Indian Martian exploration program

Abhijeet Dey

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This is a very good decision by ISRO to send a spacecraft into Mars. I do agree there are many Indians who think space exploration is a wastage of time not knowing that such projects would benefit mankind such as mining asteroids for precious metals which may in turn benefit our economy. This problem can be solved if the government tries to bring more awareness among people in India in space exploration & its benefits.
 

drkrn

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Mars mission will be a big leap for the country: ISRO - The Economic Times

By Hari Pulakkat, ET Bureau | 25 Oct, 2013, 03.00AM IST



The spacecraft's arrival point on Mars has to be calculated to an accuracy of 60 miles about 280 days in advance," says Radhakrishnan.

BANGALORE: If the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) lifts off on November 5 from Sriharikota as planned, it will be watched by more than a normal share of anxious eyes. It is a difficult mission, and fickle weather adds to the complexity.

But ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan is not prone to fits of worry. "The PSLV is the best vehicle in its class," he says, "which is why many countries are using it now to launch their satellites." A mission to Mars will require taking into account the influence of earth, the moon, the sun and, of course, the destination planet, all of which keep changing positions with the day of the launch.

A small error in calculation will miss the target by tens of thousands of miles. "The spacecraft's arrival point on Mars has to be calculated to an accuracy of 60 miles about 280 days in advance," says Radhakrishnan. "It takes beyond textbook mechanics to achieve this precision." An excursion to the red planet does not come easy to even to the most experienced.

The Russians have a long history of failures in Mars missions. The Chinese have not yet attempted its own mission, and so Mangalyaan is extra special for India. "It will be a big leap for the country," says Goverdhan Mehta, space commission member. The Americans, Russians and Europeans have used larger rockets for their Mars missions. India is using the smaller PSLV, usually used to put small satellites into a low-earth orbit over the poles. The launch window to Mars is very small, the next one being available only in 2018. ISRO has already postponed the launch once due to bad weather.

If the PSLV does not go up before November 19, ISRO has to wait for another five years to get similar conditions. The PSLV is India's most mature rocket. ISRO has launched 35 satellites so far using PSLV and 10 are in waiting list for launch. The Mars mission will use PSLV in new ways, thereby adding new complexities. The trajectory of the spacecraft is very different to begin with.
once successful this will keep isro next to nasa.very happy at indians progress in space
 

drkrn

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This is a very good decision by ISRO to send a spacecraft into Mars. I do agree there are many Indians who think space exploration is a wastage of time not knowing that such projects would benefit mankind such as mining asteroids for precious metals which may in turn benefit our economy. This problem can be solved if the government tries to bring more awareness among people in India in space exploration & its benefits.
not only them,will allow us to design innovative engineering marvels,which can be used for human benefit.best example is projects of darpa
 

roma

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If all goes well India would become only the 4th nation or entity from Earth to survey Mars up close with spacecraft, following the Soviet Union, the United States and the European Space Agency (ESA).
oh ? really ? we're the 4th only because of depending ( as usual ) on foreign help ?

once successful this will keep isro next to nasa.very happy at indians progress in space
not sure whaty is meant by the second quote but while this may be an "achievement " for isro - IT CERTAINLY IS NOT AN "INDIGENOUS" PROJECT

not when isro was worried stiff that usa govt shutdown may have meant no "support" from nasa tracking facilities
now what kind of a "success" is it when isro depends on something, anything, from a foreign source?
all i can say is that it's better than doing nothing - but in all honesty,
i cant give this a "jai hind " as i really would have loved to

sigh ! - it's better than doing nothing - it gives our guys tons of org experience - but by no means is this a tech breakthrough - indeed one may ask if ISRO is setting low standards and getting the nation "used to such"

the only saving factor is if we are
pls let's be realistic about this doing this at less than or about 25% of the cost of the median cost of all others - in THAT case jai hind ! - otherwise it's an "also ran" ! - merely catching up with others who have lest us far behind ( much like our performance at the Olympics - well perhaps not quite as bad )
 
