ISRO's rocket feat: SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweets praise and challenge

NEW DELHI: Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, yesterday praised the Indian Space Research Organisation's record-breaking feat of launching 104 satellites on a single rocket.

"Yeah, awesome achievement by ISRO. Very impressive!," Musk, the maverick technology entrepreneur, wrote on twitter in reply to a question from Twitter user @Floydilicious. "They are doing India proud," Musk tweeted again.

Musk has reasons to be impressed by ISRO's feat as he is on an ambitious project to cut costs of satellite launches.

A few hours later Musk tweeted again—another tweet ISRO cannot ignore: "Daylight rocket launch & landing at the Cape this weekend. Will be the 1st SpaceX flight from the Apollo launch pad." SpaceX will fly the rocket back to earth, something that should worry ISRO.

Daylight rocket launch & landing at the Cape this weekend. Will be the 1st SpaceX flight from the Apollo launch pad. https://t.co/Vr5LQjYaPZ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 16, 2017

Musk's company SpaceX is trying to push the boundaries in space innovation by creating technologies to reduce space transportation cost, and has developed reusable launch vehicles.

The reusable technology of SpaceX is a major challenge for ISRO which has an edge over western countries when it comes to the cost of launch.

Though ISRO too is developing its own reusable technology, it might not match the pace of SpaceX.

The present low-cost edge of ISRO over its competitors will remain only if it innovates at a rapid pace.