Mars Orbiter Mission - Revision history

Jyoti: /* Timeline */

2023-10-15T16:52:25Z

‎Timeline

Jyoti: /* Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA) */

2021-04-03T14:56:41Z

‎Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA)

Jyoti: /* Mars Color Camera (MCC) */

2021-04-03T14:55:21Z

‎Mars Color Camera (MCC)

Jyoti: /* Timeline */

2021-04-03T14:53:29Z

‎Timeline

Show changes

Jyoti: /* Amount spent on Mars Orbiter Mission */

2021-04-03T14:51:52Z

‎Amount spent on Mars Orbiter Mission

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Jyoti at 21:24, 5 October 2020

2020-10-05T21:24:31Z

Jyoti at 21:22, 5 October 2020

2020-10-05T21:22:47Z

Pdewan at 16:58, 31 July 2017

2017-07-31T16:58:39Z

Pdewan: /* Amount spent on Mars Orbiter Mission */

2017-01-22T19:42:22Z

‎Amount spent on Mars Orbiter Mission

Pdewan: /* Important factoids */

2017-01-22T19:40:51Z

‎Important factoids

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:52, 15 October 2023
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	'''24-09-2014: ''' Mangalyaan enters Mars orbit.		'''24-09-2014: ''' Mangalyaan enters Mars orbit.

