NEW DELHI: After success of India’s Mars mission at a budget of Rs 450 crore, the Unites Arab Emirates (UAE) has now approached Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for launch its own mission to red planet in 2020, the government said Monday.
Union Minister of State for Department of Space Jitendra Singh said that Mars Mission is a unique success for India and the entire infrastructure was indigenous which is in line with the Prime Minister’s vision of Make in India.
“India has entered into space marketing and we will be launching commercial satellites for many other countries,” said Singh adding that the images sent by Mars Orbiter Mission (MoM) are being taken by other countries of the world too.
Describing achievement of Department of Space A S Kiran Kumar, Secretary Department of Space and Chairman, ISRO said agency is in the process of making the validating and analysing the discoveries made by MOM before making it public.
"We have a working arrangement with NASA. We are also in discussion with CNES (French space agency). Recently we had a discussion with the UAE. It wants to have a Mars Mission for 2020. So they are interested in making use of the expertise available here," he said.
The launch date for the UAE’s Mars probe, dubbed the Hope Probe is sometime around July 2020 and is expected to arrive on Mars just in time to coincide with the UAE's 50th anniversary of independence.
The government also announced that it will do the first test of the reusable rocket launch vehicle technology for low cost access to space in September this year. The winged vehicle will take off like a rocket and land like an aircraft.
"This is in its initial stages. There are multiple experiments which need to be completed. The first launch is in September and this will help improve cost effectiveness. It will reduce the cost by one-tenth. The launch vehicle will be landing first time in the ocean and the ultimate attempt is to make it land at an air-strip at Sriharikota," said Kumar.
ISRO will also launch Astrosat, India's first dedicated satellite for astronomy by September this year while it will complete the launch of two satellites of Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) series next year and three satellites, in the subsequent year.
On the manned mission to moon, Kumar said that it is yet to get formal approval of the government and ISRO is working on key technologies for the mission.