India has recently announced a host of ambitious space projects, approving 227 billion rupees ($2.7 billion; £2.1 billion) for them.
The plans include the next phase of India’s historic mission to the moon, sending an orbiter to Venus, building the first phase of the country’s first space station and developing a new reusable heavy rocket to launch satellites.
It is the largest ever allocation to space projects in India, but given the scale and complexity of the projects, they are far from lavish and have put a renewed spotlight on the cost-effectiveness of India’s space program.
Experts around the world have marveled at how little the Indian Space Research Organization’s (Isro) moon, Mars and solar missions have cost. India spent $74 million on the Mars orbiter Mangalyaan and $75 million on last year’s historic Chandrayaan-3 – less than the $100 million spent on the sci-fi thriller Gravity.
NASA’s Maven orbiter had cost US$582 million and Russia’s Luna-25, which crashed onto the lunar surface two days before Chandrayaan-3’s landing, had cost US$12.6 billion (US$133 million).
Despite the low costs, scientists say India is punching well above its weight in wanting to do valuable work.
Chandrayaan-1 was the first to confirm the presence of water in the lunar soil and Mangalyaan carried a payload to study methane in the Martian atmosphere. Images and data transmitted by Chandrayaan-3 are being watched with great interest by space enthusiasts across the world.
How does India keep costs so low?
Retired civil servant Sisir Kumar Das, who looked after Isro’s finances for more than two decades, says the austerity goes back to the 1960s, when scientists first proposed a space program to the government.
India had only gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947 and the country was struggling to feed its population and build enough schools and hospitals.
“Isro’s founder and scientist Vikram Sarabhai had to convince the government that a space program was not just a sophisticated luxury that had no place in a poor country like India. He explained that satellites can help India serve its citizens better,” Das told the BBC.
But India’s space program has always had to work on a tight budget in a country with conflicting needs and demands. Photos from the 1960s and 1970s show scientists transporting rockets and satellites on bicycles or even an ox cart.
Decades later and after several successful interplanetary missions, Isro’s budget remains modest. This year, India’s budget allocation for its space program is 130 billion rupees ($1.55 billion), while NASA’s budget for this year is $25 billion.
Mr Das says one of the main reasons why Isro’s missions are so cheap is the fact that all the technology is homegrown and the machines are manufactured in India.
In 1974, after Delhi conducted its first nuclear test and the West imposed an embargo banning technology transfers to India, the restrictions “turned into a blessing in disguise” for the space program, he adds.
“Our scientists used it as an incentive to develop their own technology. All the equipment they needed was manufactured domestically – and salaries and labor costs were certainly lower here than in the US or Europe.”
Science writer Pallava Bagla says that unlike Isro, NASA outsources satellite production to private companies and also takes insurance for its missions, which increases their cost.
“Furthermore, unlike NASA, India does not create engineering models that are used for testing a project before the actual launch. We only make one model and it is intended to fly. It’s risky, there are chances of a crash, but that’s the risk we take. And we can accept it because it is a government program.”
Mylswamy Annadurai, head of India’s first and second moon missions and Mars mission, told the BBC that Isro employs far fewer people and pays lower salaries, making Indian projects competitive.
He says he led “small, dedicated teams of less than 10 people and people often worked longer hours without any overtime pay” because they were so passionate about what they did.
The tight budget for the projects, he said, sometimes sent them back to the drawing board, allowed them to think out of the box and led to new innovations.
“For Chandrayaan-1, the allocated budget was $89 million and that was okay for the initial configuration. But then it was decided that the spacecraft would carry a lunar impact probe, which meant an extra 35 kg.”
Scientists had two choices: use a heavier rocket to perform the mission, but that would cost more, or remove some of the hardware to lighten the burden.
“We chose the second option. We have reduced the number of thrusters from sixteen to eight and the pressure tanks and batteries have been reduced from two to one.”
By reducing the number of batteries, Annadurai says, the launch had to take place before the end of 2008.
“That would give the spacecraft two years to fly around the moon without encountering a long solar eclipse, which would impact its ability to recharge. So we had to maintain a strict work schedule to meet the launch deadline.”
Mangalyaan cost so little, says Annadurai, “because we used most of the hardware we had already designed for Chandrayaan-2 after the second moon mission was postponed.”
Mr Bagla says India’s space program, which is so cheap, is “a great achievement”. But as India grows, costs may rise.
Right now, he says, India is using small rocket launchers because they don’t have anything stronger. But that means the Indian spacecraft will take much longer to reach their destination.
So when Chandrayaan-3 was launched, it orbited the Earth several times before being slingshotted into the moon’s orbit, where it orbited the moon a few times before landing. On the other hand, Russia’s Luna-25 quickly escaped Earth’s gravity on a powerful Soyuz rocket.
“We used Mother Earth’s gravity to push us to the moon. It took us weeks and a lot of resourceful planning. Isro has mastered this and has done it successfully so many times.”
But, Mr Bagla says, India has announced plans to send a manned mission to the moon by 2040 and a more powerful rocket would be needed to fly astronauts there faster.
The government recently said that work on this new rocket had already been approved and it would be ready in 2032. This Next Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV) will be able to carry more weight, but also cost more.
Moreover, Mr Bagla says, India is in the process of opening up the space sector to private players and costs are unlikely to remain as low once that happens.
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