Mars Orbiter Mission Update

[Indo-guy]

Mission to Mars: Mangalyaan on course for rendezvous with Red Planet - Hindustan Times


After a flight of almost three months, India’s maiden spacecraft to Mars – Mangalyaan – is healthy, on track and at a distance of 14.4 million kms from Earth.

“Another 233 days for MOM (Mars Orbiter Mission) to reach Mars. MOM is 14.4 million km away from Earth and moving at a velocity of 31.3 km/s with respect to Sun. As of now, a signal traveling at the speed of light takes around 48 seconds to reach MOM,” the Isro Facebook site on the Mars mission site reads.
India’s space programme reached a major milestone on November 5 last year, when Isro launched the MOM, commonly known as Mangalyaan from Sriharikota on a 11-month journey to find evidence of life on the Red Planet and position it as a budget player in the global space race.
“The spacecraft is absolutely healthy, on track and continuously being monitored. We are getting data from the Spacecraft Control Centre at Isro Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network in Bengaluru beside the three ground stations of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Madrid, Goldstone (California) and Canberra,” programme director Dr Mylswamy Annadurai told HT.
Maintaining that the next challenge for scientists would come on September 24, when the spacecraft will have to be energised after a hibernation of 9 months, he said: “The firing at that time will last for nearly 1500 seconds (25 minutes). The Mars Orbiter Insertion would be a major challenge for us but we have done a lot of ground simulation for that.” Probes to Mars have a high failure rate.
Of the 51 missions so far, only 21 have been successful. A similar mission by China failed in 2011.
Only the US, Europe, and Russia have sent probes that have orbited or landed on the planet.
Once in Mars’ orbit, the orbiter’s five payloads will then start performing experiments for the next six months.




MOM has travelled 180 million km distance so far .....

It has another 500 million km distance to cover in remaining 9 months ...

 

[Indo-guy]

India joins the space race
Melissa Pandika, OZY.com 10:54 a.m. EST January 29, 2014
India has launched the country's first-ever Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) and is expected to reach Mars in September.
46 TWEET 11 COMMENTEMAILMORE
Long renowned for its technological talent, India is now taking its ingenuity out of this world — literally. Make way, universe: There's a scrappy new contender in the space race.
Last November, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched the country's first-ever Mars Orbiter Mission, or Mangalayaan — Hindi for "Mars Craft." Weighing about 1.5 tons and measuring roughly the size of a refrigerator, the unmanned, gold-foiled probe is expected to reach the red planet's orbit in September, around the same time as NASA's MAVEN satellite.
Although designed to show that India has the technological capability to reach Mars, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) will also spend 6 to 10 months conducting a series of scientific experiments, including scoping the atmosphere for methane — a sign that the planet might support life.
That's assuming all goes well. So far, two-thirds of Mars missions have fizzled. If ISRO succeeds, it would be the first Asian space program to join the elite Mars explorers club, which includes the Soviet space program, the European Space Agency and NASA. Then again, it's not the first time ISRO has defied expectations; its Chandrayaan-1 probe is credited with discovering water molecules on the Moon in 2009.
More from Ozy.com: Battle for the North Pole
Far out physics
The gangsta physicist
Even more impressive? MOM's shoestring budget: $75 million, or roughly one-tenth the cost of NASA's MAVEN Mars mission. From its cost effectiveness to its launch strategy, MOM has been hailed as a model of what may be India's greatest talent — a kind of frugal ingenuity, or jugaad, as it's known locally.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced MOM's approval in August 2012, giving ISRO engineers just 15 months before the interplanetary launch window — the period of time when Mars and Earth would be ideally aligned for MOM to reach its target.
How did ISRO accomplish so much, so fast, so cheap? Besides earning less than American engineers, MOM team members were "schedule-driven to the extreme," ratcheting their typical 18-hour workdays up to 20 during the launch period, ISRO chairman Kopillil Radhakrishnan told Forbes.
Equipment-wise, ISRO made do with what they had. Lacking a rocket with enough thrust to fire the probe directly out of Earth's atmosphere, ISRO engineers devised a clever "slingshot" strategy: They directed the rocket to circle Earth for a month, when it would have gained enough velocity to break free from Earth's gravitational pull and cruise toward Mars.
Since India's main goal is just to get to Mars, the probe's scientific instruments are also simple, and therefore inexpensive. Weighing just over 30 pounds, they'll snap color photographs, search for signs of water and map the planet's surface composition.A special sensor will look for methane, which could indicate the presence of bacteria — "a hot topic," said Janet Luhmann, MAVEN's deputy principal investigator.
While ground-based telescopes and Europe's Mars Express orbiter have detected methane, NASA's Curiosity rover hasn't found any.
MOM's scientific finds probably won't be earth-shattering, but it should "provide some interesting measurements," Luhmann said. While the scientific gains remain to be seen, "the gains from the technology and industry perspective have already been put into motion," said Smita Srinivas, director of Columbia University's Technological Change Lab.
Besides contracting with Indian firms to build the majority of the spacecraft, ISRO has also helped these companies build a reputation as precision parts suppliers. "That could be a huge boost in having them compete in world trade," she said.
MOM has also been a "source of great pride" for many Indians, she added. Hundreds gathered to witness the liftoff and many more tuned in to the live broadcast. "I think it's charming that ISRO has been an organization people can be proud of when it's quite low-key," she said. "People will ask, 'If they can do it, why can't others?'"
If MOM succeeds, it could boost India's international prestige. But some question the logic of a country plagued with poverty on Earth allocating millions in public funds to exploring space. Economist Atanu Dey, author of "Transforming India," believes the sense of pride in the mission stems from a misguided belief that "if we send a mission to Mars, that means we're a developed country," he said. Indians "don't want to feel like citizens of a backwater country." He argues that the Mars mission funds should have been spent on pharmaceuticals, solar energy and other technology that could have directly benefited Indians. "We can't afford window dressing," he said.
Beyond India, MOM could ignite a burgeoning space race. With ISRO gearing up for a second lunar mission and China planning a manned lunar mission after the Chang'e 3 rover's successful landing last month,
"The interest is there," Luhmann said. "The question is which nations will come up with the needed resources … to pursue it."
So will a successful Mars orbit mean one giant leap forward for India? It may be months or years before we know the answer. For now, we'll turn our gaze skyward to a dark horse that suddenly made the space race a lot more interesting.
Ozy.com is a USA TODAY content partner providing general news, commentary and coverage from around the Web. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY