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drkrn

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oh ? really ? we're the 4th only because of depending ( as usual ) on foreign help ?



not sure whaty is meant by the second quote but while this may be an "achievement " for isro - IT CERTAINLY IS NOT AN "INDIGENOUS" PROJECT

not when isro was worried stiff that usa govt shutdown may have meant no "support" from nasa tracking facilities
now what kind of a "success" is it when isro depends on something, anything, from a foreign source?
all i can say is that it's better than doing nothing - but in all honesty,
i cant give this a "jai hind " as i really would have loved to

sigh ! - it's better than doing nothing - it gives our guys tons of org experience - but by no means is this a tech breakthrough - indeed one may ask if ISRO is setting low standards and getting the nation "used to such"

the only saving factor is if we are
pls let's be realistic about this doing this at less than or about 25% of the cost of the median cost of all others - in THAT case jai hind ! - otherwise it's an "also ran" ! - merely catching up with others who have lest us far behind ( much like our performance at the Olympics - well perhaps not quite as bad )
true ,but for a country with huge ambitions this will be the second foot print.first being chandrayaan

when every developed country applauded our advancements including nasa for chandrayaan i am unable to understand why you are using such words.sure we too can develop such tracking capabilities,so according to you we should not work on mangalyaan till we develop all that infrastructure.be practical.

these are our first steps in building high quality tech breakthrough missions.isro setting low standards-a very odd response.

obviously we do the same project at a fraction of other developed nations.its said we will/can launch satellites at 1/4th price of china.
 

roma

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when every developed country applauded our advancements including nasa for chandrayaan i am unable to understand why you are using such words.sure we too can develop such tracking capabilities,so according to you we should not work on mangalyaan till we develop all that infrastructure.be practical.

these are our first steps in building high quality tech breakthrough missions.isro setting low standards-a very odd response.

obviously we do the same project at a fraction of other developed nations.its said we will/can launch satellites at 1/4th price of china.
sorry if i have been over-critical - i guess that was a mistake
just wanted to keep the over-hype which we indians sometimes do , in proper context

and,
like i said , IF we are doing it at 25% of the median cost of all the others combined
(not 25% of china's - which would be near impossible )
- THEN IT'S AN ACHIEVEMENT !

- i chose 25% as a guesstimate - i didnt know it was actually an objective of if isro's
if we keep to that budget - then it's quite something

an almost jai hind , i might say - or more suitably - - VIVA ISRO !
 
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roma

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true ,but for a country with huge ambitions this will be the second foot print.first being chandrayaan

when every developed country applauded our advancements including nasa for chandrayaan i am unable to understand why you are using such words.sure we too can develop such tracking capabilities,so according to you we should not work on mangalyaan till we develop all that infrastructure.be practical.

these are our first steps in building high quality tech breakthrough missions.isro setting low standards-a very odd response.

obviously we do the same project at a fraction of other developed nations.its said we will/can launch satellites at 1/4th price of china.
really my initial dismay when i wrote my first post just above was at the fact that isro needed help from nasa and
there was concern in isro that the usa govt shut down would seriously impair isro's mars mission
because of the lack of tracking information from nasa which is critical to the project ?

surely you can identify with my thoughts that "this is hardly the way
that isro should prefer to plan and organise our space projects " ?
with such a high degree of dependence on others ?

upon reflection , you didnt address this point, did you, Sir ?
( not that im trying to force you to do so, pls )
but many thanks for your good post above ,
best regards, to all,
R
 
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drkrn

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sorry if i have been over-critical - i guess that was a mistake
just wanted to keep the over-hype which we indians sometimes do , in proper context

and,
like i said , IF we are doing it at 25% of the median cost of all the others combined
(not 25% of china's - which would be near impossible )
- THEN IT'S AN ACHIEVEMENT !

