BANGALORE, Sept 11:
After the successful Chandrayaan-1, mission to the Moon, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has completed building the spacecraft for its ambitious Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), the country’s first inter planetary mission, slated for launch between October 19 and November 19 this year. The 1340 kg satellite is almost ready in the assembly lines of the space agency Indian Space Application Centre (ISAC) in the city and it will be shipped to its spaceport in Sriharikota on September 27, top ISRO officials told the mediapersons after a tour of ISAC today. The Rs 450-crore mission is being achieved in a record time of one year and it will be hurled to the space by highly successful PSLV-C25, a 320-kg extra powerful rocket with strap on boosters. The satellite now sits in the check out room at the assembly line of ISAC and is almost ready to be shipped. It would be travelling a record 385 km away from the earth when it is ultimately placed on an elliptical Martian Orbit of 272 km and 80,000 km. It had recently gone through a successful thermo-vacum test with its payloads which also contain five scientific instruments that take picture as close as 372 km from the Mars’ surface. The extensive tests were held under simulated space environment. The spacecraft would now undergo vibration and acoustic tests before being transported for the launch. MOM Project Director S Arunan said the satellite is autonomous and takes care of itself with its Fault Detection and Navigation technology. It also has its own launcher (liquid motor) as it had to be driven in the space for long time after being separated from the rocket and this was being tried for the first time in the World. ‘Keeping with the distance spacecraft has to travel, we have kept the scientific payload at just 15 kgs but we expect to conduct extensive scientific experiment optimising their use,’ he said. The scientific instruments are Methane Sensor For Mars (MSM), Mars Color Camera (MCC), Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyzer (MENCA), TIR Spectrometer (TIS)and Lyman-Alpha Photometer (LAP). The first named is to find out the possible presence of methane on the surface of Mars which is foundation for life. ‘It would tell whether life once existed on this planet. Would Earth would one day become like Mars?’, Mr Raman said. Mr Raman said ISRO was working in close coordination with NASA for tracking the satellite from its ground stations across the globe before its control is taken over by scientists at ISRO’s Indian Deep Space Network at Byalalu, about 40 km from the city. ‘The first capture of Mars by MOM will happen on September 24, 2014 after the spacecraft takes nine months to reach its final destination. It will be visible in Australia. ‘The satellite will depart its Earth Parking orbit at 248 km and 23,000 km on November 30 this year and reach Mars’ orbit on September 21, 2014,’ he said. Its lift-off weight was 1340 kg and once it reaches its final Martian Orbit, it would weigh 582 kg. IASC Director K Shivakumar said all works on building the satellite had been completed. MOM was much different to Chandrayan-1 and the mission will put India among the select countries of archiving this feat. He said the scientists had given a thought to give the mission an Indian name like Chandrayaan, but could not take any such decision. To a question, he said there was nothing wrong in taking the help of NASA, the US space agency, as such close coordination was needed in inter-planetary missions. Mr Raman said: ‘We agree that NASA is a senior in planetary mission and also not bothered that we did not get the credit for finding water on the surface of the Moon. There is nothing in taking the help of the US agency for ground support. They are also interested in what we are doing. Our intention is to showcase our capability that can match the world technology.’ Mr Arunan said the life of the satellite was six months after it enters Martian Orbit but other missions had demonstrated a life span of six to seven years and MOM too was expected to last longer. He said commands sent from ISDN would take 20 minutes to reach the satellite on Martian orbit and at the same time signals sent by the satellite would take 20 minutes to reach the ground station. In Chandrayaan-1’s case, it was three seconds. On the cost factor, he said the satellite had cost ISRO Rs 150 crore to build and launch vehicle would cost Rs 110 crore. ISRO would be spending the remaining for realisation of space and ground segments. ‘This can be proved as lowest cost incurred on any Mars mission,’ he added. The first stage of 320 tonne PSLV-C25 with strap-on has already been assembled, with the rocket ready for satellite integration by October ten. (UNI)
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