10 ms·

India's Mars mission crosses half the distance.

145 points by easyname 13y ago

JumpCrisscross 13y ago
> The Rs 450-crore mission intends to explore the presence of Methane in the Red Planet with the help of five scientific instruments on board the spacecraft. That is roughly $75 million.
- makmanalp 13y ago
  Isn't that dirt cheap for a trip to Mars? Like, much lower than NASA missions to the moon?
  - JumpCrisscross 13y ago
    It's lower than market prices for building and launching a satellite to low-earth orbit.
  - pixelHD 13y ago
    Robert frost gave a good explanation why it is so on Quora. http://www.quora.com/Robert-Frost-Quora-user/What-are-Robert-Frosts-views-on-the-significantly-low-cost-of-Indias-Mars-Orbiter-Mission http://www.quora.com/Robert-Frost-Quora-user/What-are-Robert...
    - pavanky 13y ago
      That is a very simplistic and uninformed view. He does not compare the cost of electronics, gas, automobiles or even other exotic foods. Each of these cost more in India than they do in USA. One has to consider how much of the costs of the mission are actually spent on paying salaries compared to purchasing & building the equipment needed for the mission. The actual answer may have something to do with the fact that India did not spend a lot of money on R&D specifically for the Mars mission. They are leveraging existing technologies and knowledge from earlier missions (including some from NASA and ESA).
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - kamaal 13y ago
        India does/did a lot of ground work on all its own. The fact is this concept called 'frugal engineering' or commonly called in Hindi as 'Jugaad'. Its a little unfair to call is 'frugal engineering', this is more on the lines of 'Do what it takes, with whatever little you have, to go where ever you want to go'. Its really more like a cultural thing here. After centuries of invasions, foreign rule and desperation the idea is to see some success at any cost. You try to beat the odds any way you can.
        pavanky 13y ago
        Sorry about the miscommunication. I meant to say India reused a lot of its own technology as well as what is available from other resources. You are right that the culture at ISRO is very utilitarian. But please do not try to generalize it for India in general. There are a lot of wasted resources in other organizations.
  - swatkat 13y ago
    Apart from the economic differences (outlined in Robert Frost's Quora post), ISRO also practised "frugal engineering"[1] by making use of their existing technologies/framework while building spacecraft. For example, MOM is based on ISRO's proven I-1K spacecraft bus[2], and its onboard propulsion system is based on their apogee kick motor[3]. Payloads are completely new and developed specific to the mission. ISRO's Moon mission Chandrayaan-1[4] cost around $64 million back in 2008. It's relatively "costly" compared to Mars mission because ISRO had to do some groundwork to support such deep space missions. For example, Indian Deep Space Network[5] was built at that time to track Chandrayaan-1; and now it's being used to track MOM as well. [1]http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-10-31/news/43561612_1_moon-mission-chandrayaan-i-isro http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-10-31/news... [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-1K http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-1K [3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apogee_kick_motor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apogee_kick_motor [4]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-1 [5]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Deep_Space_Network http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Deep_Space_Network
    - DougWebb 13y ago
      I hope the frugal engineering works out for them. In 1990 I spent a semester working at GE AstroSpace as an intern, and one of my tasks was a small role on the Mars Observer(1) probe. It was also a frugal, based on an Earth-orbiting satellite design that was repurposed for a deep-space mission to Mars orbit. It apparently blew up when it got there, likely due to a failure in the fuel system. That's where I come in. In early 1990, there was a weight problem with the spacecraft, and the engineers were looking for ways to eliminate mass. I was working with the propulsion team, and my task was to go through all of the blueprints, count components, and document their mass. The team was going to use that to determine which components were redundant (for safety) and how much mass could be eliminated by removing them. I did my task, and went on to something else so I don't know how the system was modified. But from what I've read about the loss of the spacecraft, a leading theory is that one of the valves in the propulsion system failed and that led to the explosion. The valves were designed to be opened very soon after launch, once the satellite reached Earth orbit; they weren't designed for the deep-freeze of a two-year trip to Mars before being opened. I beleive that not only did the valve malfunction, but its redundant backup had also been removed based, in part, on the task I performed. If there hadn't been a weight problem (which may also have been to frugal engineering to reduce fuel requirements), the explosion might not have happened. I've never felt any responsibilty; my task was to provide information, not decisions. But it would have been nice if I was involved with a more successful mission. (1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Observer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Observer