- i chose 25% as a guesstimate - i didnt know it was actually an objective of if isro's
if we keep to that budget - then it's quite something

an almost jai hind , i might say - or more suitably - - VIVA ISRO !
this is not my word-its from an interview with an isro scientist.
just an example.
China delivers control of satellite to Venezuela - Xinhua | English.news.cn
china launched a foreign satellite for 140 million $=650 crores
while indian mangalyaan project is 450 crores.
 

drkrn

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really my initial dismay when i wrote my first post just above was at the fact that isro needed help from nasa and
there was concern in isro that the usa govt shut down would seriously impair isro's mars mission
because of the lack of tracking information from nasa which is critical to the project ?

surely you can identify with my thoughts that "this is hardly the way
that isro should prefer to plan and organise our space projects " ?
with such a high degree of dependence on others ?

upon reflection , you didnt address this point, did you, Sir ?
( not that im trying to force you to do so, pls )
but many thanks for your good post above ,
best regards, to all,
R
you missed the whole point.we are dependent on nasa or any other agency only at this point.
if you mean to say that india should develop their own network,thats fine.but if you mean to say that we have to stop all further research/projects till we have the necessary indigenous infrastructure,i am sorry to say that you are wrong.

both nasa and isro are research bodies.like every research institution they too share their resources for the projects,for better good of the human community
 

roma

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you missed the whole point.we are dependent on nasa or any other agency only at this point.
if you mean to say that india should develop their own network,thats fine.but if you mean to say that we have to stop all further research/projects till we have the necessary indigenous infrastructure,i am sorry to say that you are wrong.

both nasa and isro are research bodies.like every research institution they too share their resources for the projects,for better good of the human community
true .... we cant stop the whole thing for a small matter.....wasnt sure what role the tracking from nasa would play ..... seems to me the isro scientists had over-reacted ( as one would interpret the reports in the toi and hindustan times ) and i (erroneously) took the cue from them

so, drkrn, many thanks for the clarifications
....once again i hope i have sufficiently corrected myself
from being a bit over-critical at the start
best regards, to all,
R
 

kseeker

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Why ISRO's Mars mission,launching next week, is the cheapest - The Economic Times

The Indian space agency's Mars Mission, launching next week, is the cheapest by any nation to the red planet. And there are attributes unique to ISRO that enable it to practise frugal engineering at the cutting edge time and again.

To understand the spirit of India's Mars mission, it is useful to look first at the country's moon mission in 2008.

The Chandrayaan-I project, as it is known, was announced in 2003, by the then-prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in 2003. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had partners, the Europeans and Americans, who had their own experiments to f ly in Chandrayaan. Some of them were puzzled by ISRO's style of working. They were just 18 months away from the launch date, and ISRO was only beginning to cut metal. One of the foreign partners had then asked ISRO managers: "Are you serious?"

The spacecraft f lew as planned in November 2008, operated for 312 days, and achieved most of its objectives. ISRO's partners, pleased that their instruments were working fine, tacitly acknowledged the value of the organisation's minimalist approach. "The told us after the launch," says M Annadurai, project manager of Chandrayaan, "that this was the Indian style of working". It was a tested method in ISRO, perfected over decades, and it is now being used to maximum effect in Mangalyaan: save time, money and human efforts through careful planning.

You could call it frugal engineering applied to space. Mangalyaan was formally approved only in August 2012, and ISRO had started work on the structure three months before the formal approval. The satellite was finished this August.

NASA's MAVEN, a Mars mission nearly identical to Mangalyaan and to be flown on November 18, had taken at least five years of work and $679 million in costs. If the Mangalyaan launch is successful, ISRO would have done it in 18 months, with $69 million. "Our speed of execution and low costs are the result of careful planning," says Annadurai.



