What is the issue?
- An agreement was made between Antrix Corporation (commercial arm of ISRO) and a start-up TeamIndus on a mission to moon.
- Recently that project was called off due to some practical difficulties.
What was agreed mission was about?
- Google Lunar XPrize was contest which was to soft-land a spacecraft on the moon, and move a robotic rover for 500 metres on the lunar terrain.
- It was also demanded that the robot must send videos and pictures from there all this before March 31, 2018.
- It was mandated that each team must be at least 90% private-funded.
- In 2007 a Bengaluru based start-up TeamIndus conceived the moon-landing contest, this made corporate icons and about 70-odd individuals to bless TeamIndus and put their money in it.
- Some of ISRO’s retired brains, who had led its 2008 Chandrayaan-1 and Mars orbiter missions, were roped in to achieve the mission
- TeamIndus also won an encouraging milestone prize of $1 million from google.
- In December 2016, it also found timely space transport through ISRO’s PSLV rocket.
What is the reason for the failure of the project?
- About 100-plus young engineers for over seven years were working for this project but the project was failed.
- It noted that the teams could not raise the funds they needed, they also ran into technical and regulatory difficulties.
- It needed another six months to raise the money for hardware imports for the spacecraft and the rover.
- The landing spacecraft and the rover should have been sent to the ISRO for flight qualification clearance about six months before the launch date. TeamIndus was nowhere near it.
- Antrix and TeamIndus, which are contract-bound not to disclose details of the deal, have not clarified the whispers around the cancelled launch.
What are constrains in funding a space project?
- Pioneering state-funded lunar landing missions of the U.S. and the former Soviet Union did not succeed at first shot, the Google Lunar XPrize itself conceded a private-funded “moonshot” is not easy.
- TeamIndus raised about half of the $60-65 million (around Rs.400 crore) it needed to complete the mission, new investors did not appear enthused.
- Space travel costs are high even it is a ride on an internationally economical PSLV.
- It may have cost TeamIndus Rs.150-200 crore plus insurance to launch its 600 kg spacecraft.
- TeamIndus was to pay Antrix in instalments and clear the entire sum before the launch but the company was only able to pay its 1st instalment.
Source: the Hindu
