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While the excitement of the Mar's Orbiter Mission may have subsided, another space mission is quietly taking shape and could potentially set benchmarks, including cost benchmarks, in India's space odyssey.
Team Indus, comprising of a motley bunch of around 50 youngsters, are ready with a fully-functional prototype of its robotic rover for a Moon Mission, and is in the process of integrating the engineering model (the model prior to the final one) of the lander. The three-year-old Bangalore-based startup is the only team from India in the Google Lunar XPrize, a global competition to land a privately-funded robotic spacecraft on the Moon by December 2015. Till now, Moon landings have been largely government funded.
On September 29, an expert panel chaired by former ISRO chief and Padma Shri recipient K Kasturirangan did a complete tech review of the mission. "We came out with flying colours in that review," says an excited Julius Amrit, co-founder of Team Indus.
He explains: "We have had a series of reviews, component by component, by expert panels, and after each review we went back to the drawing board. But the tech-review that happened on September 29 was a full mission review, where every component of the project was reviewed thread bare."
Among the expert panel was V Adimurthy, professor and dean of research at the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, who was the mission concept designer for India's Mars Orbiter Mission. The chairman of Antrix Corporation Ltd, the marketing arm of ISRO, was also part of the tech review.
"The entire team was so excited about Adimurthy reviewing our mission and he said such amazing things about us," said Amrit.
Team Indus, co-founded by IITians Rahul Narayan, Indranil Chakraborty and Amrit, was earlier this year named among the five finalists for what are called milestone prizes, teams that have achieved certain technological landmarks and appear closest to reaching the final objective. Considering their rankings in different tech landmarks, the team is regarded to be among the top three.
The team will receive the milestone prize of $1.25 million after a review by Google XPrize judges between November 24 and December 14. Narayan said the lander integration would be complete before that.
"The lander is the main piece of engineering. If we pass the XPrize review, we will just have to replicate the lander with space grade material," he said.
But there are two other major things they need to tie up. They need ISRO's help in using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) to get their robotic spacecraft off the ground. And then they need funds of about $35 million.
"They funding requirement is huge. It can even be funding in kind," says Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, CMD of Biocon, who recently interacted with Team Indus and K Kasturirangan. L&T, Sasken and Tata Communications are helping them with expertise and facilities.
Since March 2011, family, extended family, and friends of the founding members of Team Indus have collectively pumped in about a million dollars (Rs 6 crore) into the project. Arun Seth, former British Telecom India head and Alcatel-Lucent India chairman and who has been passionately helping the project, said there's been a significant amount of other angel funding. Narayan said he was hopeful of close the next round of funding before the end of this calendar year.
On the use of ISRO's PSLV, Amrit says, "Dialogues have started and we hope to get the good news soon."
Mazumdar-Shaw says, "They (Team Indus) are a very innovative young group. They made it to the top three, which means that their overall work is very commendable. We need to support such innovation."
After Mars Orbiter, Indian startup readies for the Moon - The Times of India
Team Indus, comprising of a motley bunch of around 50 youngsters, are ready with a fully-functional prototype of its robotic rover for a Moon Mission, and is in the process of integrating the engineering model (the model prior to the final one) of the lander. The three-year-old Bangalore-based startup is the only team from India in the Google Lunar XPrize, a global competition to land a privately-funded robotic spacecraft on the Moon by December 2015. Till now, Moon landings have been largely government funded.
On September 29, an expert panel chaired by former ISRO chief and Padma Shri recipient K Kasturirangan did a complete tech review of the mission. "We came out with flying colours in that review," says an excited Julius Amrit, co-founder of Team Indus.
He explains: "We have had a series of reviews, component by component, by expert panels, and after each review we went back to the drawing board. But the tech-review that happened on September 29 was a full mission review, where every component of the project was reviewed thread bare."
Among the expert panel was V Adimurthy, professor and dean of research at the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, who was the mission concept designer for India's Mars Orbiter Mission. The chairman of Antrix Corporation Ltd, the marketing arm of ISRO, was also part of the tech review.
"The entire team was so excited about Adimurthy reviewing our mission and he said such amazing things about us," said Amrit.
Team Indus, co-founded by IITians Rahul Narayan, Indranil Chakraborty and Amrit, was earlier this year named among the five finalists for what are called milestone prizes, teams that have achieved certain technological landmarks and appear closest to reaching the final objective. Considering their rankings in different tech landmarks, the team is regarded to be among the top three.
The team will receive the milestone prize of $1.25 million after a review by Google XPrize judges between November 24 and December 14. Narayan said the lander integration would be complete before that.
"The lander is the main piece of engineering. If we pass the XPrize review, we will just have to replicate the lander with space grade material," he said.
But there are two other major things they need to tie up. They need ISRO's help in using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) to get their robotic spacecraft off the ground. And then they need funds of about $35 million.
"They funding requirement is huge. It can even be funding in kind," says Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, CMD of Biocon, who recently interacted with Team Indus and K Kasturirangan. L&T, Sasken and Tata Communications are helping them with expertise and facilities.
Since March 2011, family, extended family, and friends of the founding members of Team Indus have collectively pumped in about a million dollars (Rs 6 crore) into the project. Arun Seth, former British Telecom India head and Alcatel-Lucent India chairman and who has been passionately helping the project, said there's been a significant amount of other angel funding. Narayan said he was hopeful of close the next round of funding before the end of this calendar year.
On the use of ISRO's PSLV, Amrit says, "Dialogues have started and we hope to get the good news soon."
Mazumdar-Shaw says, "They (Team Indus) are a very innovative young group. They made it to the top three, which means that their overall work is very commendable. We need to support such innovation."
After Mars Orbiter, Indian startup readies for the Moon - The Times of India
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