Small Resources, Big Ambitions

When ISRO was set up in the 1960s, moon and Mars missions were not on the agenda, even in the faraway future. "We do not have the fantasy of competing with the economically advanced nations in the exploration of the moon or the planets or manned space-flight," its founder Vikram Sarabhai had famously said. Space technology was purely for the benefit of the society.

With such clear objectives, and working in a period when India was very poor, ISRO's leaders developed a style that produced maximum benefits with the minimum of effort.

"Frugal engineering comes naturally to Indians," says National Research Professor RA Mashelkar, "which is why India delivers more than any other country per dollar of R&D investment." Mashelkar, along with management theorist CK Prahlad, wrote a landmark paper on frugal engineering in the Harvard Business Review three years ago.

According to Mashelkar, Indians learned this technique because of the environment. "Indians grow up in scarcity, but also have high aspirations. These two conditions create a powerful combination," he says. ISRO's ambitions were high, but money was scarce.

So, for two decades, ISRO created some of the best examples of frugal engineering in India.
In the 21st century, when the world tries hard for low-cost access to space, other nations are looking at ISRO with interest and trying to use some of the principles it had perfected. ISRO is also becoming an important collaborator for NASA and Europe.

Build On Older Work

ISRO's engineering now revolves around a few core principles: adapt technology as much as possible, minimise the number of physical models, optimise on testing, and work round the clock. Adaptation is an old method that has now been perfected to an art in ISRO. As in many Indian products, ISRO uses technology in unusual ways not always directly evident to developed country engineers.
 

ninja85

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Re: India expecting to launch Mars mission by October 2013

UK has stopped Billion $$ AID to india, so MOON mission is Finnish
who want peanuts? not india,indians doesn't want UK money indian govt. already told this to UK then who wants british peanuts?

the answer is afghani :rofl::rofl::taunt::taunt::pound::pound::taunt::taunt:
 

p2prada

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Why ISRO's Mars mission,launching next week, is the cheapest

Why ISRO's Mars mission,launching next week, is the cheapest - The Economic Times

The Indian space agency's Mars Mission, launching next week, is the cheapest by any nation to the red planet. And there are attributes unique to ISRO that enable it to practise frugal engineering at the cutting edge time and again.

To understand the spirit of India's Mars mission, it is useful to look first at the country's moon mission in 2008.

The Chandrayaan-I project, as it is known, was announced in 2003, by the then-prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in 2003. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had partners, the Europeans and Americans, who had their own experiments to f ly in Chandrayaan. Some of them were puzzled by ISRO's style of working. They were just 18 months away from the launch date, and ISRO was only beginning to cut metal. One of the foreign partners had then asked ISRO managers: "Are you serious?"

The spacecraft f lew as planned in November 2008, operated for 312 days, and achieved most of its objectives. ISRO's partners, pleased that their instruments were working fine, tacitly acknowledged the value of the organisation's minimalist approach. "The told us after the launch," says M Annadurai, project manager of Chandrayaan, "that this was the Indian style of working". It was a tested method in ISRO, perfected over decades, and it is now being used to maximum effect in Mangalyaan: save time, money and human efforts through careful planning.

You could call it frugal engineering applied to space. Mangalyaan was formally approved only in August 2012, and ISRO had started work on the structure three months before the formal approval. The satellite was finished this August.

NASA's MAVEN, a Mars mission nearly identical to Mangalyaan and to be flown on November 18, had taken at least five years of work and $679 million in costs. If the Mangalyaan launch is successful, ISRO would have done it in 18 months, with $69 million. "Our speed of execution and low costs are the result of careful planning," says Annadurai.



Small Resources, Big Ambitions

When ISRO was set up in the 1960s, moon and Mars missions were not on the agenda, even in the faraway future. "We do not have the fantasy of competing with the economically advanced nations in the exploration of the moon or the planets or manned space-flight," its founder Vikram Sarabhai had famously said. Space technology was purely for the benefit of the society.