- piyush_soni 13y ago
  Compared to that, the movie Gravity's budget was $100 million.
  - mpg33 13y ago
    Yes but look at all that HD footage of space they got...very impressive....
    - piyush_soni 13y ago
      Yes, and also of Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. The major bulk of the budget might have gone into that :).
- cwaniak 13y ago
  so you call it a BS?
- jpatel3 13y ago
  Its cheaper than budget of movie Gravity.
jacquesm 13y ago
The last 20 Km of missions like these are the hard ones, once you're off the pad. It's roughly 1/3rd between failure to launch, failure to arrive at the destination planet and failure to land (the latter not applicable here since it is an orbiter). 60% of the missions fail, which really isn't all that surprising given the complexities of a project like this. Great to see it got this far, hoping that it will complete the interplanetary travel part of the mission around September of this year. Lots of data here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Orbiter_Mission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Orbiter_Mission
surana90 13y ago
> India's national space agency ISRO would be the fourth after agencies in US, Russia and Europe to have undertaken a successful mission to the red planet. Good to see this among all the political slugfest going on in India at the moment.
swatkat 13y ago
MOM is ISRO's first inter-planetary mission. I've been following ISRO MOM since its launch - those orbit raising manoeuvres and Trans-Mars Injection were a nail biting experience :) Wishing them best of luck. Eagerly waiting for September 2014, for Mars orbit insertion. Here's a nice interactive animation of NASA MAVEN and ISRO MOM spacecrafts. It fetches real-time data from NASA JPL HORIZONS ephemerides: http://sankara.net/mom.html http://sankara.net/mom.html By the way, for space/rocket enthusiasts out there - ISRO will be doing a sub-orbital test of their next gen "monster rocket" GSLV Mk3[1] in June. It will carry a Crew Module[2] as payload. This will be interesting. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_Satellite_Launch_Vehicle_Mk_III http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_Satellite_Launch... [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISRO_Orbital_Vehicle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISRO_Orbital_Vehicle
danbruc 13y ago
In highly developed countries there is a lot of discussion about the large disparity between the poor and the rich, but India seems to dwarf just everything by orders of magnitude. Every time I read about India's space program I am just unable to comprehend how a nation can at the same time fly to Mars and have a large part of their population live in slums. UPDATE: I just want to clarify - I don't want to judge this as good or bad, I just want to express that I am unable to bend my mind around that.
- tatqx 13y ago
  The reason people in my country are poor is because of the government's economic policy. India is a very resource rich country otherwise. The country still recovering from its earlier backward economic policies [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalisation_in_India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalisation_in_Indi...
- ankeshk 13y ago
  Response to having a space program while having poverty: http://balajiviswanathan.quora.com/Indian-Space-Mission-Poverty-and-Closet-Racism http://balajiviswanathan.quora.com/Indian-Space-Mission-Pove... Please scroll down a bit because the awesome part comes after the subhead: Why India needs a MARS program.
  - danbruc 13y ago
    Is that supported by the majority of the population? Naively I would expect that people would prefer immediate improvements over long term benefits.
    - danbruc 13y ago
      Seriously guys, how can you downvote a question like that? It's a real question with a real answer and not irrelevant in this context.
    - pavanky 13y ago
      India does have a lot of domestic and economic policies to bring people out of poverty. The said policies however are at the mercy of politicians who are corrupt and do not deliver. India spends 0.2% on space exploration and 12% on defence. If you want to complain about misaligned priorities complain about our defence that takes up the most resources but does very little indigenous development rather than our space program that costs next to nothing but develops a lot of indigenous technology.
known 13y ago
And https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malnutrition_in_India https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malnutrition_in_India

