On A Mars Mission: US and India Join Forces

Hot on the heels of successful, separate trips to Mars, the space agencies of India and the US announced a joint effort to travel to the Red Planet.

Related article: "The Success of India's Mars Mission Could Drive U.S. Space Program To Lower-Cost Solutions"

What does this mean for investors of companies such as Lockheed Martin Coproration LMT and The Boeing Company BA ?

Low Earth orbit
The two countries are no strangers in space. The Indian space agency ISPO, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) are working together right now 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 mssion to Mars and from the NISAR project could be applied to the joint NASA-ISPO project, any future travel to the Red Planet will likely be on a much larger scale. It's probable that a bigger launch vehicle and a much more advanced spacecraft would be needed. Companies such as United launch Allinance, a joint venture between Lockheed and Boeing, might benefit from supplying the rocket. If there is a manned aspect to the project, Boeing and privately-held Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), which are currently battling it out for the right to produce the next spacecraft for NASA, could prosper. Investors would need to pay attention to the direction that the joint U.S.-India effort takes.

Final thoughts
Trips to Mars are suddenly in vogue. Right after separate successes were reported, the space agencies of the U.S. and India announced that it will work together on future missions. Companies like Lockheed Martin and Boeing could benefit.