With such clear objectives, and working in a period when India was very poor, ISRO's leaders developed a style that produced maximum benefits with the minimum of effort.

"Frugal engineering comes naturally to Indians," says National Research Professor RA Mashelkar, "which is why India delivers more than any other country per dollar of R&D investment." Mashelkar, along with management theorist CK Prahlad, wrote a landmark paper on frugal engineering in the Harvard Business Review three years ago.

According to Mashelkar, Indians learned this technique because of the environment. "Indians grow up in scarcity, but also have high aspirations. These two conditions create a powerful combination," he says. ISRO's ambitions were high, but money was scarce.

So, for two decades, ISRO created some of the best examples of frugal engineering in India.
In the 21st century, when the world tries hard for low-cost access to space, other nations are looking at ISRO with interest and trying to use some of the principles it had perfected. ISRO is also becoming an important collaborator for NASA and Europe.

Build On Older Work

ISRO's engineering now revolves around a few core principles: adapt technology as much as possible, minimise the number of physical models, optimise on testing, and work round the clock. Adaptation is an old method that has now been perfected to an art in ISRO. As in many Indian products, ISRO uses technology in unusual ways not always directly evident to developed country engineers.

In 1981, when India launched its first major satellite called APPLE, it used a motor from its untested rocket called Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV). This rocket had only one launch—that too failed—before APPLE went up on an Ariane rocket, but the adaptation was successful.

In space engineering, where conditions are tough and costs of failure high, it is not easy to adapt technology. It also involves more risk, but ISRO is willing to take—and manage— that risk. "Traditional ways take a long time and for ISRO time is of essence," says Alok Chatterjee, project engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA. "So, its approach is an innovative way to do space missions."

Chatterjee is a former ISRO employee who had been working with NASA for 28 years, and had collaborated with his former employer on the Chandrayaan.

For Mangalyaan, the major adaptation was on using the PSLV rocket. ISRO had been making changes to this rocket for two decades. In recent times, it has miniaturised the avionics, and built its own chip and onboard computer. "For us, a pedigree is necessary," says ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan, "and we make changes when necessary." The capability of the PSLV has changed over the years, now resulting in three classes of rockets. And yet, using it for a trip to Mars was quite an adaptation and involved risk.



ISRO has been taking calculated risks for a long time. When it used the apogee motor from SLV-3 for APPLE, it was not an optimal choice available and the rocket was not even ready. However, even in those days, the organisation used to think up novel ways to use technology effectively. This practice has only strengthened with time. "In ISRO, technology has multiple uses," says YS Rajan, honorary distinguished professor of ISRO. "One programme feeds into the other." No other agency has used such a small rocket like PSLV for an interplanetary mission. Rather than reducing complexity, it had made the launch manoeuvres more complex.

Harness Software, Work Fast

The second innovation in Mangalyaan, also involving risk, was to make only one physical model of the spacecraft. ISRO had done it in Chandrayaan and then brought this experience to Mangalyaan. NASA and the European Space Agency usually make three physical models iteratively. ISRO did everything in software and then made the final model that flew. It is not that others did not use software, but ISRO made a decision to put it to full use. "We are not using the full power of software if we make three models," says Annadurai. Doing away with two physical models was an important factor, if not the most important, in speeding up the development of the spacecraft.

Other factors helped too. Testing was optimised as much as possible, and this saved costs and speeded up the development process. "Testing is expensive," says Radhakrishnan, "and we try to get the maximum information from each test." ISRO engineers worked round the clock, often in shifts, when the satellite was being made.

ISRO made aggressive schedules that were nearly always sacrosanct. "ISRO is one of the few organisations in India that is driven by schedules," says Rajan. These principles— technology adaptation and aggressive scheduling— reduced the freedom of its engineers to try completely new things. "We do not allow someone to build a completely new rocket," says Radhakrishnan. It is the price ISRO has paid for increased speed and efficiency. Reducing cost and speeding up work are now key goals of all space organisations. NASA achieves this through competition.

