News Bench

Sujit Chakraborty

NEWS BENCH: Top Indian scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) are now mulling the possibility of extending India’s regional reach via a SAARC Satellite.

This comes in the wake of India’s remarkable success in sending its Mars Orbiter Mission, or MOM, into the orbit of the Red Planet, at the first try. No other country has so far been able to achieve this feat in its maiden attempt.
What is even more remarkable, and something India will market aggressively under its new Narendra Modi (Prime Minitsre of the country) regime is that India achieved this task at the least cost possible.
It has been already been compared that while the space film from Hollywood, ***, has cost $100 million, the very true Indian Mars mission has cost just $71 million.
This has to be seen within the context of the fact that China had tried and failed to send a Mars Mission, Yinghua 1, in 2011, when its collaborative effort with Russia plunged back in what is called a ‘self-destruct mode’ into the Pacific Ocean.
The Indian premier has already given a call to the ISRO scientists to build a SARC satellite. UR Rao, head, ISRO, says: “The ISRO is already thinking on these lines. If the other countries express interest then this can help development of space science capabilities in the region. ISRO’s Dehradun based Indian Institute of Space Technology is already helping in the development of capacity in remote sensing and GIS applications.”
With this, clearly, India is playing its Track II diplomacy card with more power to its elbows after the scientists at ISRO having opened a door to bring in regional players out of the grip of China.
Interestingly, two days after the successful meeting of the two premiers from Japan and India, and a day before India was set to achieve the almost unthinkable MOM success, China has already proposed to India that there could be a joint space mission. At the same time, USA’s NASA has also mooted a similar ‘working together’ system vis-à-vis India.