Mariner 4; Mariner 6; Mariner 7; Mars 3
Orbiter/Lander; Mariner 9; Mars 5; Viking 1 Orbiter/Lander; Viking 2
Orbiter/Lander; Mars Global Surveyor; Mars Pathfinder; Mars Odyssey; Mars
Exploration Rover – Spirit; Mars Exploration Rover – Opportunity; Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter; Phoenix Mars Lander; NASA's Curiosity…….
~ one need not be an expert to decipher … all
Mars missions … and successful ones at that….. We sure want our ‘Mangalyaan’ to
be part of this list…….
The official countdown for blast-off of the Indian
orbiter, nicknamed "Mangalyaan", began at 06:08am on Sunday,
coinciding with Deepavali, the festival
of lights. "The 56 hours and 30 minutes countdown, for the launch
scheduled for November 5 started as per schedule at 06.08 AM. It is proceeding
smoothly," a spokesman of the ISRO said.
Mars is the ruling planet of Aries and Scorpio
and is exalted in Capricorn. In Roman mythology, Mars was the god of war and also an
agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. Mars is no place for the faint-hearted.
Arid, rocky, cold and apparently lifeless, the Red Planet offers few
hospitalities. Yet, some of the nations with rocket-sending capabilities are
ever eager to explore and ultimately step foot on the ultimate lonely planet
destination. This is because like Earth, this fourth planet from the Sun has
polar ice caps and clouds in its atmosphere, and more importantly there is perception
of life on Mars.
In a grand day today, India is
gearing up for its first ever space undertaking to the Red Planet. An Indian
Space Research Organisation (ISRO) spacecraft that will examine the finer
details of Mars in unprecedented detail, is set to be launched today atop India’s highly reliable Polar
Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from a seaside launch pad in Sriharikota. The
new space initiative, dubbed the Mars Orbiter Mission, is the brainchild of
ISRO.
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second
smallest planet in the Solar System. Named after the Roman god of war, it is
often described as the "Red Planet" because the iron oxide prevalent
on its surface gives it a reddish appearance. Mars is aterrestrial planet with
a thin atmosphere, having surface features reminiscent both of the impact
craters of the Moon and the volcanoes, valleys, deserts, and polar ice caps of
Earth. Its orbital period is 686.971
days.
Mangalyaan is a term most Indian science
fiction fans will be familiar with, and now it’s getting out of the realm of
fiction and about to become reality. Thanks to ISRO, India
would join the US
to send a spacecraft to the Red Planet. Indian space research programme has come a
long way since the launch of Aryabhata, named after the famous Indian
astronomer in April 1975. It was
launched by a Soviet Kosmos-3M rocket from Kapustin Yar; years later on 7th
June 1979, our first experimental remote sensing satellite built in India-
Bhaskara 1 was launched. Mangalyaan is more of - Chandrayaan-1, India's first
unmanned lunar probe, launched by ISRO
in Oct 2008. It was launched by PSLV-XL rocket, serial
number C11 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.
The present proud Mangalyaan is scheduled to lift off at
2:38 pm from Sriharikota, Andhrapradesh, closer to Chennai. India
would become the fourth country or group
of countries to reach the Red Planet, after the Soviet Union, United States and Europe.
This is India's
first Mars mission, and no country has been fully successful on its first try.
More than half the world's attempts to reach Mars - 23 out of 40 missions -
have failed, including missions by Japan
in 1999 and China
in 2011. An evolved version of India's
domestically developed Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, with extended rockets,
will take Mangalyaan into an elliptical arc around the Earth. It is far off and
would be a 300-day, 780 million-kilometre (485 million-mile) journey to orbit
Mars and survey its geology and atmosphere. Mangalyaan will gather data to help
determine how Martian weather systems work and what happened to the water that
is believed to have once existed on Mars in large quantities. It will search
Mars for methane, a key chemical in life processes on Earth that could also
come from geological processes.
So we all wait with bated breathe to hear of
the success of the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), informally called Mangalyaan today.
This project was perceived in Aug 2012 and estimated to be around 450 crores. Mangalyaan's on-orbit mission life is between
six and ten months. Mylswamy Annadurai is the Program Director and S.Arunan is
the Project Director. India's launch
of a small unmanned satellite to Mars is being described as a giant leap for
its space programme. More than 500 scientists from the ISRO have worked round the clock on this mission.
The integration of the five scientific instruments was
completed at ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore, and the finished spacecraft was
shipped to Sriharikotta on 2 October 2013 ~ We all look forward to a successful
launch of the spaceship which will take over 10 months to reach its
destination.
A section of the cynically myopic Press is writing some garbage
questioning its relevancy and its cost…. They are best neglected as the
technological benefits for the Nation far outweigh and the Nation’s development
is above everything else.
Long live the Scientists and bring Glory to the
Nation ….
With regards – S. Sampathkumar
5th Nov. 2013.
Society Magazine