Instead of one large organisation driving programmes centrally, it creates parallel teams that compete against each other for key projects. This change was made in the 1990s and made NASA more efficient. However, NASA is a conservative organisation that often builds completely new technologies, and so it may not take the course that ISRO has.

ISRO has new technologies too. In the long run, how ISRO balances new technology development with adaptation could determine its success. Chandrayaan-II would go up in a few years. ISRO would get more ambitious with Mars if Mangalyaan is successful.
 

Abhijeet Dey

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Re: Why ISRO's Mars mission,launching next week, is the cheapest

There are some people in India who think ISRO's Mars is a waste of time & money, India should spend on toilets etc etc.......... Well ISRO is the only govt. organization which is doing so well in the field of science & technology. Diverting funds won't improve the condition of poor in India. Enough funds are already allocated towards poverty eradication. It's just that those funds aren't properly utilized.

Nowadays ISRO with its space commercial arm ANTRIX are able to bag foreign contracts by launching satellites of other countries. They have the capability to do more such as mining of asteroids for precious metals which can be beneficial for the Indian economy. It may also provide jobs for the unemployed in India if these space projects are handled diligently. By sharing their funds & resources ISRO can also work with NASA in colonizing other planets in space (this is not about competition between India & China).

All these things may even encourage India's younger generation in having faith in India's science & technology.
 

Free Karma

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Re: Why ISRO's Mars mission,launching next week, is the cheapest

I just hope it goes off okay!

Never listen to those retards who say these things are a waste of money, other things such people say: spending money on R&D is a waste, spending money on weapons development is a waste,:rolleyes: back in the 80s people criticized the Indian govt for trying to develop the computer industry, now you can see how important it is.
 

roma

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Re: Why ISRO's Mars mission,launching next week, is the cheapest



"Frugal engineering comes naturally to Indians," says National Research Professor RA Mashelkar, "which is why India delivers more than any other country per dollar of R&D investment." Mashelkar, along with management theorist CK Prahlad, wrote a landmark paper on frugal engineering in the Harvard Business Review three years ago.

According to Mashelkar, Indians learned this technique because of the environment. "Indians grow up in scarcity, but also have high aspirations. These two conditions create a powerful combination," he says. ISRO's ambitions were high, but money was scarce.


....other nations are looking at ISRO with interest and trying to use some of the principles it had perfected.
ISRO is also becoming an important collaborator for NASA and Europe.

ISRO has new technologies too. In the long run, how ISRO balances new technology development with adaptation could determine its success. Chandrayaan-II would go up in a few years. ISRO would get more ambitious with Mars if Mangalyaan is successful.
that is a definite jai hind
thank you ISRO
thank you aryavarta
 
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drkrn

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Why ISRO's Mars mission,launching next week, is the cheapest - The Economic Times

The Indian space agency's Mars Mission, launching next week, is the cheapest by any nation to the red planet. And there are attributes unique to ISRO that enable it to practise frugal engineering at the cutting edge time and again.

To understand the spirit of India's Mars mission, it is useful to look first at the country's moon mission in 2008.

The Chandrayaan-I project, as it is known, was announced in 2003, by the then-prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in 2003. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had partners, the Europeans and Americans, who had their own experiments to f ly in Chandrayaan. Some of them were puzzled by ISRO's style of working. They were just 18 months away from the launch date, and ISRO was only beginning to cut metal. One of the foreign partners had then asked ISRO managers: "Are you serious?"

The spacecraft f lew as planned in November 2008, operated for 312 days, and achieved most of its objectives. ISRO's partners, pleased that their instruments were working fine, tacitly acknowledged the value of the organisation's minimalist approach. "The told us after the launch," says M Annadurai, project manager of Chandrayaan, "that this was the Indian style of working". It was a tested method in ISRO, perfected over decades, and it is now being used to maximum effect in Mangalyaan: save time, money and human efforts through careful planning.

