I've been to India's Satish Dhawan Space Centre for work. They do a lot with the resources they have been given.
The on-base museum exhibits show how their weather and communications satellites help India with its national development goals (agriculture, connecting the countryside, etc.).
Space is hard. India has very reliable rocket (PSLV) that gets satellites to orbit. They have also successfully sent a probe to Mars, which is a real accomplishment for any space program. I was living in China at the time, and the Chinese felt a bit shown up by what they consider to be a less developed economy.
> I was living in China at the time, and the Chinese felt a bit shown up by what they consider to be a less developed economy.
And they should. I and probably a lot others are rooting for India! It is great to see these types of accomplishments by other less resourced programs.
> The on-base museum exhibits show how their weather and communications satellites help India with its national development goals.
My question is: Can India achieve those goals with less money using a commercial satellite launching company like SpaceX? And if India does have a competitive advantage in launching satellites, should it be run by the government or as a private enterprise?
India has been launching rockets and satellites since 1960s. SpaceX wasn't there, then ;)
ISRO launch vehicles (PSLV and GSLV MkII) do have competitive advantages in launching commercial payloads (up to 2.5 tonne). They already have a commercial/marketing arm called Antrix Corporation[1]. Also, there are a few private launch brokers like Earth2Orbit[2] who can procure ISRO launches. However, ISRO doesn't yet have heavy lift (4+ tonne to GTO, 8+ tonne to LEO) launch vehicle. They are working on it, and they have a new heavy lift launcher called LVM3 (aka GSLV MkIII)[3]. First developmental flight is scheduled in Dec 2016.
Should ISRO be run as a private organisation to achieve better efficiency ?
I don't think so, because, despite being a government organisation, the bureaucracy in ISRO is next to nothing. The organisation hierarchy is relatively flat for that size. There are six or seven levels between the lowest grade scientist and the chairman. I think Scientist B to H. The chairman reports directly to the Prime Minister. Even the defence heads don't get this privilege. If you imagine any private organisation of that size, there are a lot more inefficiencies in their org structure and the general operations. I'm not able to draw specific comparisons at the moment.
ISRO has also not net produced a Falcon 9, yet. That I think is mostly because of their budget constraints and not because of organisational inefficiencies.
Now, can a new private company do better than ISRO? Specifically, can a private company build a Falcon 9 like rocket more efficiently than ISRO can? In theory, absolutely. In reality, probably no.
Per ISRO's budget estimate, you are looking at raising at least $3-4 billion for a 2 year runway. Even if you start small you are looking to raise in the $100 million range for your seed round. Unlikely that any domestic VC in India will foot this bill.
So you'll need foreign money. Given the security concerns around space programs, govt will not let foreign money fund such programs. Even if they did, it'll subject the foreign investors to so much red tape that the investors will get fed up and decide not to invest.
Primary payload of this launch was ScatSat-1 satellite[1]. ScatSat-1 contains a scatterometer to monitor weather conditions over ocean (weather forecasting, cyclone prediction etc.). ScatSat-1 data can predict/reveal bad weather conditions as early as five days before the actual bad weather conditions occur.
ScatSat-1 satellite is a stopgap replacement for OCSCAT payload, which stopped functioning recently, onboard Oceansat-2 satellite.
ISRO's Oceansat-2 data is widely used by various weather and space agencies such as ESA, NOAA, NASA/JPL[2][3][4] etc.
I'm a huge fan of India's space program. This latest accomplishment is awesome. However, I can't help but think what an unfortunate name for an instrument and subsequently a satellite.
Indian government agencies have weird recruiting procedures and age limits as far as I can tell. I am not sure if things changed now. Perhaps getting work at Antrix would be different ?
When the US decided to send men to space, lynchings were still a regular occurrence, poverty was widespread in many areas especially among minorities, etc.
Indian cities are unclean primarily because of the population. More specifically, because of congestion. The only way to fix this problem is by decongestion of these cities (apart from the awesome Swachh Bharat mission initiated by our Prime Minister). The recently elected 2014 Indian government has also launched a "Smart Cities" mission which will create 100 Smart cities across the country by 2030 (at the very least Phase 1 of the Smart Cities will be complete). This mission will solve the congestion problem making it easier to maintain the existing Tier 1/2 cities.
Every country has its own problems and no one is perfect. Yes, its getting improved as people are getting educated and development of rural areas is happening
What controversy ? If your referring to the cost of the ISRO program - we are very proud of the Space Program in India, both media and People.There is no doubts about the cost effectiveness of the Space Program. It is just the western media, who highlight the short commings of other areas of India and compare it to our Space Program.
