Why America Needs India's Rockets (bloomberg.com)

Since 2005, U.S. satellite manufacturers have been prohibited from hiring India's space agency to launch their equipment. Private American launch companies, such as SpaceX, are quite happy with this arrangement, which was intended to protect them. But the ban is not only wrong in principle -- it's actually impeding an exciting new American industry, according to Bloomberg. From the article: Last month, under pressure from satellite operators and manufacturers, U.S. trade officials began reviewing the decade-old policy. They should heed the pressure and overturn it. Emerging India may seem like an unlikely competitor for Silicon Valley rocket companies. Yet since 1969, the Indian Space Research Organization has consistently punched above its modest weight class, racking up a series of cheap and practical achievements. One of its most important feats was the development of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, which was designed to carry satellites for monitoring agriculture and water resources, among other things. What made the PSLV unique was that it was designed to launch small satellites. And that's a good niche to occupy at the moment. Over the past few years, the small-satellite market has boomed as advances in miniaturization made space accessible to governments and companies that might never have considered it. The uses for such gear seem almost limitless, from shoebox-sized climate-monitoring devices to Samsung's plan to use thousands of micro-satellites to provide global internet access. Some $2.5 billion has been invested in the industry over the past decade. But getting all those satellites into space is now proving to be a problem, and U.S. policy is partly to blame.The article adds that apart from SpaceX, no other U.S. company has offered a rocket for small satellite launches, even though the demand has surged. This in turn, has resulted in American satellite companies with few choices. Though the U.S. Trade Representatives has offered occasional waivers from the moratorium, India continues to offer a far cheaper reliable option, and it's not even being considered.

To offer more context, India's Mars mission has a budget of $73 million -- making it far cheaper than comparable missions including NASA's $671 million Maven satellite. Further reading on Vox.com, "India's mission to Mars cost less than the movie Gravity."

Comments

I'm not surprised they're cheaper

[rsilvergun]

India has a massive and largely abandoned underclass combined with lax environmental laws (and we're not talking the 'save the whales' kind we're talking the cancer villages kind). I don't expect our want American businesses to compete with that. You'll notice we're not blocking German rocket launches..

Re:I'm not surprised they're cheaper

[ghoul]

Lets Disband NASA till we can have Lead free water in Flint, working levees in New Orleans or paid maternity leave for mothers (which India has BTW).

Just because a nation has problems doesn't mean it shouldn't work on other things. A nation is a huge entity and can work on solving multiple problems at multiple levels.

Yes their are parts of India less developed than parts of India. There are also parts of India more developed than parts of US (Delhi vs a coal mining town in Kentucky)

Do you expect all the highly educated kids whose dream is to work on rockets to go clean toilets in villages till everyone has a working toilet? People have dreams and aspirations based upon their capability and education. Ignoring Space science would mean your best and brightest would just go work for NASA (as it is NASA wouldnt survive without the constant import of brainpower from India).

At least India doesnt spend 600 Billion on defense. India's spending on defense is less than its spending on education. Not something you can say for the US.

Its easy to judge when you have an entire almost empty continent full of natural resources to exploit instead of a country where all the easily reachable resources have been exploited in the last 4000 years and almost every part is inhabited (there is lterally no virgin wilderness in India which does slow down development whenever you want to build a road or a dam as someone lives EVERYWHERE)

Uninformed fools.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever wrote this knows nothing about rocketry. India's space program is largely based around UMDH and RFNA powered rockets. While there are definite use cases for hypergolic rocket systems, for example ease/reliablilty of start/restart and long term storage (re: ICBM), they are very expensive compared to RP-1/LOX or NH4/LOX based systems and require larger rockets, both due to lower energy density of the fuel/oxider and extra mass to accommodate the very material incompatible nature of UMDH & RFNA.

India chose the "cheap" route just as China did with their space program. Cheap with respect to the fact they can very easily stand on the shoulders of those that came before without having to spend significant R&D cycles developing reliable and more efficient cryogenic pumping systems like the Russians (gas generator) or US (staged combustion) did.