Procurement Leaders magazine recently reported on how our customer ISRO (the Indian Space Research Organisation) managed to launch a mission to Mars unbelievably “quickly and cheaply”.

The reporter marvelled at how ISRO has successfully put a spacecraft in orbit around Mars for just $70m – less than the $100m budget of Hollywood blockbuster, Gravity.

ISRO have put procurement at the heart of their ‘frugal innovation’ approach space research and exploration. India made history on 07:47 Indian time on 24 September when the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) was successfully inserted into orbit around Mars. Only Russia, the USA and the European Space Agency have previously launched successful missions to Mars.

Creating history

“History has been created today,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “We have dared to reach out into the unknown have achieved the near-impossible. We put together the spacecraft in record time, in a mere three years from first studying its feasibility.”

NASA’s Maven project arrived in orbit around Mars just days before MOM but cost ten times what ISRO spent. ISRO used all of its engineering innovation, alongside rigourous use of eProcurement to make maximum use of its budget and send the craft on its 140m journey.