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India launches 20 satellites in single mission

bbc.com

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Re: India launches 20 satellites in single mission

#31

Post by thomasfoster96 »

ahoka wrote: post #30
sidcool wrote: post #24

There will be naysayers when a second or third world country achieves a milestone. Inspite of similar feats done before by developed nations, this is huge for developing economies. Similar thing happened when the earlier Prime Minister of India announced that India will launch a Mars mission within a year at a fraction of cost at what NASA or ESA would do it. Most people laughed at it, and said it's impossible and wh…

Sorry to be off-topic, but this is not the first time I see using the phrases 'second world' and 'third world' incorrectly here. A third world country was a neutral or unaligned country in the cold war. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-World_Model

Actually I think this may be a rare correct usage of the term.

Re: India launches 20 satellites in single mission

#32

Post by kirrent »

ucaetano wrote: post #17

Anyone has cost/kg to LEO for this launch system?

the PSLV's payload to LEO is 3.25 tons. Wikipedia gives the cost of a launch at 15 million USD so that gives about $4600/kg to LEO. For context, that's nearly twice as expensive per kg as a Falcon 9 launch but they're difficult to compare because they serve different launch markets.

Re: India launches 20 satellites in single mission

#33

Post by sundarurfriend »

> The chairman of the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), Kiran Kumar, told the NDTV news channel that launching 20 satellites in a single mission was like "allowing birds to fly in space".

'What, what does that mean?'

> "Each of these small objects that you are putting into space will carry out their own activity, which is independent of the other, and each of them will live a wonderful life for the finite period for which they have been designed," he said, ahead of the launch.

'Oh! That was... surprisingly poetic.'

Re: India launches 20 satellites in single mission

#34

Post by whizzkid »

sidcool wrote: post #24

There will be naysayers when a second or third world country achieves a milestone. Inspite of similar feats done before by developed nations, this is huge for developing economies. Similar thing happened when the earlier Prime Minister of India announced that India will launch a Mars mission within a year at a fraction of cost at what NASA or ESA would do it. Most people laughed at it, and said it's impossible and wh…

I think there are some important points that is not mentioned when discussing Indias doing it with much less money than what NASA did.

Questions comes to my mind are;

- How well(deserved) the engineers were paid during the development?

- How much of the budget were invested in research?

- What are the positive outcomes of the mission?

I think they have some direct effects on the budget as well.

Re: India launches 20 satellites in single mission

#35

Post by IndianAstronaut »

curiousgal wrote: post #16
mani04 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't think it is a good point of discussion in this context. The scientists who are working on these rocket launch missions are not in charge of administration of the towns and villages where the toilets need to be built.

Of course they are not. But the merits of India's space program are a debate worth having in my opinion. All the other space programs (except for NK) were started when their nations were doing okay socially at least. Sure, the profits may be redirected to fixing those social issues but lives are being lost the longer they delay that.

Indians spend several times more money on Bollywood and Cricket than the space programs. Space programs are not what needs to be targeted for budgets.

Re: India launches 20 satellites in single mission

#36

Post by simonh »

eklavya wrote: post #28
x5n1 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well when your top engineers get paid 25k sure you can do it for a fraction of the cost. Why couldn't you. Indian military already has tons of tech that if they bring to the civil sector they could use to compete with whatever. The problem is usually corruption and funding. The intelligence is there, in a billion people there are a few million outliers. Heck most of American Fortune 500's are leveraging Indian brains…

Top engineers don't get paid this low but I get your point. Do you have any evidence to support that the major cost component for space missions is the salaries being paid?

Apart from land rights, all the costs of everything are salaries being paid. I'm not be facetious. It's salaries all the way down until you hit land rights.

Re: India launches 20 satellites in single mission

#37

Post by simonh »

sidcool wrote: post #24

There will be naysayers when a second or third world country achieves a milestone. Inspite of similar feats done before by developed nations, this is huge for developing economies. Similar thing happened when the earlier Prime Minister of India announced that India will launch a Mars mission within a year at a fraction of cost at what NASA or ESA would do it. Most people laughed at it, and said it's impossible and wh…

> Most people laughed at it, and said it's impossible and what not. But guess what, India did send a successful Mars mission that's orbiting the red planet right now. Since then I take 'Expert' HN comments with a pinch of salt.

I've been on HN for many years and my recollection is that the community here has been very supportive and encouraging of India's efforts in space technology.

Re: India launches 20 satellites in single mission

#38

Post by pilsetnieks »

sidcool wrote: post #23
pilsetnieks wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the article: > The record for the most number of satellites launched in a single mission belongs to Russia, which sent up 37 satellites in 2014. Also, it's not exactly a feat. If someone really wanted, they could stuff a rocket full of nanosats but I imagine there's more risk in launching that much at once. (They could be released in sequence but still, more chances for something to go wrong.)

Yep, it's that easy.

It's not what I said. I meant that there probably are reasons apart from difficulty that people don't launch so many satellites at once.

Re: India launches 20 satellites in single mission

#39

Post by nickserv »

sidcool wrote: post #24

There will be naysayers when a second or third world country achieves a milestone. Inspite of similar feats done before by developed nations, this is huge for developing economies. Similar thing happened when the earlier Prime Minister of India announced that India will launch a Mars mission within a year at a fraction of cost at what NASA or ESA would do it. Most people laughed at it, and said it's impossible and wh…

Not to denigrate the Indian space program on their historic achievement, but since it has been done before (even if more expensively), it's of less interest to those that are looking forward to major advances in the field.

These types of achievements are great though, in the sense that they foster competition and help everyone improve.

Re: India launches 20 satellites in single mission

#40

Post by lostlogin »

ahoka wrote: post #30
sidcool wrote: post #24

There will be naysayers when a second or third world country achieves a milestone. Inspite of similar feats done before by developed nations, this is huge for developing economies. Similar thing happened when the earlier Prime Minister of India announced that India will launch a Mars mission within a year at a fraction of cost at what NASA or ESA would do it. Most people laughed at it, and said it's impossible and wh…

Sorry to be off-topic, but this is not the first time I see using the phrases 'second world' and 'third world' incorrectly here. A third world country was a neutral or unaligned country in the cold war. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-World_Model

But probably 95% of usage uses the term to mean developing or under developed country which is probably a better definition now (as in that meaning indicates what the author meant).
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