mangalyaan – Techdirt (original) (raw)
Stories filed under: "mangalyaan"
DailyDirt: Government Space Programs On Shoestring Budgets
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A renewed interest in space technology is growing with re-usable rockets and more private companies getting into the space business. Rocket science is generally a pretty expensive and risky venture because there are just so many things that could go wrong. Still, there are a few space agencies accomplishing significant space missions on relatively small budgets, and we should probably expect amateur space programs to get better and better as the costs to get to space come down.
- In Ghana, the All Nations University College (ANUC) is developing a fledgling space program with plans to send a cubesat into orbit by 2018. The University of Natural Resources and Energy in Ghana is planning to launch a weather satellite in September 2016, and the Ghana Space Science and Technology Institute (GSSTI) has other ambitious plans to send a satellite into space by 2020, too. While Ghana’s economy is still mostly dependent on agriculture, these space programs could help farmers and the government plan better and help to preserve the nation’s environment. [url]
- Russia is working with countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran on joint space programs for peaceful exploration. Roscosmos (the Russian Federal Space Agency) is helping these countries train their own cosmonauts and build satellites, presumably in exchange for funding that the Russian space agency might need to continue building its own independent space station by 2023. [url]
- India’s Mars Orbiter Mission was an impressive success in 2014 — achieved with a fraction of the budget of other Mars missions. India put an artificial satellite named Mangalyaan in orbit around Mars for just $74 million — less than the cost to make the fictional movie Gravity (and less than India receives in foreign aid from the UK). The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is only the 4th space agency behind the US, Russia and the EU to have completed a successful Mars space mission, and the entire mission took less than a year to execute from approval to launch. [url]
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Filed Under: all nations university college, ghana space science and technology institute, indian space research organization, isro, mangalyaan, mars, mars orbiter mission, roscosmos, satellites, space, space exploration
DailyDirt: Making It To Mars
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Traveling to Mars is no simple feat, and it’s much more difficult than a relatively short trip to the moon. The atmosphere on Mars is thinner than the Earth’s, so it poses a significant threat to any vehicle that attempts to land on the planet. Plus, a trip to Mars could take months depending on how much fuel is used (or what kind of propulsion is used). Still, several projects are making the ambitious journey, and here are just a few examples of Martian missions.
- India’s Mangalyaan spacecraft has successfully reached Mars orbit, and this Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) cost just $74 million to accomplish. This wasn’t as easy task, as the worldwide record of 30 of the 51 previous attempts to reach Mars have ended in failure and India is the first country to accomplish a successful Mars mission on the first attempt. [url]
- Over 200,000 people have volunteered to go on a one-way trip to Mars in 2023. These folks will be narrowed down to about a group of 40 people selected to do seven years of intensive training. [url]
- The Time Capsule to Mars (TC2M) project aims to send some cubesats to Mars in 2017 containing an assortment of digital media. Will anyone be surprised if some unlicensed music or media sneaks on-board? [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
Filed Under: cubesat, india, mangalyaan, manned missions, mars, mars one, orbit, satellites, space, space exploration, spacecraft, time capsule