145 points by easyname 13y ago

> The Rs 450-crore mission intends to explore the presence of Methane in the Red Planet with the help of five scientific instruments on board the spacecraft. That is roughly $75 million.

makmanalp 13y ago
Isn't that dirt cheap for a trip to Mars? Like, much lower than NASA missions to the moon?
- JumpCrisscross 13y ago
  It's lower than market prices for building and launching a satellite to low-earth orbit.
- pixelHD 13y ago
  Robert frost gave a good explanation why it is so on Quora. http://www.quora.com/Robert-Frost-Quora-user/What-are-Robert-Frosts-views-on-the-significantly-low-cost-of-Indias-Mars-Orbiter-Mission http://www.quora.com/Robert-Frost-Quora-user/What-are-Robert...
  - pavanky 13y ago
    That is a very simplistic and uninformed view. He does not compare the cost of electronics, gas, automobiles or even other exotic foods. Each of these cost more in India than they do in USA. One has to consider how much of the costs of the mission are actually spent on paying salaries compared to purchasing & building the equipment needed for the mission. The actual answer may have something to do with the fact that India did not spend a lot of money on R&D specifically for the Mars mission. They are leveraging existing technologies and knowledge from earlier missions (including some from NASA and ESA).
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - kamaal 13y ago
      India does/did a lot of ground work on all its own. The fact is this concept called 'frugal engineering' or commonly called in Hindi as 'Jugaad'. Its a little unfair to call is 'frugal engineering', this is more on the lines of 'Do what it takes, with whatever little you have, to go where ever you want to go'. Its really more like a cultural thing here. After centuries of invasions, foreign rule and desperation the idea is to see some success at any cost. You try to beat the odds any way you can.
      - pavanky 13y ago
        Sorry about the miscommunication. I meant to say India reused a lot of its own technology as well as what is available from other resources. You are right that the culture at ISRO is very utilitarian. But please do not try to generalize it for India in general. There are a lot of wasted resources in other organizations.
- swatkat 13y ago
  Apart from the economic differences (outlined in Robert Frost's Quora post), ISRO also practised "frugal engineering"[1] by making use of their existing technologies/framework while building spacecraft. For example, MOM is based on ISRO's proven I-1K spacecraft bus[2], and its onboard propulsion system is based on their apogee kick motor[3]. Payloads are completely new and developed specific to the mission. ISRO's Moon mission Chandrayaan-1[4] cost around $64 million back in 2008. It's relatively "costly" compared to Mars mission because ISRO had to do some groundwork to support such deep space missions. For example, Indian Deep Space Network[5] was built at that time to track Chandrayaan-1; and now it's being used to track MOM as well. [1]http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-10-31/news/43561612_1_moon-mission-chandrayaan-i-isro http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-10-31/news... [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-1K http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-1K [3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apogee_kick_motor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apogee_kick_motor [4]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-1 [5]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Deep_Space_Network http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Deep_Space_Network
  - DougWebb 13y ago
    I hope the frugal engineering works out for them. In 1990 I spent a semester working at GE AstroSpace as an intern, and one of my tasks was a small role on the Mars Observer(1) probe. It was also a frugal, based on an Earth-orbiting satellite design that was repurposed for a deep-space mission to Mars orbit. It apparently blew up when it got there, likely due to a failure in the fuel system. That's where I come in. In early 1990, there was a weight problem with the spacecraft, and the engineers were looking for ways to eliminate mass. I was working with the propulsion team, and my task was to go through all of the blueprints, count components, and document their mass. The team was going to use that to determine which components were redundant (for safety) and how much mass could be eliminated by removing them. I did my task, and went on to something else so I don't know how the system was modified. But from what I've read about the loss of the spacecraft, a leading theory is that one of the valves in the propulsion system failed and that led to the explosion. The valves were designed to be opened very soon after launch, once the satellite reached Earth orbit; they weren't designed for the deep-freeze of a two-year trip to Mars before being opened. I beleive that not only did the valve malfunction, but its redundant backup had also been removed based, in part, on the task I performed. If there hadn't been a weight problem (which may also have been to frugal engineering to reduce fuel requirements), the explosion might not have happened. I've never felt any responsibilty; my task was to provide information, not decisions. But it would have been nice if I was involved with a more successful mission. (1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Observer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Observer
piyush_soni 13y ago
Compared to that, the movie Gravity's budget was $100 million.
- mpg33 13y ago
  Yes but look at all that HD footage of space they got...very impressive....
  - piyush_soni 13y ago
    Yes, and also of Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. The major bulk of the budget might have gone into that :).
cwaniak 13y ago
so you call it a BS?
jpatel3 13y ago
Its cheaper than budget of movie Gravity.

