Rocket blasts off at 14:38 hours from Sriharikota; expected to reach Red Planet in September 2014 after traversing 400 million km
India today successfully launched its first Orbiter to Mars. The PSLV C25, carrying ‘Mangalyaan’ the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), today blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SHAR), located on the island of Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh coast and 118 kms from Chennai.
If the Orbiter reaches its destination successfully by Sept 2014, India would be the fifth country to reach out to Mars.
Anxiety mixed with hope was the mood of the hundreds of spectators, mainly journalists across the country, waiting in the terrace of various buildings nearby, to watch the launch.
Moments after the successful seperation, K Radhakrishnan, Isro chairman said, “We salute the entire community of Isro. It has been a new and complex mission and achieved successfully with minimum energy. Isro is what it is today because of the people who led the organisation from day one.”
Kiran Kumar, director, Isro said “A kid was born after ceasarean, the baby is born, we have to wait for its growth and to see its achievement. Challenge is to make the spacecraft remain functional and deliver.”
All vehicle systems of the launch vehicle were switched on for the final eight and half hour countdown starting at 6:08 hrs on Tuesday morning. Less than two hours before the launch, MOM was completely wrapped in Gold (kapton Multilayer insulation) and was ready to go.
At 14.38, as planned, the rocket took off from the First Launch Pad at the SHAR came up from behind the trees, steadily going up, leaving behind a trajectory of white smoke. Loud applauds and cheers from the spectators followed the rocket in its heads on journey to the sky.
With the announcement of the successful launch came in, the atmosphere in the control room changed to celebration mood, with scientists cheering and congratulating each other, while a set of them still fixed their eyes on the control panels that everything is going as per schedule.
While the entire country was celebrating Diwali, the festival of lights and sound, over the weekend 100s of scientists inside this remote island, on the coast of Andhra Pradesh, were busy preparing for this launch. Moments before the blast-off, the mood was one of nervous anticipation in the mission control room. The country’s top space scientists sitting before their computers and were tensed.
A complex network of ground stations, has been laid out for keeping an eye on the various phases of PSLV-C25, including the launch, Earth bound maneuvers, Heliocentric phase as well as the Martian phase. Isro’s deep space communications facility at Byalalu in Karnataka and the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (Nasa) ground stations in Goldstone (California), Madrid (Spain), and Canberra (Australia) will help Isro to achieve precision tracking of the spacecraft during its voyage to Mars and its injection into an orbit around the planet.
Two ships — SCI Nalanda and SCI Yamuna — owned by the Shipping Corporation of India took their positions to track the PSLV flight from the southern Pacific Ocean. “They will look for two crucial events during the launch —- the ignition of the fourth stage of the PSLV and the separation of the spacecraft as it is injected into Earth-orbit,”
Today the launch was crucial considering the fact that if it was missed the next window possible is in January 2016 and then in May 2018. According to scientists, such a rare trajectory — that occurs when the Earth, Mars and the Sun form an angle of 44 degrees — can offer substantial minimum energy opportunities and occur only at intervals of about 780 days.
The main objective of India’s launch is to check whether Mars ever had an environment in which life evolved and to explore Mars’ surface, topography, minerology and atmosphere.
India’s MOM, besides technological objectives, also has ambitious science goals as well, including a search for methane, the gas should last about 200 years on Mars. On Earth, the chemical is strongly tied to life and a Reuters report stated that Methane, which also can be produced by non-biological processes, was first detected in the Martian atmosphere a decade ago.
The launch includes a 17-minute long journey in the third stage, before igniting the fourth stage. This section of launch was monitored through the other monitoring centres including the Brunei and Biak after which a stage of non-visibility during the long coasting to reach the proper argument of perigee.
Challenges ahead
The orbiter will remain in Earth orbit till December 1, when it starts its 300-day voyage to Mars. It is expected to reach the orbit of the red planet on September 24, 2014, after traversing 400 million km.
Earlier, Radhakrishnan in an interview said, the first major challenge will be on December 1, 2013 at 00:42 hours, when the Orbiter will be given the trans-Mars Injection after it moves away from the Earth’s sphere of influence and enters the heliocentric orbit, which is also called the trans-Martian orbit. The Mars Orbiter has to go a distance of 200 million km to 400 million km, which itself is a big challenge.
Isro’s spacecraft is expected to approach Mars in September 2014 and at that point, the Orbiter has to be slowed or it will just disappear in Space he said in an interview.
Journey to destination Mars: A timeline
August 2010 Isro forms team headed by V Adimurthy to study mission feasibility, gets go-ahead for project
August 2012 In Independence Day address, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announces Mars Mission
August 2013 Assembly of PSLV begins at Sriharikota for the original scheduled launch on October 28
October 22, 2013 Isro announces postponing the launch to November 5, due to bad weather in Pacific Ocean
The Mars orbiter will be the first Isro’s first spacecraft to exit the sphere of the Earth’s influence, to the tune of around 925,000km, and enter a heliocentric cruise phase where the gravitational tugs of the Sun and the other planets will dominate. The 10-month journey will be crucial and challenging and reports noted that less than half the around 50 spacecraft sent by other countries towards Mars have been able to completed it.
The Rs 450 crore mission, the lowest in the history of Mars Mission in the World, was actually initiated in 2010 and it includes Rs 110 crore for building PSLV-C25 that would launch the Rs 150 crore spacecraft, while the balance spent on augmenting ground facilities, including those required for deep space communication.
Only a third (Refer table) of all the missions to the red planet have tasted success. Locking horns with this red dot in the skies is excruciatingly challenging in terms of the technological mettle required in the domains of Navigation, propulsion System design, deep space communication systems, ground segment and thermal and radiation management.
Isro officials said that Mars has drawn more space missions than the rest of the Planets in our Solar system.
However, historically, only a third of all the missions to the red planet have tasted success. Locking horns with this red dot in the skies is excruciatingly challenging in terms of the technological mettle required in the domains of Navigation, propulsion System design, deep space communication systems, ground segment and thermal and radiation management.
The Space Research Organisation has also gave a thought well into the creation of the MOM logo, which is a blend of the radiant red shade of Mars and the soothing blue serenity of mother Earth.
The logo depicts the transition of Isro’s Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft from Earth to Mars and also its intended orbit around Mars. The astronomical symbol of planet Mars has been embedded into the logo and also the striking similarity of shades this logo shares with the Isro logo is hard to miss the eyes of the spectator.
Source: http://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/indian-spaceship-finally-takes-off-for-mars-113110500394_1.html
Picture Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
