India's $ 75 million space mission, a triumph of low-cost Indian engineering
BANGALORE: While India's recent launch of a spacecraft to Mars was a remarkable feat in its own right, it is the $75 million mission's thrifty approach to time, money and materials that is getting worldwide attention.
Just days after the launch of India'sMangalyaan satellite, NASA sent off its own Mars mission, five years in the making, named MAVEN. Its cost: $671 million. The budget of India's Mars mission, by contrast, was just three-quarters of the $100 million that Hollywood spent on last year's space-based hit, "Gravity."
"The mission is a triumph of low-cost Indian engineering," said Roddam Narasimha, an aerospace scientist and a professor at Bangalore's Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research."By excelling in getting so much out of so little, we are establishing ourselves as the most cost-effective center globewide for a variety of advanced technologies," Narasimha said.
That is why so many multinationals have their research and design bases in India, he said, with "some bigger than our national labs."
Just days after the launch of India'sMangalyaan satellite, NASA sent off its own Mars mission, five years in the making, named MAVEN. Its cost: $671 million. The budget of India's Mars mission, by contrast, was just three-quarters of the $100 million that Hollywood spent on last year's space-based hit, "Gravity."
"The mission is a triumph of low-cost Indian engineering," said Roddam Narasimha, an aerospace scientist and a professor at Bangalore's Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research."By excelling in getting so much out of so little, we are establishing ourselves as the most cost-effective center globewide for a variety of advanced technologies," Narasimha said.
That is why so many multinationals have their research and design bases in India, he said, with "some bigger than our national labs."
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