jacquesm 13y ago

The last 20 Km of missions like these are the hard ones, once you're off the pad. It's roughly 1/3rd between failure to launch, failure to arrive at the destination planet and failure to land (the latter not applicable here since it is an orbiter). 60% of the missions fail, which really isn't all that surprising given the complexities of a project like this. Great to see it got this far, hoping that it will complete the interplanetary travel part of the mission around September of this year. Lots of data here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Orbiter_Mission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Orbiter_Mission

surana90 13y ago

> India's national space agency ISRO would be the fourth after agencies in US, Russia and Europe to have undertaken a successful mission to the red planet. Good to see this among all the political slugfest going on in India at the moment.

swatkat 13y ago

MOM is ISRO's first inter-planetary mission. I've been following ISRO MOM since its launch - those orbit raising manoeuvres and Trans-Mars Injection were a nail biting experience :) Wishing them best of luck. Eagerly waiting for September 2014, for Mars orbit insertion. Here's a nice interactive animation of NASA MAVEN and ISRO MOM spacecrafts. It fetches real-time data from NASA JPL HORIZONS ephemerides: http://sankara.net/mom.html http://sankara.net/mom.html By the way, for space/rocket enthusiasts out there - ISRO will be doing a sub-orbital test of their next gen "monster rocket" GSLV Mk3[1] in June. It will carry a Crew Module[2] as payload. This will be interesting. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_Satellite_Launch_Vehicle_Mk_III http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_Satellite_Launch... [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISRO_Orbital_Vehicle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISRO_Orbital_Vehicle

danbruc 13y ago

In highly developed countries there is a lot of discussion about the large disparity between the poor and the rich, but India seems to dwarf just everything by orders of magnitude. Every time I read about India's space program I am just unable to comprehend how a nation can at the same time fly to Mars and have a large part of their population live in slums. UPDATE: I just want to clarify - I don't want to judge this as good or bad, I just want to express that I am unable to bend my mind around that.

tatqx 13y ago
The reason people in my country are poor is because of the government's economic policy. India is a very resource rich country otherwise. The country still recovering from its earlier backward economic policies [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalisation_in_India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalisation_in_Indi...
ankeshk 13y ago
Response to having a space program while having poverty: http://balajiviswanathan.quora.com/Indian-Space-Mission-Poverty-and-Closet-Racism http://balajiviswanathan.quora.com/Indian-Space-Mission-Pove... Please scroll down a bit because the awesome part comes after the subhead: Why India needs a MARS program.
- danbruc 13y ago
  Is that supported by the majority of the population? Naively I would expect that people would prefer immediate improvements over long term benefits.
  - danbruc 13y ago
    Seriously guys, how can you downvote a question like that? It's a real question with a real answer and not irrelevant in this context.
  - pavanky 13y ago
    India does have a lot of domestic and economic policies to bring people out of poverty. The said policies however are at the mercy of politicians who are corrupt and do not deliver. India spends 0.2% on space exploration and 12% on defence. If you want to complain about misaligned priorities complain about our defence that takes up the most resources but does very little indigenous development rather than our space program that costs next to nothing but develops a lot of indigenous technology.

known 13y ago

And https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malnutrition_in_India https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malnutrition_in_India