Re-phrased news heading: Discover the Price Tag of the ISRO Mission and Compare to NASA’s Costs
India is on the verge of embarking on another significant expedition, this time aimed at the Sun. Recently, India made headlines with the triumphant Chandrayaan-3 mission, successfully accomplishing a gentle touchdown on the lunar South Pole and becoming the first nation to do so. Now, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is preparing for its upcoming solar mission, Aditya-L1, scheduled for launch on September 2. With this mission, ISRO aspires to uncover the enigmas surrounding the Sun.
The spacecraft along with PSLV-C57 is now ready for launch and has been deployed at Launch Pad 2 at the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota. ISRO chairman S Somnath said, “We are just getting ready for the launch. The rocket and the satellite are ready. We have completed the launch exercise. So tomorrow we have to start the countdown for the day after tomorrow’s launch.”
With launch less than a day away, here’s how much India’s first solar mission Aditya-L1 will cost.
Aditya-L1: Cost
India is known for its cost-effective space missions. Chandrayaan-1, launched in October 2008 with the aim of mapping the lunar surface in terms of chemical and mineralogical composition, cost Rs. 386 million. The next two lunar flights, Chandrayaan-2 and the recent Chandrayaan-3 were also conducted at a cost of Rs. 978 million and Rs. 600 billion, which is even less than the budget of Hollywood space movies like Interstellar and Gravity.
Aditya-L1 is also expected to be a cost effective mission. While ISRO has not disclosed the latest cost breakdown of the mission, an earlier Lok Sabha poll revealed that the Indian government had allocated a budget of around Rs. 378.53 crore for the solar mission, excluding launch costs.
Vs other space missions
This would make Aditya-1 one of the cheapest solar missions ever completed. By comparison, NASA’s STEREO spacecraft, launched on October 25, 2006 and designed to study the structure and evolution of solar storms as they rise from the Sun, cost a whopping $550 million.
On the other hand, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, which flies closer to the Sun than any other spacecraft in history, cost NASA a whopping $1.5 billion due to the complex engineering and painstaking research involved in its development.
