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.
