MOM made it to Mars’ Orbit, India

earns its Credit !!

By:

Niranjan D R

IX “B”

Little Flower Public School

About Mars

• Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and last of the terrestrial planets and is around 227,940,000

km from the Sun.

• Mars is named after the Roman god of war. It was known to the ancient Greeks as Ares, their god of war. This is thought to be because of the blood-red color of the planet which was also used by

other ancient cultures. Chinese astronomers call Mars the “fire star” while ancient Egyptian priests

called it “Her Desher” meaning “the red one”.

• Mars and Earth have similar landmass. Despite Mars being just 15% the volume and 10% the

mass of Earth, it actually has a similar landmass because around 70% of Earth’s surface is covered

by water. The surface gravity of Mars is about 37% the gravity found on Earth. This means you could in theory jump three times higher on Mars

than on Earth

• Only 16 of the 39 missions to Mars have been successful. Beginning with the USSR’s Marsnik 1 which was launched in 1960, 39 orbiters, landers

and rovers have been to Mars but only 16 of those missions were a success.

Mars vs Earth (in size)

The Beginning Of The Mars Voyages

• Between 1960 and 1969, the Soviet Union, launched nine probes intended to reach Mars. They all failed: three at launch; three failed to reach near-Earth orbit; one during the burn to put the spacecraft into trans-Mars trajectory; and two during the interplanetary orbit. On November 27, 1971 the lander of Mars 2 crash-landed due to an on-board computer malfunction and became the first man-made object to reach the surface of Mars. In December 2, 1971 the Mars 3 lander became the first spacecraft to achieve a soft landing, but its transmission was interrupted after 14.5 seconds.

The Beginning Of The Indian Mars Mission

The MOM mission concept began with a feasibility study in 2010, after the launch of lunar satellite Chandrayaan-1 in 2008. The government of India approved the project on 3 August 2012, after the Indian Space Research Organization completed INR125 crore (US$20 million) of required studies for the orbiter. The total project cost may be up to INR454 crore (US$74 million). The satellite costs INR153 crore (US$25 million) and the rest of the budget has been attributed to ground stations and relay upgrades that will be used for other ISRO projects.

The Cost and the Making

The total cost of the mission was approximately INR 450 Crore (US$73 million), making it the least-expensive Mars mission to

date. The low cost of the mission was ascribed by K. Radhakrishnan, the chairman of ISRO, to various factors,

including a "modular approach", a small number of ground tests and long (18-20 hour) working days for scientists. BBC's Jonathan Amos mentioned lower worker costs, home-grown

technologies, simpler design, and significantly less complicated payload than NASA's MAVEN. An opinion piece in

The Hindu pointed out that the cost was equivalent to less than a single bus ride for each of India's population of 1.2 billion. More ironically, The cost of the blockbuster Gravity was 610 crores while The Mangalyaan cost just 450 crores.

The Mission of Mangalyaan

• What India does has always been a subject of great interest and debate in the world. These debates always begin from a critical evaluation of India's multifaceted potential, and

culminate in reprimanding our country's evolving prowess. • India's Mangalyaan or Mars mission is an ambitious project

that has been completely sidelined by the world media calling it unnecessary scientific experiment by a country that houses almost a third of the world's malnourished

people. • Contesting such school of thought, India's maiden Mars

mission is a big scientific achievement that places our country amongst the exclusive elite in the space

technology.

• The primary objective of the Mars Orbiter Mission is to showcase India's rocket launch systems, spacecraft-building and operations capabilities. Specifically, the primary objective is to develop the technologies required for design, planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission, comprising the following major tasks: design and realization of a Mars orbiter with a capability to perform Earth-bound maneuvers, cruise phase of 300 days, Mars orbit insertion / capture, and on-orbit phase around Mars;

• deep-space communication, navigation, mission planning and management;

• incorporate autonomous features to handle contingency situations.• The secondary objective is to explore Mars' surface features,

morphology, mineralogy and Martian atmosphere using indigenous scientific instruments

The Launch• A day after the last of Diwali rockets

was fired in this part of the country, "the big one" blasted off from the first launch pad in Sriharikota on Tuesday, November 5, 2013, firing the ambition

of a nation, and the imagination of many others. After 45 minutes, the

first phase of India's first Mars mission was pronounced a success.

