After the
successful launch of India's first
navigational satellite, Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO) is readying up for the ₹450-crore Mars Orbiter mission
which is expected to be launched between October and November this year. The
mission is aimed at searching for possible signs of life as well as to find out
why Mars lacks atmosphere. The Mars Orbiter
will be launched aboard the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle from the Satish
Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota. Once
the mission takes off within the launch window (21 October - 19 November), the
orbiter is expected to exit the Earth's orbit in the last week of November and
travel for at least 10 months before reaching Mars in September 2014. "As per plans, the satellite is expected to
exit the Earth orbit on November 26/27, travel towards Mars over around 300
days. We plan to insert the satellite in an orbit around Mars on September 22,
2014," an official of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) once
told The Hindu. The Mars orbiter will be carrying a total of five payloads
weighing about 14.49 kg. It will carry a methane sensor to determine the
presence of methane, a sign which suggests that life once existed on the
Martian soil. The Mars Orbiter will enter into a 372 km by 80,000 km elliptical
orbit around Mars. "The primary objective of this challenging mission is
to establish the Indian technological capabilities to reach the orbit of
Mars," ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan, also Secretary in the Department of
Space, told the Press Trust of India. "A number of technological
challenges need to be negotiated for a successful Mars mission." The
spacecraft will orbit the red planet once in every three days. It will study
the surface and the minerals on Martian soil. ISRO has made an agreement with
American space agency NASA which would offer support in activities related to
the Mars Orbiter Mission. "NASA is providing deep space navigation and tracking
support services to this mission during the non-visible period of the Indian
Deep Space Network," according to a US-India joint fact sheet. Besides the
Mars Orbiter mission, ISRO is gearing up for a series of launch missions using
Geosynchronous launch vehicle (GSLV) and Polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV)
in the current financial year. As part of its plans, ISRO is expected to launch
G-SAT 14 communication satellite on board GSLV on 6 August to increase
transponder capacity and also to make arrangements to support services like
television, strategic and emergency communications. This will be followed by
the launch of SPOT-7, earth observation satellite, by a PSLV this December. Lyman Alpha
Photometer (LAP) is aimed at studying the escape processes of Mars upper
atmosphere through Deuterium/Hydrogen, Methane Sensor for MARS (MSM) would look
to detect presence of Methane while Martian Exospheric Composition Explorer
(MENCA) would study the neutral composition of the Martian upper atmosphere. MARS
Colour Camera (MCC) would undertake optical imaging and TIR imaging
spectrometer (TIS) is targetted to map surface composition and mineralogy.
"Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) spacecraft integration is under
progress", an ISRO official told PTI here today. "The spacecraft has
to undergo qualification tests for proving space worthiness once the
integration is completed". The mission would help ISRO understand the
technological challenges of such an exploration, the possible existence of life
and future colonisation of Mars, which is the nearest planet which has most
resemblance to earth. This would be India's first mission to a distant planet. ISRO
will launch the mission in October-November. "If launched within the
launch window (October 21-November 19, 2013), the spacecraft will travel for
least distance to reach Mars", the official said. This is the immediate
next available opportunity for such a mission as Earth and Mars would be coming
closer then. The PSLV-XL (PSLV-C25) will inject the spacecraft from the spaceport
of Sriharikota in the 250 X 23000 km orbit. elliptical orbit around Mars.
"The primary objective of this challenging mission is to establish the
Indian technological capabilities to reach the orbit of Mars", says ISRO
Chairman K Radhakrishnan, also Secretary in the Department of Space. "A
number of technological challenges need to be negotiated for a successful Mars
mission". Critical mission operations and stringent requirements on
propulsion, communications and other bus systems of the spacecraft are sure to
keep the Bangalore-headquarterd ISRO on tenterhooks. "One of the
technological challenges is to realise related deep space mission planning and
communication management at a distance of nearly 400 million km", an ISRO
official said. The spacecraft has been provided with augmented radiation
shielding for its prolonged exposure in the Van Allen belt. Due to the long
range of the order of 55-400 million km from Earth to Mars, there is a
communication delay of 20 minutes one way itself. For this reason, ISRO has
built high level of onboard autonomy within Mars orbiter. For Chandrayaan-1,
ISRO had to deal with only four lakh kms. The robustness and reliability of
propulsion system is "one order higher" as after leaving the orbit of
Earth the system would require to work after almost 300 days. And during this
voyage, the system needs to maintain complete integrity so as to capture the
Martian orbit. Capture of the Mars orbit or the Martian insertion is the
critical event that would determine the success of this mission, ISRO officials
say
Besides the Mars Orbiter, ISRO has also
planned a series of launches of various satellites both from the country and
Kourou, French Guiana, during the current financial year. India's communication
satellite INSAT-3D is slated to be launch onboard Ariane 5 rocket from French
Guiana by the end of this month while the European spaceport would also launch
the GSAT-7 during the year. GSAT-14 would be launched on board GSLV on August 6
to be followed by SPOT-7, earth observation satellite, which would be put in
space by a PSLV in December this year, ISRO has said. The Indian space agency
also planned to undertake GSLV Mark III experimental mission in January next
year and launch the country's second navigation satellite IRNSS-1D in March. IRNSS-1A,
the first in the series of seven navigation satellites under the Indian
Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), was launched onboard PSLV C22
from Sriharikota on July 2.
Is the Mars
mission the silver jubilee
commercial flight for India's rocketPolar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV)?
There are claims from officials that this is indeed so, but there are also
reasons to dispute the claim. Immediately
after the launch of India's first navigation satellite, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)
officials said the space agency is gearing up for PSLV's silver jubilee mission, which will carry the Mars orbiter. Strictly speaking, the Mars
mission is not PSLV's 25th commercial mission, but 22nd. ISRO, for inexplicable
reasons, jumped one number while naming one of its earlier PSLV rockets. After its PSLV-C12 (C stands
for commercial) rocket that flew in April 2009, ISRO jumped one number and
called its next rocket PSLV-C14, which launched Oceansat-2 and six other
foreign satellites in September 2009. Following
that, several PSLV rockets flew and ISRO early this month launched its first
navigation satellite Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System-1A (IRNSS-1A),
badging its rocket as PSLV-C22. As
per plans, the PSLV-C23 rocket is slated to carry a foreign satellite later
this year; preceding that is the Mars mission, with a rocket badged as
PSLV-C25. ISRO has, till date, flown 21 commercial and three developmental
flights of PSLV rocket. If
one takes into account also the developmental flights, then ISRO is right to
term its Mars mission rocket as its silver jubilee mission. "The rockets are numbered
based on the missions, and work will progress based on that number. Once in two
years, the missions decided and gave numbers. Based on the mission's progress,
the vehicle is scheduled," a senior ISRO official told IANS. He said ISRO had earlier flown
rockets numbered higher first, before those with lower numbers.
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