polycrisis that comes out in July 2026.

    Tuesday, 24 June 2026

    Suresh Menon talks about the origin story of Kamla ka Hamla which used to air on 93.5 Red FM.

    I wrote a post with the highlights from a talk that Kunal Shah gave at the Groww Investor’s Festival.

    I realised that other blog posts are also pending and hence I started work on the blog post about the return from Palakkad to Pune.

    Thursday, 26 June 2026

    I mostly worked on getting the details into the blog post and focussed on work.

    I am watching a series called Vikram on Duty along with my family. It releases 4 episodes each Friday. Each episode is just 25 minutes long. The crime investigation episode suggests across 3.5 episodes. The last 0.5 of the episode is the start of the next investigation. Vikram gets all the clues and solves crime single-handedly despite having three sidekicks. Some of the episodes involve some funny scenes like catching an international drug kingpin using nothing other than child lock in the vehicle.

    Friday, 27 June 2026

    I started the day with news that Om Malik had died. I have read Om on and off over the years. I really enjoyed reading his long form pieces that were thought provoking and changed the way I looked at the technology world. I really liked Matt and Arun’s writing on his passing.

    We watched and completed Made in India: A Titan Story which talks of the story of the birth of Titan, the watch brand. Dhanya found it quite inspiring.

    Saturday, 27 June 2026

    I finished writing the post about the return journey from Palakkad to Pune and posted it on the blog.

    These are two series that I enjoyed watching on Instagram:

    One talks about a boy learning from and playing chess with his father.

    Another series that I watched was on architect Laurie Baker. I had read his website in 2007 when it was hosted on Geocities.

    She also talks about a slum rehabilitation project that Baker undertook in Thiruvananthapuram.

    I am really enjoying not just reading but watching about these projects.

    I had finished watching Person of Interest on Sunday. I then went ahead and caught up with the episodes of Vikram on Duty. I have caught up with all episodes released on Friday. We then watched the Titan story on Friday night.

    I watched the Tamil movie Karuppu and did not enjoy it.

    I read 7 Steps to Financial Freedom by Maneesh Taneja. It clarified some of the concepts that were not very clear but I found it an okay book.

    The Pineapple Elaichi Book Club that I am a member of announced a read-along of The Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson. I got the Audible copy of the first book The Way of Kings. I will be listening to this on my drives to and from work.

    I still have to figure out how to write these Weekly Notes.

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  • Palakkad to Pune

    The Logan’s clutch plate gave up in one of the many trips we took while visiting relatives in Kerala. We gave the vehicle to the garage to get it fixed and were told that the car would not be ready in time for our return on Saturday.

    This meant that we started our return on Sunday, 31 May 2026.

    We started early in the morning and made our way to Coimbatore. Google Maps pointed us to a road in parallel to L&T Bypass in Coimbatore and we followed that path. Rakesh ettan also confirmed that they were suggested the same route yesterday (30 May).

    We made the breakfast stop at Sree Sarvana Bhavan at 8:30 AM. We’ve stopped here each time we have passed through and have had good food here.

    We had to make more frequent refuelling stops as my fuel gauge was not giving the correct picture. The fuel tank would be full and the gauge would show that it is not. I refuelled every 300 km or so.

    Rakesh ettan told us that they had a huge traffic going into Bengaluru at the Atibele toll. Hence, we decided to have an early lunch when we reach Atibele and do not want to be stuck hungry in the Bengaluru traffic.

    We stopped for lunch at Srinidhi Vaibhav, a little before the toll gate. There was a police vehicle outside the restaurant but the huge contingent was only taking an early lunch break as well.

    We had nearly empty roads through Electronics City as we made our way to NICE road to bypass the city and go towards Tumkur. There were many by-passes as work was in progress on the Highway.

    We made more time in the evening. We were discussing in the car about where to take our stop. I wanted to stop in Hubli again but at the different location other than Hotel Naveen. Rakesh ettan had stopped at the Fortune Park Airport Hotel. We decided to stop at the same spot.

    We stopped at a nice stop called Naivedyam Family Restaurant at Madakaripura and got a few nice pics from outside the restaurant.

    We reached the Fortune Park Airport Hotel at 9 PM. We had called the hotel earlier when we reached Naivedyam. They had told us that the stay for the kids was free. However, when we reached the hotel they charged more for the extra bed that they would need to sleep in than the cost of the room. Do they expect the kids to sleep on the floor?

    I left the point as we were tired after a long drive and paid up. We liked the dinner at night which was a buffet style. There was work in progress in the hotel and so the gym, the swimming pool, and the spa were closed. Hence, we started at 7 am in the morning.

    Google Maps pointed us to a way that took us out to the Highway directly and we were riding in under-construction highway roads which we usually skip when we go to Hotel Naveen.

    We stopped at Hotel Udipi Vaibhav for breakfast around 8 am. We enjoyed the food and had great service there.

    We stopped at Atithi Family Restaurant for an early lunch a little after half past midday, after we crossed over into Maharashtra. We got to fill our stomachs but the food wasn’t the greatest.

    We reached home a little before 5 PM on Monday. I think the fact that it was a Monday hit us only after we reached home. We missed the early evening traffic of office-goers returning home.