You could call it frugal engineering applied to space. Mangalyaan was formally approved only in August 2012, and ISRO had started work on the structure three months before the formal approval. The satellite was finished this August.

NASA's MAVEN, a Mars mission nearly identical to Mangalyaan and to be flown on November 18, had taken at least five years of work and $679 million in costs. If the Mangalyaan launch is successful, ISRO would have done it in 18 months, with $69 million. "Our speed of execution and low costs are the result of careful planning," says Annadurai.



Small Resources, Big Ambitions

When ISRO was set up in the 1960s, moon and Mars missions were not on the agenda, even in the faraway future. "We do not have the fantasy of competing with the economically advanced nations in the exploration of the moon or the planets or manned space-flight," its founder Vikram Sarabhai had famously said. Space technology was purely for the benefit of the society.

With such clear objectives, and working in a period when India was very poor, ISRO's leaders developed a style that produced maximum benefits with the minimum of effort.

"Frugal engineering comes naturally to Indians," says National Research Professor RA Mashelkar, "which is why India delivers more than any other country per dollar of R&D investment." Mashelkar, along with management theorist CK Prahlad, wrote a landmark paper on frugal engineering in the Harvard Business Review three years ago.

According to Mashelkar, Indians learned this technique because of the environment. "Indians grow up in scarcity, but also have high aspirations. These two conditions create a powerful combination," he says. ISRO's ambitions were high, but money was scarce.

So, for two decades, ISRO created some of the best examples of frugal engineering in India.
In the 21st century, when the world tries hard for low-cost access to space, other nations are looking at ISRO with interest and trying to use some of the principles it had perfected. ISRO is also becoming an important collaborator for NASA and Europe.

Build On Older Work

ISRO's engineering now revolves around a few core principles: adapt technology as much as possible, minimise the number of physical models, optimise on testing, and work round the clock. Adaptation is an old method that has now been perfected to an art in ISRO. As in many Indian products, ISRO uses technology in unusual ways not always directly evident to developed country engineers.
@roma....................

just another post to show how cheap our missions are
 
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Illusive

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Re: Why ISRO's Mars mission,launching next week, is the cheapest

I just hope our scientists are paid like their american counterparts so that more Indians join ISRO rather than going to NASA.
 

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Re: Why ISRO's Mars mission,launching next week, is the cheapest

There are some people in India who think ISRO's Mars is a waste of time & money, India should spend on toilets etc etc.......... Well ISRO is the only govt. organization which is doing so well in the field of science & technology. Diverting funds won't improve the condition of poor in India. Enough funds are already allocated towards poverty eradication. It's just that those funds aren't properly utilized.

Nowadays ISRO with its space commercial arm ANTRIX are able to bag foreign contracts by launching satellites of other countries. They have the capability to do more such as mining of asteroids for precious metals which can be beneficial for the Indian economy. It may also provide jobs for the unemployed in India if these space projects are handled diligently. By sharing their funds & resources ISRO can also work with NASA in colonizing other planets in space (this is not about competition between India & China).

All these things may even encourage India's younger generation in having faith in India's science & technology.
Thanks to ISRO lots of people are saved in cyclone that hit Orissa recently. Those who say negative things about India are mostly Pakistanis and Chini, now a days UK is upset that they cant do much in space and India is doing it.

All i want to say to ISRO, please keep doing good work, we are proud of you guys for what you do with shoe string budget.
 

Abhijeet Dey

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Re: Why ISRO's Mars mission,launching next week, is the cheapest

I just hope our scientists are paid like their american counterparts so that more Indians join ISRO rather than going to NASA.
NASA, ESA & ISRO should join their investment and resources. That would make a huge advancement in space projects. Russian ROSKOSMOS & Japan's JAXA are also welcome but I am not sure of China's CNSA.
 

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