India’s first emissary to another planet, the Mars Orbiter Mission, is setting off on an 11-month-long odyssey from Sriharikota on Tuesday. Although the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has benefited from its experience with the Chandrayaan-1 lunar probe despatched five years back, the technological hurdles that must be dealt with in an interplanetary mission of this sort are still very considerable. The Soviet Union, the U.S., Japan and China failed to get to Mars on their first attempt but the European Space Agency succeeded on its first try with the Mars Express probe that was launched 10 years ago. The Mars Orbiter Mission is “primarily a technology demonstration mission to demonstrate India’s ability to get into the Martian orbit, which is quite a challenging task,” remarked ISRO Chairman Dr K. Radhakrishnan. “During the useful life of the orbiter, we also want to do meaningful scientific experiments.” One of the five instruments on board the orbiter is a sensor designed to pick up signs of methane — a possible marker for life, extinct or extant.
Sharing scientific objectives
The Indian spacecraft shares some scientific objectives with America’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission (Maven), which will be launched in two weeks. Sensors on both spacecraft will examine processes that have drastically thinned the Martian atmosphere, which was once thick enough to allow substantial bodies of liquid water to exist on the planet’s surface. There had been some preliminary discussions with the Indian science team, according to Dr. Bruce Jakosky of the University of Colorado in the U.S., who is MAVEN’s principal investigator. “There are some overlapping objectives and at the point that we are both in orbit collecting data, we plan to work together with the data,” Dr. Bruce Jakosky, principal investigator for America’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission (MAVEN) said during a recent press briefing. The Indian orbiter would have a useful life of at least six months around Mars, according to the ISRO Chairman. Once its mission was complete, the spacecraft would not be allowed to crash on the planet. There would be enough propellant to take the probe away from the Martian environment, he said.
Source: http://www.thehindu.com/
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