Page 610 - SSB Interview: The Complete Guide, Second Edition

NASA or National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent
branch of the federal government of the United States of America. It is
headquartered at Washington DC and was established on 29 July 1958 by
Dwight D Eisenhower. Jim Bridenstine is the present administrator of NASA.

ISRO vs NASA — a comparison

NASA is a space administration agency, whereas ISRO, is a research

agency.
NASA manages/administers all space projects by buying the materials

needed for the construction of satellites and rockets from outside

agencies, whereas ISRO develops rockets and satellites all by
themselves in their organisation and subsidiary organisations.

NASA has an annual budget of $1218.34 billion, whereas ISRO has an
annual budget of $90.94 billion (estimated).

NASA has launched over 200 successful manned missions and above

1,000 successful unmanned missions till date, in which 2 of the manned
missions were unsuccessful. The Challenger disaster in 1986 and

Columbia disaster in 2003 were the two missions that ended in failure

costing the lives of all crew members on board, including Indian origin
Kalpana Chawla (Columbia). ISRO has carried out 84 spacecraft

missions and 59 launch missions till date, in which 8 have been failures

and 4 were partially successful.

Most of the first launches by NASA were successful, whereas most of
the first launches by ISRO were a failure. But, ISRO scientists fixed

those problems and then those systems performed exceptionally well.

NASA is mostly based on research-oriented missions, whereas ISRO is

mostly based on development-oriented missions like communication,
weather forecasting satellites, etc.

NASA’s technologies are highly advanced when compared to the