Bangalore company, Lockheed tie up for Moon mission

BANGALORE: Team Indus, India's only entry for the $30-million Google Lunar XPrize, has partnered with American aerospace giant Lockheed Martin for its Moonshot moment.
The Bangalore aviation startup has roped in Lockheed Martin's Space Systems division to aid the lunar mission's trajectory, descent and landing. Lockheed Martin works on advanced space-based systems for government and global commercial customers.
Team Indus will compete with other teams to place a robot on the Moon's surface. The robot will explore at least 500 metres and transmit high-definition videos and images to Earth.
"We are a bunch of people who aspired for the Moon. Our moonshot is the Moon," says Sheelika Ravishankar, people lead at Team Indus. The 30-member team comprises scientists, engineers and space enthusiasts.
"We have partnered with L&T Engineering that will build the spacecraft based on our specifications. Tata Communications will help us with long-range communication for data centre and low latency connectivity between ground stations. Sasken Communication Technologies is assisting us in avionics and Lockheed Martin is working with us on the mission side for trajectory and landing," Ravishankar says.
The company is planning to use Isro's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, the workhorse of Indian satellite launches, for its mission. Team Indus proposes to launch the vehicle from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, in 2015.
Lunar Lander is the key component that will make Team Indus' lunar mission a reality. Code-named HHK1, the Lander is designed to be compact, fault-tolerant vehicle to undertake a journey of more than 4,00,000 km and ensure a soft landing on Moon's surface. Team Indus intends to send a minimum of three lunar rovers as part of the mission.
"Team Indus mission to Moon will cost us anywhere between $35 million and $40 million depending on the cost of the launch vehicle. We plan to raise this money from sponsorships, winning interim prizes and crowd-funding to allow everyone to be part of this mission," said Dilip Chabria, co-founder of Team Indus.
The startup relies on a team of advisers for each of the subsystems in the mission including propulsion, structures and data handling. "We have partnered with Isro's marketing arm Antrix. We have started working on the prototype by collaborating with the Indian Institute of Astrophysics," says Ravishankar. The company will get $1.25 million in funding as the milestone prize in September.