Eshan Maitra
It was not too long ago India put a probe into the Mars’s orbit in 2014, that only costed about $74 million. Their current Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems steadfast about space missions and to capture this commercial satellite market. That being said, they launched another very cheap but effective Mini-Shuttle and it was a successful test.
The world has already known about the latest mission of Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and Bezos’s Blue Origin LLC. That, they are trying workout cheapest solutions for space voyages. So that, one-day space journey can become like as easy as taking flights from country to another. Specially the major goal is here to start using reusable aeronautical parts as much as possible.
With all these things in mind India successfully launched scale model (one-fifth of the full size) of a reusable spacecraft on Monday. It blasted off from India’s the southeastern coast, Sriharikota base. Indian Space Research Organization excitedly informed that, the spacecraft reached highest of 65 kilometers (40 miles) altitude. Also was able to maneuvered for gliding at supersonic speeds. The 13 minutes breathtaking moment took a splashdown in the Bay of Bengal.
They say, even the entire space program cost is surprisingly low. Though this will be Asia’s No. 3 economy plans that will spend 75 billion rupees from this mini-launch to March 2017. But considering that in dollars, it is merely a little fraction of the budget of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in U.S. Which is comparing $1.1 billion with $19-billion-dollar major chunk! Considering this, India is way ahead of Musk’s or Bezos’s race.
Still the team say they much more to develop and plans to improve. Regarding that David Wireman from his Dallas-base, managing director and aerospace specialist at consultancy AlixPartners LLP said, “While India’s effort is behind the likes of SpaceX and Blue Origin, there are still others further behind and all of the solutions remain to be proven, both technically and from a cost perspective.
Although the technical hurdles are quite high, it’s reasonable to believe India can be successful.”
Prime Minister Modi congratulated the space researcher team right after the launch was complete, on a Twitter post mentioning “First Indigenous Space Shuttle”. A senior fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses New Delhi, Ajey Lele commented on this success saying, “Space is no longer a domain that’s dominated by the U.S. and Europe. Asian nations are now making forays. India also has to start somewhere, sometime. That time is now.”