Robot for India's Moon Mission by IIT Kanpur

ISRO, Indian Space Research Organisation, is planning to send a robot for its mission to moon. It is probably going to be made by students and profs of IIT-Kanpur (the Indian equivalent of MIT). The two-legged robot, fitted with sophisticated sensors and high-resolution cameras, is capable of recording information and images using laser beams. It can also detect the distance of a hindrance, enter a small crater, bring surface samples and return high resolution images to the lunar vehicle. It balances cost and sophistication; basic functionality for only $50,000.

Comments

This is a journal entry folks, not a regular story

[Old Man Kensey]

When critiquing the grammar and spelling, remember it's a Slashdot journal entry -- it's unlikely the author had any idea it was going to be seen by the entire Slashdot horde.

Re:Robot Grammar

[Nymz]

The big question is whether it needs to spell "ether" :}
Either that, or Irony Alert!

The ancient meaning of ether is outer space, so I was shooting for both irony and a pun. :-)

Re:Time-tested government formula

[arivanov]

Close but no cigar.

The question is: Why compare total R&D, Manufacturing and Operations budget to a lone manufacturing cost without any of the R&D and operation costs taken into account? And the answer is - because it sounds cool on Slashdot.

Re:Spellcheck FFS: "sophisitication"

[Goaway]

Slashdot "editors" do not "edit" posts. This makes Slashdot "more real" according to CmdrTaco.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=174297&thresho ld=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=14502339#145024 84

No, they would have to change the default option

[Nymz]

it's unlikely the author had any idea it was going to be seen by the entire Slashdot horde.

Publicize: Submit this story to be posted to the Slashdot front page
Publish: Share this with other Slashdot users
Post: Pay no attention to my musings

Journal entries have 3 options, and Publish is the default selection, not Publicize.

Re:IIT = MIT? ha

[ghoul]

I dont believe those numbers. Are you saying IITK has a better faculty student ratio than MIT. Thats very hard to believe given that IITK is not even the top engineering college in India (that title oscillates between IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi) and definitely not the the top research instititute - that honor belongs to Indian Institute of Science Bangalore. Not many in the west hear about IISc as it does not have any undergraduate programs only postgradute research so there is no large population like the IIT B.Engg population working in US industry but if you want to do hard core research in India either you go work for the Army (DRDO), space (ISRO), Atomic establishment(DAE) or you go to IISc. There may be a few others like Indian Statistical Institute(ISI) which built the first Indian computer back in the 50s but the IITs are definitely not premier research institutes. The job of the IITs is to churn out large numbers of well trained Engineers not to carry out Fundamental research.

Re:Flamebait

[ScorpFromHell]

ISRO [Indian Space Research Organization - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Space_Research _Organisation%5D, and India's Space & Atomic Energy research in general, has been targeting self sufficiency by indulging in indigenous research & manufacturing capabilities, including the whole supply chain. India owes wrt the science [For eg., Sir Newton did come up with some workable equations/formulae for these kinda stuff]. But wrt technology India has tried to or has had to be self sufficient, especially due to the embargoes placed on it wrt "rocket"eering. And because of the whole supply chain coming from within India, they are able to do everything for pretty cheap. The cab/taxi bill to moon is going to be a fraction of what NASA & ESA can manage with their indigenous achievements.

NASA & ESA are being offered to send their payload (some kinda sensors) FREE of cost on board the Chandrayan - I in 2008, only under the condition of equal access to data from those sensors. Even if they are not for free, they are an awesome lot more cheaper than if they had to send those on their own.

Anyway, it does seem decently plausible that there's not much of a rip off from NASA achievements, with ISRO being bent upon achieving self sufficiency.

Re:Cost of getting there far outpaces robot cost

[ScorpFromHell]

The Apollo missions got 47,900 kg to the moon for $2.75 billion in today's money. That's $57,411/kg. Let's say the Indians can do it vastly cheaper: $25,000/kg. Wrong, ISRO wants to do it for a mere $0.075 Billion. The launch vehicle is 316 tonne, with the spacecraft weighing 1304 kg at launch and 590 kg at lunar orbit. TThe scientific payload has a total mass of 90 kg and contains six Indian instruments and six foreign instruments. A total of 296394 KGs. That comes around to $236/kg!
From the official FAQ on Chandrayaan -I:

The budgetary estimate for realising the proposed Indian lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 stands at Rs. 386.00 crores (about $76 million). This includes Rs. 53.00 crores (about $11 million) for Payload development, Rs. 83.00 crores (about $17 million) for Spacecraft Bus, Rs. 100.00 crores ($20 million) towards establishment of Deep Space Network, Rs. 100.00 crores ($20 million) for PSLV launch vehicle and Rs. 50.00 crores ($10 million) for scientific data centre, external network support and programme management expenses. Assuming it would cost the same for Chandrayaan - II too (even though the expenditure on the Deep Space Network establishment & scientific data center will not recur), $76 Million is a pittance against Apollo's $2.75 Billion in today's money.

Let's say the robot weighs the same as Spirit and Opportunity (the current Mars rovers): 175kg. So the cost to get the robot to the moon would be $4,375,000, completely discounting the cost of the rocket itself, the payload container, the landing mechanism, support personnel, etc, etc. As per this news ISRO wants the rover to be between 30 - 100 KGs, which is way lesser than 175 KG of Spirit & Opportunity. And the rover's fare to the moon will come out to be between $7100 to $23630. That's certainly cheaper than the cost of the rover ($50000) who's prototype has been built by IIT-K as per TFA!

Practical upshot: they could easily spend 10 times as much on the robot and only increase the cost of the mission 11%. And once the real costs are taken into account, the increase would probably be negligible ( 1%).

That's why NASA spends so much on the robot: a) it's incredibly expensive just to get the robot anywhere and b) if the robot screws up once it's there, the bulk of the money was completely wasted, so making the robot robust & reliable is very important. Fiddlesticks. That's why NASA is hitch hiking for free on Chandrayan - I. India does seem to have better brains, sharper accounting and a bigger heart, considering the embargoes that USA had put on India. And yeah, they gave zero for free without any royalties ;)