On Wednesday India’s Mars Orbiter Mission, or MOM for short, reached its destination and did so on a comparatively small budget.
On Wednesday India’s Mars Orbiter Mission, or MOM for short, reached its destination and did so on a comparatively small budget.
The cost of getting the spacecraft built and into the Red Planet’s orbit was less than 75 million dollars.
While that's a lot of money, it pales in comparison to the U.S. It’s estimated that NASA has spent about 675 million dollars on their similar, albeit more complex, Maven operation.
India’s Prime Minister also pointed out that they got their craft to Earth’s neighboring planet for less than the cost of making the Hollywood, space-themed movie ‘Gravity’.
That film is said to have had a budget of 100 million dollars.
Of course, its ship was carrying both Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, and MOM, clearly, is not.
Now that the Indian orbiter is in position, it will start collecting and sending information.
Its success gives India a lot of international bragging rights since it’s the first country to reach Mars on a maiden voyage.