Chandrayaan-1 has no Insurance Cover

Bangalore, Oct 11, 2008: India’s first moon voyage is set to be launched October 22. But Chandrayaan-1 has got no insurance cover. This may be amazing to most people but this is the reality. This may be due to the confidence of Indian scientists who know that this will be a sure success and due to this reason they don’t want to spend a single penny on getting insurance cover for the historic and momentous Chandrayaan-1.

By the way it is like general practice. Indians, generally middle class Indians are not known to be attracted to insurance. They want to avoid the cost of getting insurance cover. May be it is due to the fact that they simply don’t have the means to get insurance covers for them and their kids.

It is not the case that Chandrayaan has not cost the country and ISRO anything. The nation has spent around Indian rupees 3860 million on the project during the last five years. In my view it is the general national attitude towards insurance that ISRO has not gone for an insurance cover for an important product.

The ISRO officials have said that the project in not covered under any insurance as Chandrayaan-1 is a scientific project and that it would not require any insurance cover. “We have not taken any cover for this project,” S Satish, spokesperson of ISRO said.

The Made-in-India rocket bearing the lunar spacecraft will lift off as per schedule provided the weather is right. As per the plan, the 1.5-ton Chandrayaan spacecraft will take approximately eight days to travel about 240,000 miles before reaching its final orbit 60 miles above the surface of the moon. A crash landing of a lunar vehicle on the moon's surface is also planned.