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Comment by balakk | Hacker News Reader

It's launched already, deemed successful.

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/india-successfully-...

From the article:

    "Scientists at ISRO believe that they could reduce the cost by as much as 10 times if reusable technology succeeds, bringing it down to $2,000 per kg."

Wow! That's extremely cheap! What are SpaceX's expected numbers?

SpaceX's current price for the Falcon Heavy is already below $2k/kg

"The Falcon Heavy, aims to lower the cost to $1,000 per pound [or $2,204.62 per kg]." (old article) [0]

However, the pricing page for SpaceX shows the Falcon Heavy runs $90 Million USD for a launch of 54,400 kg to LEO (on a fully expendable vehicle, so no refunds). That works out to be $1,654 per kg (or $750 per pound, under their original estimate). Reusing the first stage rockets reduces the lift profile but the costs are projected to be about 2/3 of their original value, so I'd suspect the overall cost to be even lower - around $1,300/kg or so.

[Edit] Elon Musk is on record as saying his ultimate goal is $100 per pound, or $254/kg. That presumes daily flights.[2] In a Senate meeting in 2004 he said, "Ultimately, I believe $500 per pound [$1,270 per kg] or less is very achievable."[3] Depending on discounts on the Falcon Heavy, SpaceX is sitting around that cost level.

[0] http://www.airspacemag.com/space/is-spacex-changing-the-rock...

[1] http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities

[2] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/07/21/138166072/space...

[3]http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=12774

Official update from the space agency here has some technical details: http://www.isro.gov.in/update/23-may-2016/india%E2%80%99s-re...

Such a poorly worded article, replete with grammatical errors.

No close-up pictures of the "shuttle." Strange. (And I'm not talking about a generic long range picture of a rocket taking off either.)

The episode has the smell of government propaganda.

    'No pictures of the "shuttle." Strange.'

The picture clearly shows a 'winged' rocket as described in the article.

    "The episode has the smell of government propaganda."

Not sure from where you get the smell of government propaganda. ISRO has been credited for some of the most successful launches. They sent a probe to mars in the first attempt. There seem to be smart folks working there.

I don't understand the downvotes. There's always a place for contrasting opinions, and /especially/ when they're expressed politely, they deserve a polite response.

I have the same doubts. I'd love to see a picture of the real thing.

How to downvote. I am not able to see the downvote option in the comment section.

There's a karma/points threshold before you can see the downvote option.

It's not really all that polite, it's dismissing it as propaganda. The article is quite clear that this is the very beginning of the programme.

Here's a picture from a link in this thread: http://www.isro.gov.in/sites/default/files/galleries/Reusabl...

Remember, it's a scale model!

Here is the initial video footage of the RLV-TD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LsK5um-hDw

Gravity movies budget was 100 million USD and ISRO's mars mission budget was 75 million USD. So I don't get the smell of government propaganda.

After all India ain't North Korea.

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