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ISRO doesn't appear to pay competitive salaries for engineers. The Russian space program had a lot of challenges when engineering wages went up a lot. India's s

ISRO doesn't appear to pay competitive salaries for engineers. The Russian space program had a lot of challenges when engineering wages went up a lot. India's success with outsourcing and other engineering is the cause. It will be interesting to see what ISRO's costs look like when increased salaries ripple through their workforce. BTW there are several startups targeting small satellites. One is the Electron rocket from Rocket Labs. There's also the European Vega rocket, and Japan's Epsilon rocket. SpaceX has already had one launch purchased by a company that groups together small satellites to launch together.[1] All in all, small launches are a very active market. 1: http://www.spaceflight.com/spaceflight-purchases-spacex-falcon-9-rocket-to-provide-more-frequent-cost-effective-rideshare-availability-for-small-satellite-industry/ http://www.spaceflight.com/spaceflight-purchases-spacex-falc...

spikengineer 10y ago
ISRO scientists are paid standard government scale salaries for engineers and scientists. Their salaries are also at the same scale as bureaucrats, civil servants and military. Increased salaries can only happen if indian government is ready to increase salaries all over it's 5 million large workforce. Government salaries have the same percentage growth all across the workforce. Hence I believe you are seriously mistaken about competitiveness of pay in ISRO. It is not feasible for the government to pay at the same scale as large multi national private companies to all it's workforce. India is just not rich enough. Even top level bureaucrat jobs like "Cabinet Secretary to the Government of India" don't get paid a lot compared to what salaries are like in the West.
shripadk 10y ago
When you say "ISRO doesn't appear to pay competitive salaries for engineers" who are you comparing with? SpaceX/NASA? ISRO pays competitive salaries for engineers. At least as per Indian pay scale. Most ISRO scientists/engineers lead a comfortable life. You can't compare the pay scale of a SpaceX/NASA employee with that of ISRO employee because the economies of both countries are vastly different. Also, SpaceX/NASA wouldn't hire Indian scientists/engineers in bulk to make it competitive anyways. So where is the question of competitive salaries? "It will be interesting to see what ISRO's costs look like when increased salaries ripple through their workforce." It won't make any difference. ISRO is a completely profitable enterprise for the Indian government. So even if the salaries are increased it won't make any impact on profits. "BTW there are several startups targeting small satellites. One is the Electron rocket from Rocket Labs. There's also the European Vega rocket, and Japan's Epsilon rocket. SpaceX has already had one launch purchased by a company that groups together small satellites to launch together.[1]" Yeah but these companies don't have the same track record as ISRO does. I checked the companies you mentioned and the launches range from 1-15 in the past decade with quite a few failed attempts. ISRO on the other hand has had 56 launches with only 8 failed launches. I'm only talking about launches from "Satish Dhawan Space Centre" and not even considering ISRO and Arianespace collaboration which launched heavy payloads. "All in all, small launches are a very active market." ISRO is not just focusing on small launches. It recently tested a Reusable Launch System: RLV-TD. See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzxe6q60R70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzxe6q60R70 Of course there is no brouhaha or chest thumping involved as the ISRO team is pretty modest about whatever progress it makes. Hence you won't find this featuring on your Western news channels. This reusable shuttle will be used for sending a manned mission to Moon.
- greglindahl 10y ago
  I was comparing to Indian salaries. For example, as you're probably aware, the outsourcing industry has caused a rapid rise in computer engineering salaries in India. A similar thing happened in Russia already. I only referred to small launches because you mentioned them. If you're interested in Indian rockets with larger payloads, you might be interested in checking out the GLSV Mark III, which is expected to reach production long before the RLV-TD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_Satellite_Launch_Vehicle_Mark_III https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_Satellite_Launc... I read about both the GSLV Mark III and RLV-TD in Western news sources. I'm a big fan of India's space program, but it's very tedious getting downvoted on HN for talking about it.
  - shripadk 10y ago
    But you just can't compare private company salaries with government salaries. The perks that are enjoyed by government employees far outweighs that enjoyed by private employees. You might be tempted to think that private employees get "x" times more than government employees and they should be better. But that is not how it works in India. If you are a private employee there is a possibility of getting fired. If you are fired, getting a job again is akin to going through hell. If you have a home loan from a bank you are doomed. Government employees in India are the blessed lot. They of course have lesser salary but the perks they enjoy more than make up for it. They get free housing for life, pension after retirement, free insurance, they can purchase land at extremely subsidized rates (which for a private employee would be his entire life savings). You just can't compare salaries. Especially in a country like India. EDIT: Not to mention: If you are a government employee your social life is set. You can easily get married (not easy for a private employee. You have to be in a top MNC and earning a big salary or have a graduate degree from a top-tier university in India). Your entire family is covered by Government insurance for lifetime (which for a private employee ends as soon as his employment terminates). In some cases, your next kith and kin are guaranteed a government job in case you pass away prematurely. Also, a Government job is the most sought after in India. There is major competition to get a government job (I have even heard of cases where people bribed officials to get the job). Private employees on the other hand demand greater salaries just to be on par with government employees (whose salary + perks are far greater than private employees salary). Apart from that, a Government employee cannot be prematurely terminated (even if s/he is lazy) unless s/he has committed a grave crime.

