Govt to involve pvt players in space research
Working on 230 projects across world
Gopal Sharma
AHMEDABAD, Mar 6: India is going to spend funds to the tune of Rs 1500 cores on its new Venus Mission ( (Shukr Greh), to study the Venus atmosphere and know how it impacted the earth for the thousands and lakhs of years ago.
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Director, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Ahmedabad, Dr Nilesh Desai while interacting with a visiting delegation of media-persons from J&K said that concerned Ministry of Atomic Energy and Space Research has earmarked Rs 1500 crores for country’s first Venus Mission. The ISRO team has started working on the Mission.
Dr Desai further disclosed that some of the MPs even objected to the huge expenditure of Rs 1500 crores on Space Mission to Venus which is believed to be surrounded by dangerous gases like Helium and Carbondioxide. But it was responded by the Government that it was necessary to know through ISRO research that how our earth was impacted by the Venus and also to study this `Planet’. He said Venus moves/revolves slow as compared to the earth. One day on Venus is equal to 243 days of the Earth. It has clouds of Carbondioxide and Sulphuric Acid in its atmosphere.
Referring to the annual budget on the space research, Director ISRO said that earlier, the annual budget of the concerned Ministry was just 1.5 % of the country’s total budget, but Modi Govt by realizing the importance of space research, increased it to 2.5 % of the total budget. The countries like US, China and Japan are spending adequate percentage of country’s total budget on space research. India is spending major portion of its budget on Defence, Education and Agriculture sectors. The country needs to increase its space research budget up to 5-7 %, if not 10 % to compete with the other major countries, the ISRO Director suggested.
Desai disclosed that ISRO is currently working on many projects. Out of the 23 Centres it has major five Centres across the country. These include- Vikram Sarabhai Station, Ahmedabad; Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram, Sriharikota etc. Currently, the ISRO is working on 230 projects across the world. The Indian agency (ISRO) is also working with NASA on some projects besides a few other countries.
He also apprised about ISRO’s Mars (Mangal) Mission. He said it is easy to land on Mars as compared to Moon’s surface. There are big craters on the surface of Moon, while on Mars the surface is mainly plain. It was very challenging task to land on north pole of Moon during Chadrayan Missions 2 and 3. There was nearly -200 degrees C temperature and many instruments of lander stopped working. It took lot of extra efforts to make some of them functional later, Desai added. .
The ISRO Director further revealed that it will take at least ten months to reach to the surface of Mars from the Earth. It will also be a unmanned mission to this second smallest planet of our Solar system. It is also called as `Red Planet’ due to presence of huge quantity of Iron Oxide on it. The ISRO will send orbiter and lander with a rover to the Red Planet for extensive study of this unique planet. ISRO Scientists have started working on this Mission, Desai added.
The Modi Government intends to involve private players in the space research like USA. For this purpose, Space Regulations have also been framed. A Space Regulatory Authority is being constituted and public money will be utilised for extending the scope of Indian Space Research in future, the ISRO Director added.
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