Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

India Plans Mars Mission in 2013

Posted by Unknown on from the offplaneting-development-proved-disastrous dept.

New submitter susmit writes with news of India's new goal for launching a satellite to Mars in 2013. From the article: "India plans to launch a mission to Mars next year, putting an orbital probe around the red planet to study its climate and geology, top space department officials said on Thursday. ... A 320-tonne Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket will be used to carry the orbiter spaceship, blasting off from the ISRO launch site at Sriharikota in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Another senior official at ISRO, requesting anonymity, estimated the cost of the mission at 4.0-5.0 billion rupees ($70-90 million dollars)."

2 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Cheap $70-80 million if they stick to the budge by Jeremi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I refuse to believe they can deliver a mars orbiter for 80 million USD.

    I'm skeptical as well. I'd love to see them succeed, but I think it's more likely this will turn out like the $45 Aakash tablet computer did. Often when the price tag on something seems to good to be true, it is.

    --


    I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  2. Re:Cheap $70-80 million if they stick to the budge by wvmarle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A large part of the cost may be due to accounting.

    They use an existing rocket; zero development cost there. While Nasa would probably either develop a new rocket just for that mission, and put all the cost of development on the Mars mission, so they could re-use the rocket later at much lower cost for projects they don't have budget for.

    And there are probably many more places were just accounting cost to one project or the other (little is developed exclusively for one project) can make or break a budget.