spikengineer 10y ago

ISRO scientists are paid standard government scale salaries for engineers and scientists. Their salaries are also at the same scale as bureaucrats, civil servants and military. Increased salaries can only happen if indian government is ready to increase salaries all over it's 5 million large workforce. Government salaries have the same percentage growth all across the workforce. Hence I believe you are seriously mistaken about competitiveness of pay in ISRO. It is not feasible for the government to pay at the same scale as large multi national private companies to all it's workforce. India is just not rich enough. Even top level bureaucrat jobs like "Cabinet Secretary to the Government of India" don't get paid a lot compared to what salaries are like in the West.

shripadk 10y ago

When you say "ISRO doesn't appear to pay competitive salaries for engineers" who are you comparing with? SpaceX/NASA? ISRO pays competitive salaries for engineers. At least as per Indian pay scale. Most ISRO scientists/engineers lead a comfortable life. You can't compare the pay scale of a SpaceX/NASA employee with that of ISRO employee because the economies of both countries are vastly different. Also, SpaceX/NASA wouldn't hire Indian scientists/engineers in bulk to make it competitive anyways. So where is the question of competitive salaries? "It will be interesting to see what ISRO's costs look like when increased salaries ripple through their workforce." It won't make any difference. ISRO is a completely profitable enterprise for the Indian government. So even if the salaries are increased it won't make any impact on profits. "BTW there are several startups targeting small satellites. One is the Electron rocket from Rocket Labs. There's also the European Vega rocket, and Japan's Epsilon rocket. SpaceX has already had one launch purchased by a company that groups together small satellites to launch together.[1]" Yeah but these companies don't have the same track record as ISRO does. I checked the companies you mentioned and the launches range from 1-15 in the past decade with quite a few failed attempts. ISRO on the other hand has had 56 launches with only 8 failed launches. I'm only talking about launches from "Satish Dhawan Space Centre" and not even considering ISRO and Arianespace collaboration which launched heavy payloads. "All in all, small launches are a very active market." ISRO is not just focusing on small launches. It recently tested a Reusable Launch System: RLV-TD. See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzxe6q60R70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzxe6q60R70 Of course there is no brouhaha or chest thumping involved as the ISRO team is pretty modest about whatever progress it makes. Hence you won't find this featuring on your Western news channels. This reusable shuttle will be used for sending a manned mission to Moon.

greglindahl 10y ago
I was comparing to Indian salaries. For example, as you're probably aware, the outsourcing industry has caused a rapid rise in computer engineering salaries in India. A similar thing happened in Russia already. I only referred to small launches because you mentioned them. If you're interested in Indian rockets with larger payloads, you might be interested in checking out the GLSV Mark III, which is expected to reach production long before the RLV-TD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_Satellite_Launch_Vehicle_Mark_III https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_Satellite_Launc... I read about both the GSLV Mark III and RLV-TD in Western news sources. I'm a big fan of India's space program, but it's very tedious getting downvoted on HN for talking about it.
- shripadk 10y ago
  But you just can't compare private company salaries with government salaries. The perks that are enjoyed by government employees far outweighs that enjoyed by private employees. You might be tempted to think that private employees get "x" times more than government employees and they should be better. But that is not how it works in India. If you are a private employee there is a possibility of getting fired. If you are fired, getting a job again is akin to going through hell. If you have a home loan from a bank you are doomed. Government employees in India are the blessed lot. They of course have lesser salary but the perks they enjoy more than make up for it. They get free housing for life, pension after retirement, free insurance, they can purchase land at extremely subsidized rates (which for a private employee would be his entire life savings). You just can't compare salaries. Especially in a country like India. EDIT: Not to mention: If you are a government employee your social life is set. You can easily get married (not easy for a private employee. You have to be in a top MNC and earning a big salary or have a graduate degree from a top-tier university in India). Your entire family is covered by Government insurance for lifetime (which for a private employee ends as soon as his employment terminates). In some cases, your next kith and kin are guaranteed a government job in case you pass away prematurely. Also, a Government job is the most sought after in India. There is major competition to get a government job (I have even heard of cases where people bribed officials to get the job). Private employees on the other hand demand greater salaries just to be on par with government employees (whose salary + perks are far greater than private employees salary). Apart from that, a Government employee cannot be prematurely terminated (even if s/he is lazy) unless s/he has committed a grave crime.