		+
		+	=A backgrounder=
		+	[https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-sci-tech/mangalyaan-mars-orbiter-mission-8954001/ Arjun Sengupta, Sep 25, 2023: ''The Indian Express'']
		+
		+	'' On September 24, ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission, informally known as Mangalyaan, entered into orbit around the Red Planet. This was India’s first — and successful — interplanetary mission. ''
		+
		+
		+	On September 24, 2014, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), informally referred to as Mangalyaan, successfully entered into orbit around the Red Planet.
		+
		+	This was India’s first tryst with interplanetary travel and a somewhat unlikely success — prior to ISRO, no other space agency had successfully managed to orbit the Red Planet in its first attempt. Moreover, ISRO became just the fourth space agency — after the US’s NASA, Russia’s ROSCOSMOS, and the European Space Agency — to accomplish this feat. And it did so in a record low cost of Rs 450 crore (approx $73 million), $25 million less than the budget the Matt Damon starrer The Martian (2015).
		+
		+	While the orbiter had a planned mission duration of just six months, it stayed in touch with Earth till April 2022, when communications were finally lost, possibly due to an exhaustion of fuel resources.
		+
		+	We look back at the historic mission.
		+
		+	''' Looking ahead after Chandrayaan-1 '''
		+
		+	Chandrayaan-1, India’s first (and successful) attempt at sending a spacecraft to the moon, was launched at Sriharikota on October 22, 2008, entering lunar orbit on November 8 that year. The orbiter also dropped a Moon Impact Probe (MIP) on the lunar surface, making it the first Indian-made object to touch the moon. For ISRO, Chandrayaan-1 was a massive success.
		+
		+	“The Indian flag on the MIP inscribed India’s presence on the Moon forever, heralding the nation’s entry into the elite club of the countries that had earlier placed national flags on the Moon (the USA, Russia and China),” G Madhavan Nair, then ISRO director, wrote in his autobiographical book Rocketing Through the Skies: An Eventful Life at ISRO (2023).
		+
		+	But bigger, more difficult things would soon be in play. Mars has always been an object of interest for scientists and astronomers across the world. For people working at ISRO, things were no different. But with the success of Chandrayaan-1, there was a new energy and vigour with which this task was approached. ISRO had proved itself as one of the most capable space agencies on the planet. Now it was time for it to stretch its limits.
		+
		+	''' A mission blueprint is prepared '''
		+
		+	A Mars Mission Study Team was constituted under Chairman K Radhakrishnan in August 2010 to provide a feasible blueprint on what a mission to the Red Planet would actually look like. Various kinds of Mars missions were discussed, including fly-by, orbiter, lander-rover, and even balloons, airplanes, sub-surface explorers, sample return missions.
		+
		+	“It turned out that a fly-by, which gives only a short time for scientific study [was] not really attractive. On the other hand, an orbiter or a lander would require larger transportation capability that may not be met by the established and reliable launch systems [available at the time],” V Adimurthy, the Mission Concept Designer for MOM, wrote in From Fishing Hamlet to Red Planet (2015).
		+
		+	Never afraid of a challenge, ISRO decided upon an orbiter mission, to be launched aboard its tried-and-tested workhorse — the PSLV. “We discovered that we can have a highly elliptic orbit mission around Mars using our proven PSLV launch system,” Adimurthy wrote.
		+
		+	The study team submitted its report, with all details of a potential Mars Mission in June 2011, which was followed by a series of reviews at various levels. Finally, the mission was announced by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on August 15, 2012, during his independence day speech.
		+
		+	''' An extremely tight deadline '''
		+
		+	But this left an extremely tight window within which ISRO had to launch the orbiter. The launch had to be made by November 2013-January 2014, failing which, the next launch opportunities for a fuel-saving Hohmann transfer orbit would be in 2016 and 2018. In fact, the 2013 opportunity was by far the best option available.
		+
		+	“Among the next two minimum-energy Earth departure opportunities, Mars missions in November 2013 and January 2016, the first opportunity of 2013 was found to be the better one requiring about 380 m/s less velocity. This is very significant with respect to the utilisation of PSLV as the launch system. We could do a reasonably good Mars Orbiter Mission with PSLV in 2013 but not in 2016,” Adimurthy wrote.
		+
		+	Moreover, this was a challenge unlike anything ISRO had thus far encountered. The travel time for MOM to reach Mars orbit would be around 300 days. Moreover, given the distance that the craft would cover, real-time interventions from ISRO scientists would be impossible. Hence, as Adimurthy explained: “on-board autonomy had to be provided for all critical operations.”
		+
		+	But the biggest challenge would be inserting the orbiter into Mars orbit. “Restart of the propulsion system, after nearly a year of travel in space, for Mars orbit capture manoeuvre was a major technical challenge,” Admurthy explained.
		+
		+	''' A successful launch and a pioneering mission '''
		+
		+	Despite a multitude of challenges, Mangalyaan was prepared in a record 15 months — partly due to using a reconfigured lunar orbiter prepared for the Chandrayaan mission. After a brief delay as ISRO’s tracking ships were unable to take up their pre-determined position near Fiji due to inclement weather, MOM was launched aboard a PSLV-XL on November 5, 2013. And after a 298-day transit, it was put into Mars orbit on September 24 2014.
		+
		+	Just by entering into orbit, MOM had succeeded. Afterall, the mission was envisioned to be a “technology demonstrator” — to test “capability [of the craft] to survive and perform Earth-bound manoeuvres; a cruise phase of 300 days of travel; Mars orbit insertion/capture and on-orbit phase around Mars,” as well as technology pertaining to “deep space communication, navigation, mission planning and management,” S Arunan, director of Mars Orbiter Mission, wrote in From Fishing Hamlet to Red Planet.
		+
		+	But the mission also achieved its many scientific objectives, studying the martian surface and atmosphere, as well as other planetary and solar phenomena. It also took some of the most stunning pictures of the Red Planet till date.
		+
		+	The Mars Orbiter Mission caught the imagination of the nation — and the world. ISRO was hailed world over, from the United States to China, for its monumental effort. But, as S Arunan put it in 2015: “MOM is a precursor to more complex and ambitious interplanetary missions of ISRO.”
		+
		+	[[Category:India\|MMARS ORBITER MISSIONMARS ORBITER MISSIONMARS ORBITER MISSION
		+	MARS ORBITER MISSION]]
		+	[[Category:Pages with broken file links\|MARS ORBITER MISSION]]
		+	[[Category:S&T\|MMARS ORBITER MISSIONMARS ORBITER MISSIONMARS ORBITER MISSION
		+	MARS ORBITER MISSION]]

