Indian space research organization

India’s first interplanetary mission, ISRO’s Mars Orbiter

named as Mangalyaan successfully lifted off towards Mars

from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on 5 November 2013

“to carry out experiments and search for evidence of life on

the red planet.

“It is a historic moment for all of us. We have successfully put the

Mars Orbiter Spacecraft into an elliptical orbit as had been intended,

” K Radhakrishnan, Chairperson of the Indian Space Research

Organisation (ISRO), exulted from the control room. “I feel delighted

to announce that the spacecraft is in a good health,” he continued.

SK Shivakumar, Director, ISRO Satellite Centre, summed up the

Indian scientific community’s pride at the flight of the Mars Orbiter

Mission (MOM) . “Our baby is up in space looking for scientific objects.

We have a long way to go,” he said amidst loud applause.

Only the US, Europe, and Russia have sent probes that have orbited

or landed on Mars. Probes to Mars have a high failure rate and success will

be a boost for national pride, especially after a similar mission by China

failed to leave Earth’s orbit in 2011.

The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), which is also known as Mangalyaan, is a Mars orbiter, successfully launched on 4th November 2013 by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The mission aims to develop the technologies required for design, planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission. Mars is called Mangal and Tuesday is Mangalwar hence the name Mangalyaan.■ With the success of this mission, India will become the fourth country in the world to have sent a spacecraft to Mars, which is about 225 million kilometers away. ■ The total cost of the sending ‘Mangalyaan’ to Mars is about Rs. 460 crores, which includes the cost of building the spacecraft & the ground radar stations near Bangalore.

■ The Mangalyaan will take about 300 days to reach to its destination; an orbit, which is closest to Mars at about 377 km and farthest from it at about 80,000 km. The spacecraft will carry with it equipment for communication, navigation, mission planning and management. This equipment will eventually be helpful in exploring the surface features of Mars, morphology, mineralogy and studying the atmosphere through various indigenous scientific instruments.

■ With the success of the mission, India will prove its ability to send a satellite toMars and establish itself as one of theleaders in deep space exploration.

■ The spacecraft structure and propulsion hardware configurations are similar to Chandrayaan 1, which was country’s first successful robotic lunar probe that operated from 2008 to 2009, with specific improvements and upgrades needed for a Mars specific mission.