 

[Skull and Bones]

Reach before my birthday in Sept, so that i can have a real reason to celebrate.

 

[Indo-guy]

As Mars comes closer to Earth, Mangalyaan crosses half-way mark - The Times of India


CHENNAI: As sky gazers across India got ready to peer through telescopes for a view of Mars which comes close to Earth (9.2 crore km from Earth) on Wednesday evening, India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MoM) went past the half-way mark to the red planet.
After escaping earth's influence, MoM, which was launched from Sriharikota onboard PSLV-C25 on November 5, 2013, is now in the Sun's influence region called the helio-centric trajectory.
"On Wednesday at 9:50am, India's Mars Orbiter Spacecraft crossed the half-way mark of its journey to the red planet along the designated helio-centric trajectory," the Indian Space Research Organisation said in a statement.
India's Deep Space Network, aided by Nasa, has been tracking the orbiter since its launch and six orbit raising manoeuvres after which it left the Earth orbit on December 1 last year.
"Some 250 scientists have been working on the last big exercise before the spacecraft left the earth's orbit," Isro chairman K Radhakrishnan told TOI in an earlier interview.
Through six orbit raising exercises, scientists have brought the apogee (the spacecraft's farthest point from Earth) from the initial 25,000km to 1.92 lakh km.
As the spacecraft goes through the spheres of influence of the Sun and Mars, four trajectory correction manoeuvres (TCMs) were planned to keep it on course.
The first such correction happened on December 11 last year, soon after the orbiter crossed the sphere of influence of Earth. Now it looks like the life of the orbiter may be extended from its original five months, as very less fuel has been used for manoeuvres.
"As the spacecraft is on its designated trajectory, the TCM planned for April 2014 is not considered essential. If required, the next TCM is planned to be carried out in June 2014," Isro said.
Originally the TCMs were planned in April, August and September, 2014. The Mars orbiter insertion will be carried out on September 24, 2014.
If all goes fine, MOM will study a range of things including early signs of life or supporting system on the red planet and its atmosphere through five indigenous instruments or for at least five months.
India is among an elite club of nations to take up interplanetary probes. Of the 51 Mars missions by the US and Russia/ USSR, only 21 had been successful. Fourteen days after India's MoM, the US launched a similar mission, MAVEN, which is also on its way to the red planet.

Welcome To ISRO :: Press Release ::
April 09, 2014