Adding to this. The funny thing about the western MSM is that they only noticed the Mars and Moon missions. What they didn't pay attention to was the payback in terms of human lives improved just by ISRO's satellites helping with remote sensing, weather forecasting, agriculture planning, forest management etc.. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Remote_Sensing)
I would even argue that ISRO's primary mission is focused on solving "today's Humanity" problems rather than "Star Trek" style explorations. Just because they sent up a couple of spacecraft like Chandrayaan or Mangalayaan doesn't take away from that primary mission but doesn't stop the MSM from finding reason to complain. Weird.
And for all those highlighting the short comings of other areas of India compared to its space program, do you recall what other aspects of life in the US were like at the initiation and heights of its space program?
Just as in the US, benefits of India's space efforts will soon begin to show up in the life of the average Joe/Jane, if it hasn't already.
In 1999, a devastating cyclone hit the Indian state of Odisha killing 10000 people.[1] In 2013, Odisha was again hit by a cyclone of similar magnitude[2]. However due to advance warnings by weather satellites[3] 550,000 people were evacuated and only 45 people died this time. What is the worth of 10,000 human lives?
there is no 'controversy' in India because man on the street is just amazed that Govt can achieve something at all sucessfully, let alone something of this magnitude. They don't care about 'money can be spent on toilets' dilemma because they know that money will go straight into politicians pockets if it was reallocated to 'toilets'. So its not 'toilets vs space' its 'corruption vs space'.
Yes in the Western media that's exactly how its been reported which is why I asked what the local coverage has been. I don't get local Indian coverage where I live and this is a place to discuss things no?
Why is asking a question and being interested in the subject offensive?
As an Indian, I can see why some others could've found it offensive. Anytime ISRO does a newsworthy launch, some Western newspaper writes that the money could be used to build toilets. Sometimes, the newspaper is a rag, but Indian media prefers to cover that (sometimes more than the launch itself). So it's a touchy point. If I had not had my coffee, I'd probably be offended too. I think you were unlucky (vs having said something offensive).
They are just jealous of us. And scared that we are getting better day by day, threatening their supremacy. Hence the suggestion of building toilets from space money ...
What controversy? The govt. of India needs income, and by selling space launch services that are actually profitable while furthering the nation's science and engineering capabilities is the best use of tax money it can make.
Not to speak about remote sensing for land management / agriculture, something that is quite vital for a country so overcrowded and with such a volatile weather.
I'm from India, I can say local media mentioned it as major success launch & especially placing satellites in two different orbits. I think it includes playload from foreign countries like US.
I'm not even in India, and there's no controversy even in western media (reading the other comments), there's nothing at all in this wsj article either.
What are you talking about? I'm genuinely curious?
Indian media is a TRP hungry machine and it optimizes news for TRP. There are other competing new issues which are driving that currently.
Also its sort of given that ISRO does all these awesome things often so its not a like a surprise anymore.
More like more new news to solidify our pride in ISRO.
Something like the next solar mission Aditya(planned to launch 2019), Moon mission Chandrayaan 2(planned to launch 2018), Mars mission Mangalyaan 2(planned to launch 2020) would be interesting.
The coverage in Indian media has all been in praise of the ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation). You can check these links to get a flavour (please use adblock):
Now I'm curious, what western media has presented it as controversial? All I've seen here in Germany around this launch has been fairly factual or quite positive, but most of it were just short "this has happened" notices.
I guess you're unaware that satellites are used for
Space Based Inputs for Decentralized Planning (SIS-DP)
National Urban Information System (NUIS)
ISRO Disaster Management Support Programme (ISRO-DMSP)
Biodiversity Characterizations at landscape level- http://bis.iirs.gov.in
Preharvest crop area and production estimation of major crops.
Drought monitoring and assessment based on vegetation condition.
Flood risk zone mapping and flood damage assessment.
Hydro-geomorphological maps for locating underground water resources for drilling well.
Irrigation command area status monitoring
Snow-melt run-off estimates for planning water use in down stream projects
Land use and land cover mapping
Urban planning
Forest survey
Wetland mapping
Environmental impact analysis
Mineral Prospecting
Coastal studies
Integrated Mission for Sustainable Development (initiated in 1992) for generating locale-specific prescriptions for integrated land and water resources development in 174 districts.
There are probably other uses as well. This argument of "cant-go-to-space-till-every-other-problem-is-solved" makes no sense. You need space programs to solve major problems. If you take away all the budget from space programs and other research, and then put all of that into providing food, it'll take much longer to get rid of poverty. Think "teaching a man to fish" vs "giving a man a fish".
The on-base museum exhibits show how their weather and communications satellites help India with its national development goals (agriculture, connecting the countryside, etc.).
Space is hard. India has very reliable rocket (PSLV) that gets satellites to orbit. They have also successfully sent a probe to Mars, which is a real accomplishment for any space program. I was living in China at the time, and the Chinese felt a bit shown up by what they consider to be a less developed economy.