People who keep making the (nonsense) point of space vs. better roads keep harping on how the money will be better spent on infrastructure.<p>I looked up the Indian planning commission's budget for 2013-14 road development. Planning Commission provided an annual outlay of Rs.37,300.00 Crore for 2013-2014 for development in road sector[1]. That is more than 6 billion USD - just for improving roads, for a year.<p>The budget of the Mars Orbiter mission was around 75 million USD[2] i.e. less than 1.5% of [1].<p>[1]: <a href="http://www.performance.gov.in/sites/default/files/departments/road-transport/2013-14.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.performance.gov.in/sites/default/files/department...</a><p>[2]: <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/saritharai/2013/11/07/how-indias-isro-launched-its-mars-mission-at-cut-rate-costs/" rel="nofollow">http://www.forbes.com/sites/saritharai/2013/11/07/how-indias...</a>
I remember when in 2012, the then PM of India had declared this project. The entire internet community came together to deride this, saying it's not possible in a couple of years and that India had better feed its hungry etc.<p>I am a very proud Indian today. This achievement, like other by humanity (LHC in particular), will encourage me to push myself towards greatness.
What is even more commendable is that it was done pretty cheaply [1]. Granted the capabilities of some of the other craft are different - but not THAT different.
Add to this the fact that this was a success in the first shot - getting a craft from the Earth to to Mars Orbit correctly in one shot on a meager budget is indeed a stunning success for ISRO.<p>[1] <a href="https://twitter.com/WSJIndia/status/514591179363864578/photo/1" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/WSJIndia/status/514591179363864578/photo...</a>
MOM spacecraft was launched last year (5th Nov 2013) and today it entered into Martian orbit. Here's the twitter handle of spacecraft: <a href="https://twitter.com/MarsOrbiter" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/MarsOrbiter</a><p>Mars Orbit Insertion was covered live on ISRO webcast (<a href="http://webcast.isro.gov.in/" rel="nofollow">http://webcast.isro.gov.in/</a>), Doordarshan National TV and other channels. Here's the complete coverage of MOI: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZL_Vwy0JqI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZL_Vwy0JqI</a><p>MOI sequence of events: <a href="http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mom/status.html" rel="nofollow">http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mom/status.html</a><p>MOM carries five scientific payloads: <a href="http://www.isro.org/mars/payload.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.isro.org/mars/payload.aspx</a><p>Expecting first set of colour pictures from MOM by today evening (IST) :)
Given that HN is a more intellectual and educated group and there are no one here who is criticizing about the money spent . But the were skeptics who did criticize initially . It basically represents the sample of the population who probably never understood the meaning of space exploration. Most of them are partially educated or educated with a faulty system. It does not just apply to India, there are people sitting in US congress who thinks NASA is waste of money. Same people would have blamed ISRO for INSAT , GSLV & PSLV back in the days where there were bunch of satellite already doing the similar work. Its only because of those ISRO efforts today we have own geo-censing and satellite communication without having to buy from external agencies or compromise our security .
Twitter handle of ISRO's Mars Orbiter: <a href="https://twitter.com/MarsOrbiter" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/MarsOrbiter</a><p>First tweet:
"What is red, is a planet and is the focus of my orbit?"
Great news for India's space program especially considering INR4.54 billion (US$74 million) cost for an interplanetary mission like this, it should be a crash course in frugal space engineering. I really believe ISRO can form a close partnership with NASA in future to launch supply to ISS and much more.
Successful Mars orbit for 0.42% of the price Facebook paid for Whatsapp.<p>Awesome job and glad ISRO doesn't seem to suffer from the same bad luck the Russians do when it comes to Mars!
It is so incredibly inspiring to listen to a PM speak about space, science, research and exploration for more than an hour. Does anyone know if this is broadcast on Indian national TV?
I really want that people around the world should stop saying that this is a cheap mission. Instead you can say that this one is economical mission.<p>Saying it cheap is derogatory remark. ISRO was thrifty while spending funds on this mission.
Some good information here -<p><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-youngworld/four-things-to-know-about-mom/article5365325.ece" rel="nofollow">http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-youngwor...</a><p><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/journey-to-the-red-planet/article6429902.ece?homepage=true&ref=relatedNews" rel="nofollow">http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/journey-to-the-red-...</a>
I didn't see anyone compare this success at first attempt with the (partial) failure of Jade Rabbit <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7226307" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7226307</a> however that seems a more interesting comparison between newcomers to space exploration rather than, say, NASA missions.
The odds were against them, and yet they managed to pull this off on the first try. Congratulations ISRO!
<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-29307123" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-29307123</a>
Amazing well done! Sounds like they chose very wisely the scope of the mission and came up with a useful goal that they could archive with the limited resources. Lets hope they get some useful data from the methane detector
Previous discussion on the budget : <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7964261" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7964261</a>
more on this is here:<p><a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-creates-history-keeps-date-with-Mars/articleshow/43296484.cms" rel="nofollow">http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-creates-histo...</a>
cue haters talking about lack of toilets/education/too much rape/other random social issue that exists in India they heard about that one time in the news - and how India should fix that instead of developing technology...in 5..4..3..2..1
I just wish ISRO was a privately held like spacex and giving it a run for its money. You would get the students in India really inspired to learn real engineering.
Congrats India!<p>In other news, <a href="http://isro.gov.in/" rel="nofollow">http://isro.gov.in/</a> has a <blink> tag :) Some parts of ISRO aren't catching up with technology :))
Good practice for ICBM development.<p>India's current IRBMs can target all of China.
The goal is to be able to target all of the mainland United States.