United States And India Join Forces For Future Trips To Mars

[Buster's Uncle]

United States And India Join Forces For Future Trips To Mars
Benzinga
By Mark Morelli  1 hour ago



Hot off the the heels of two separate and successful trips to Mars, the space agencies of India and the United States announced a joint effort to travel to the red planet.

What does this mean for investors of companies such as Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE: LMT) and The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA)?


Low Earth Orbit

The Indian space agency ISPO, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) are working together on an Earth imaging project. The NASA-ISPO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite is scheduled to orbit the Earth by the end of the decade. NASA is developing the L-band radar system and GPS. ISPO is supplying the S-band radar and launch vehicle.


Mission To Mars

While lessons learned from the low-cost Indian Mangalyaan Mars mission, and from the NISAR project, could be applied, any future trips to the red planet will likely be on a much larger scale. It's possible that a bigger launch vehicle and a much more advanced spacecraft would be needed.

The United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed and Boeing, might benefit from supplying the rocket. If there is a manned aspect to the project, Boeing and Elon Musk's SpaceX could prosper.


http://news.yahoo.com/united-states-india-join-forces-170953672.html