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  • Kunal Shah on Wealth in the AI era

    Kunal Shah recently announced on X that he was taking a back seat in CRED to head WhatsApp Global. Meta also invested $900 million into CRED.

    He spoke at the Groww India Investor Festival 2026 in May 2026. This video was posted on their YouTube channel a few days back.

    If you assume that you do not have much control over the environment we are in today, then you should consider these points.

    Below are a few pointers from that talk:

    • Internet made information accessible. AI made intelligence accessible.
    • The largest employer in the world is inefficiency. The pace at which inefficiency is reducing is accelerating.
    • People are worried about job lay-offs. But, people must be equally if not more worried about per capita income not growing.
    • There is a big and increasing difference between people who use technology and who does not use technology. He gives the example of an auto rickshaw driver plying with and without technology. He claims that the driver who uses technology, he earns more.
    • People wait for corporations and governments to teach them about AI.
    • People must learn AI themselves. Everything is available. Bulk of the people use AI for frivolous use case (editing pictures and videos, talking to ChatGPT as a friend while getting rid of real friends, therapy, and astrology).
    • The most valuable wealth you have is time. How one spends the time is becoming more critical now.
    • We do not value time in India. For example, he states that there are no words for productivity and efficiency in Indian languages other than compound words.
    • Time is a post-industrial age concept whose importance India has not understood. Since Indians are not paid in hours, Indians think in months and not hours.
    • Shah claims that Indian internet usage is 35 GB per capita per month. It is extremely easy to waste time.
    • India has two extreme modes – panic or apathy. No modes in the middle.
    • Individuals must create a mission-mindset to think what we need to ride this wave. The time needed to do something or learn something has shrunk.
    • India has not built resilient industries.
    • India must increase participation of women in the workforce to increase the per capita income.
    • Individuals cannot say that they are not good with technology. Individuals must not make excuses. Do not take short cuts to success. Instead, build substance in yourself to become wealthy. Substance requires sacrifice.
    • Indians must become significantly more ambitious, more skilful, and understand things.
    • Notice that pain and struggle preceeds success. Removing that struggle makes success more difficult.
    • Privileged people need to take more risk. For example, if nothing failure as an entrepreneur can make you a great employee.
    • It is now possible to 10x your income.
    • You are the average of the 5 people you hang out with.
    • Protection by regulation will make India less globally competitive.
    • 90% of the code written by AI in CRED. 10% of the people in tech companies are infinitely ahead of 90% of the people because of the use of technology. These are the 10x people.
    • Final words on getting rich in the AI era:
      • Get extraordinary at learning.
      • Think of the people you are surrounded by. Think in terms of XIRR.
      • Think of yourself in terms of XIRR. Increase your XIRR.
      • Think of yourself as an app. Fix your bugs, make your features better, and ship constantly.
      • Learn tech from younger people. Learn values from older people.
      • Be extraordinarily adaptable.
      • Don’t waste your time at events.
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  • Weekly Notes 25/2026

    I have nothing to report this week. The upcoming week is exciting, though.

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  • Weekly Notes 24/2026

    It’s been 20 years since I registered on WordPress.com.

    7 June 2026 Sunday

    I decided to change the way that I write Weekly Notes into these daily paragraphs inspired by reading this. I wrote the Weekly Notes 23/2026 in this format. Let’s see how long I can keep up. Friends came over to see our home.

    8 June 2026 Monday

    Kids were both unwell. We asked the friends who had come over on the day before if they were OK. It helped us to narrow down what could have caused the issue. I Googled 6 7 and learnt about a neat little trick that Google does. I found out Shubha Mudgal has a Substack.

    9 June 2026 Tuesday

    My wife celebrated her birthday. We had a small cake cutting ceremony in the evening. We had an intimate event.

    10 June 2026 Wednesday

    I learnt that Malayalam actor Salim Kumar had passed away. Read this article on his life on X among other tributes. I also read a blog post about the evolution of Marathi. Nidheesh M K wrote about how a video posted on YouTube ripped one year of his hardwork. I also read about face fatigue written by Shephali Bhatt.

    I learnt about the original jugaad.

    11 June 2026 Thursday

    A nice look at @zenrainman’s garden and water management system.

    12 June 2026 Friday

    I went for the periodical medical test sponsored by my workplace. I also made my way through the ശ്രീ ലളിതോപാഖ്യാനം (Sri Lalithopvakhyanam) as told by Sharath A Haridasan.

    13 June 2026 Saturday

    The US Government blocked access to Fable 5 citing national security. Companies and people that were planning their businesses around the access to AI are worried. There still seem to be hackathons in India that support Claude and OpenAI. I don’t understand this. Isn’t it better to contribute to open source foundational models rather than closed foundational models?

    SpaceX IPO went live. Elon Musk became a trillionaire and Gwynne Shotwell became a billionaire.

    I agree with Sandhya Ramesh when she says that the space for humanity era is gone.

    But, true for many other things.

    Many people have pointed to the writing of Shankar Sharma. This video summarizes many of his writings about stock market in India.

    He makes some very interesting arguments – innovation falls as the country gets rich off the stock markets, Indian retail investors are giving exits to foreign equity investors (and so, the money is not getting re-invested in India), retail investors must not be so active in the stock market, and foreign investor exits must not be as easy as it is presently.

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