Intro: India becomes the first nation to successfully put spacecraft in Mars orbit in Maiden attempt.
India has achieved the impossible of becoming the first country in the world to successfully insert its Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) Mangalyaan into its final orbit around the Mars in the very first attempt itself on the morning of September 24, 2014 which will remain a red letter day in India’s space history. This incredible feat has also made India the first Asian country to reach the Red Planet without any hassles. Indeed, earlier attempts by Japan and China to reach Mars had come cropper.
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India achieved a mile stone on September 24, when its space craft entered Martian Orbit. Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) successful Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) brought a smile among Indians and an appreciation for the scientists who managed to achieve the task with a minimum cost by using indigenous equipments. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was personally present by wearing a red jacket at the golden hours to compliment scientist community added excitement among scientists, officials and staff of ISRO, Bengaluru. Soon after the Launch Vehicle – PSLV- C25 injected the Spacecraft into an Elliptical Parking Orbit and Mars orbit insertion successfully conducted, Modi greeted ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan by hugging him. He shook hand and congratulated other key persons who worked hard to make this mission possible. Later he addressed the scientists and said the achievement is ten times bigger than any cricket win by the country and called for big celebration across the country. “Of the 51 missions attempted across the world so far, a mere 21 had succeeded but we have prevailed. Dhuniya me sabko safalata nahi mili, bahut kam mili aur pehli bar me to kisi desh ko nahi mili. Bharat ke vygnaniko ko, Bharat ko ye pehli bar safalata mili hai, with recent spectacular success, ISRO joins an elite group of only three other agencies worldwide to have successfully reach to the red planet,” Modi praised the team ISRO.
MOM by ISRO : Distinctive Features INDIA becomes the first country in the world to do so in its maiden attempt, leaving behind US, Europe and Russia. INDIA becomes the only Asian country in the world so far to successfully accomplish this mission, not even China. INDIA completes this mission in just 450 crores, 1/10th of the cost incurred by NASA for similar Mission 'Maven'. It’s less than the cost of many of the Hollywood movies. Gravity movie was produced at the cost of 600 crores! This mission has been executed without any association with any foreign country. It’s completely indigenous. The spacecraft has travelled more than 65 crore kilometres in around 300 days to complete this journey. ISRO gets only 0.038 per cent of our budget as grants to do all this indigenous work. Even if it's increased to 0.5 per cent our ISRO will outshine all other space research organisations in the world. —R Guru Prasad from Bengaluru |
What’s more, Russia, USA and Europe were able to reach or land on Mars only after initial failures and repeated attempts. Not surprisingly then a tech-savvy Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who witnessed the crucial and challenging exercise of nudging the Mangalyaan mission into its final orbit at the telemetry, tracking and Command Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in Bangalore went into ecstasy and delivered a passionate speech urging the Indian space scientists to “explore the unknown and take risks”.
Rightly and appropriately, Modi described the stunning success of Mangalyaan mission as historic. Going ahead, Modi observed, “”The odds were stacked against us. Of the 51 missions attempted across the world so far, a mere 21 had succeeded. But we have prevailed. We have gone beyond the boundaries of the human enterprise and imagination”. The most striking feature of the Indian Mars mission is that it travelled a mind boggling distance of 670-million kilometres over a period of 300 days. The colour camera on-board the Mars has already sent images of Martian surface showing craters. By all means, the message from the unqualified success of Mangalyaan is that nothing is beyond India’s reach and nothing is impossible for ISRO to achieve. Clearly and apparently, India is today is a globally recognised space power to reckon with. What’s more, even China has hailed India’s successful Mars mission stating that it was not only a proud achievement for India and Asia but also a “landmark progress” in mankind’s quest to explore the outer space. Mangalyaan which was a logical follow on to India’s maiden mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-1 launched in October 2008, could be a resurgent platform for ISRO to plan and execute a series of interplanetary missions that would help India sustain its leadership position in the exploration of the final frontiers.
ISRO has hinted at sending probes to Planet Venus and inner asteroid belt. Also on the anvil is the second follow up mission to the Red Planet. Significantly, inter-planetary missions form a part of Indian Space Vision 2025. In this context Prof UR Rao, an internationally renowned space scientist and a former Chairman of ISRO observes “No country has succeeded at its Mars mission this fast. Everything about our mission was correct. But then this is just the beginning, we need to master more technologies”.
The Rs 4500-million Mangalyaan with a lit off weight of 1340-kg and launched by means of an augmented version of the four stage Indian space workhorse PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) on November 5 is considered the cheapest ever probe sent to the Red Planet so far. In contrast, the US mission to Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN), which entered the Martian orbit on September 22, carried a price tag of US$670-million.
According to British aerospace magazine Flight International, “Remarkably, ISRO has spent a mere US$75-million on the Mangalyaan mission, an astoundingly small budget for a project so complex. By comparison, Aefonso Curaran’s acclaimed 2013 space epic Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney was made at an estimated budget of US$100-million”.
In all, there are five payloads on-board the Indian Mars spacecraft; the data from these scientific instruments will help Indian space scientists get an insight into the early history and evolution of the Red Planet. According to ISRO, the orbiter will keep moving in an elliptical orbit for about six months and its five scientific instruments will be busy collecting data. Rightly, ISRO has denied any suggestion that it is in race with its Himalayan neighbour to claim the distinction of being the first to reach the Red Planet. ”We are not racing with anyone. We are racing with ourselves. We have to race to reach the next level of excellence,” said ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan.
Moreover Mangalyaan, which has pointed out by Radhakrishnan, “Mars mission is a historical necessity since after having helped find water on the moon, looking for signatures of life on Mars is a natural progression.” ISRO, which is not willing to rest on its laurels, is gearing for many more space spectaculars to turn India into a world leader in the frontier areas of research and technology.
Radhakrishna Rao (The writer is a freelance columnist who writes on science tech and defence related issues)
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