	=What MOM accomplished=		=What MOM accomplished=

@@ Line 136: / Line 136: @@
 ===Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA)===
-[[File: Fig.1: Distribution of the major species in the Martian exosphere in the local evening sector measured by MENCA in December 2014.jpg|Fig.1: Distribution of the major species in the Martian exosphere in the local evening sector measured by MENCA in December 2014 <br/> From: [https://www.isro.gov.in/mars-orbiter-mission-completes-1000-days-orbit  August 31, 2019: ''ISRO'']|frame|500px]]
+[[File: Fig.1- Distribution of the major species in the Martian exosphere in the local evening sector measured by MENCA in December 2014.jpg|Fig.1: Distribution of the major species in the Martian exosphere in the local evening sector measured by MENCA in December 2014 <br/> From: [https://www.isro.gov.in/mars-orbiter-mission-completes-1000-days-orbit  August 31, 2019: ''ISRO'']|frame|500px]]
 [[File: Fig. 2- Schematic of the MOM orbit near periapsis (drawn to scale). The blue dots represent the atmospheric gas atoms and molecures of Mars, while the red ones represent the more energetic (suprathermal) atoms.jpg|Fig. 2- Schematic of the MOM orbit near periapsis (drawn to scale). The blue dots represent the atmospheric gas atoms and molecures of Mars, while the red ones represent the more energetic (suprathermal) atoms <br/> From: [https://www.isro.gov.in/mars-orbiter-mission-completes-1000-days-orbit  August 31, 2019: ''ISRO'']|frame|500px]]
@@ Line 145: / Line 145: @@
 Another major result from MENCA is the discovery of 'hot' (suprathermal) Argon in the exosphere of Mars (Fig. 2). The word 'hot' or 'suprathermal' indicates that the atoms are more energetic compared to the thermal population, and hence their kinetic temperatures are higher. The upper limit of Ar number density corresponding to the December 2014 period is ~5 × 10 5 cm −3 (at ~250 km), and the typical scale height is about 16 km, corresponding to an exospheric temperature of around 275 K. However, on few orbits, the scale height over this altitude region is found to increase significantly making the effective temperature greater than 400 K: clearly indicating the presence of suprathermal Argon in the Martian exosphere. The detection of these hot particles has important implications in the context of understanding the energy deposition in the Martian upper atmosphere, and will help understand why the Martian atmospheric escape rates are higher than what was believed previously.
 ===Thermal infrared Imaging Spectrometer (TIS)===

@@ Line 99: / Line 99: @@
 ===Mars Color Camera (MCC)===
-[[File: Fig- MCC-MOM observation of Fig.(A,B) ASTER/flower cloud over Olympus Mons, highest point on Mars; and Fig.(C,D) Lee-Wave clouds over Ascraeus Mons Mars.jpg|Fig- MCC-MOM observation of Fig.(A,B) ASTER/flower cloud over Olympus Mons, highest point on Mars; and Fig.(C,D) Lee-Wave clouds over Ascraeus Mons Mars <br/> From: [https://www.isro.gov.in/mars-orbiter-mission-completes-1000-days-orbit  August 31, 2019: ''ISRO'']|frame|500px]]
+[[File: Fig- MCC-MOM observation of Fig.(A,B) ASTER, flower cloud over Olympus Mons, highest point on Mars; and Fig.(C,D) Lee-Wave clouds over Ascraeus Mons Mars.jpg|Fig- MCC-MOM observation of Fig.(A,B) ASTER/flower cloud over Olympus Mons, highest point on Mars; and Fig.(C,D) Lee-Wave clouds over Ascraeus Mons Mars <br/> From: [https://www.isro.gov.in/mars-orbiter-mission-completes-1000-days-orbit  August 31, 2019: ''ISRO'']|frame|500px]]
 The Mars Color Camera (MCC) onboard MOM has 16 different modes of exposures, aimed at imaging the Mars surface for Morphological / Structural mapping, imaging dynamic events viz. Polar Ice cap, clouds, