ISRO spends a mere $75m for the mission to Mars in turn for a jaw-dropping $2.5b budget by NASA
ISLAMABAD: On February 15, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) held whole the planet stunned after it successfully launched 104 satellites in a single rocket and clinched a world record. The record was earlier entitled to Russia in 2015, on the launch of 37 satellites with a single payload. The record-breaking mission carried one satellite from each customer nation — namely, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and 96 from the United States. The rest belonged to India. They are expected to provide images helpful for coastal use and regulation, road network monitoring and the creation of land-use maps.
The ISRO has remained under the spotlight amid its bundle of achievements over the past decade. A few notables amongst them were the unmanned mission to the Moon and the one into Mar’s orbit, Mangalyaan. However, what drew much of the world’s attention to these projects was the cost efficiency they entail. The ISRO spent a mere $75 million for the mission to Mars in turn for a jaw-dropping $2.5 billion budget by the American space agency, NASA. This is, indeed, a remarkable contrast.
Johar Inam Unnar
Published in The Express Tribune, February 25th, 2017.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