"I am happy to announce that the Mars orbiter mission first phase is a success," said Indian Space Research

Organisation chairman K Radhakrishnan soon after the rocket injected the spacecraft into an Earth

orbit about 45 minutes of flight.

• About 90 minutes after a drizzle raised minor concerns about weather among lay people, the 44.4m PSLV-C25 carrying in its head India's first Mars orbiter, lifted off from the Satish DhawanSpace Centre at 2.38pm.

Drowning the cheers at the mission control, about 7km away, and the nearby media centre," the rocket rose to the sky with a roar, spewing fire and smoke. Soon it disappeared into the clouds, only to re-emerge after a few second to another round of applause.

Different Phases Of the Mission

• Orbit raising manoeuvres• Several orbit raising operations were conducted from

the Spacecraft Control Centre (SCC) at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Peenya, Bangalore on 6, 7, 8, 10, 12 and 16 November by using the spacecraft's on-board propulsion system and a series of perigee burns. The aim was to gradually build up the necessary escape velocity of 11.2 km/s (7.0 mi/s) to break free from Earth's gravitational pull while minimising propellant use. The first three of the five planned orbit raising manoeuvres were completed with nominal results, while the fourth was only partially successful.

• However, a subsequent supplementary manoeuvre raised the orbit to the intended altitude aimed for in the original fourth manoeuvre. A total of six burns were completed while the spacecraft remained in Earth orbit, with a seventh burn conducted on 30 November to insert MOM into a heliocentric orbit for its transit to Mars.The first orbit-raising manoeuvre was performed on 6 November 2013 at 19:47 UTC when the 440 newtons (99 lbf) liquid engine of the spacecraft was fired for 416 seconds. With this engine firing, the spacecraft's apogee was raised to 28,825 km (17,911 mi), with a perigee of 252 km (157 mi)

Trans-Mars injectionOn 30 November 2013 at 19:19 UTC, a 23-minute engine firing initiated the transfer of MOM away from Earth orbit and on heliocentric trajectory toward Mars The probe travelled a distance of 780,000,000 kilometers (480,000,000 mi) to reach Mars.Trajectory correction maneuversFour trajectory corrections were originally planned, but only three were carried out. The first trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) was carried out on 11 December 2013, 01:00 UTC, by firing the 22 newtons (4.9 lbf) thrusters for a duration of 40.5 seconds. As observed in April 2014, MOM was following the designed trajectory so closely that the trajectory correction maneuver planned in April 2014 was not required.

India has now successfully put a satellite into orbit around Mars, becoming the fourth nation or geo-bloc to do so.

The Mangalyaan robotic probe, one of the cheapest interplanetary missions ever, has began its work studying the Red Planet's atmosphere since 24-9-14.A 24-minute engine burn had slowed the probe down enough to allow it to be

captured by Mars's gravity.Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the country had achieved the "near

impossible".Only the US, Russia and Europe have previously sent missions to Mars, and India has succeeded on its first attempt - an achievement that eluded even

the Americans and the Soviets.The latest US satellite, Maven, arrived at Mars on September 21,2014. US

space agency Nasa congratulated its Indian counterpart, the Indian Space and Research Organization (Isro), on the success.

The Landing

All Is Well

Those who say that India that is struggling with problems of poverty and malnutrition sanitation and hygiene should have kept away from taking giant leaps towards scientific fulfilment

should understand that our problems are not because of lack of expertise but due to incapacity to execute the right policies.

As a result the 450cr expenditure, incurred on ambitions mars mission should not become an excuse to downplay our

capabilities and achievements. If critics say that it was an act of garnering international prestige then yes it is indeed our

moment of pride, earned with self reliance. We should not ridicule the great efforts of our scientists, who achieved this

feat with little exposure and at with a minimum cost.

How is it helpful?

• The Mars mission aims to achieve utilitarian goals by digging deeper into the secrets of the red planet. The orbiter while making an effort towards sniffing traces of methane, would also measure relative abundance of hydrogen in its upper atmosphere, to introspect the history of water in this planet. The mission promises to generate useful engineering and scientific data that could be useful for further research.

Thank You!!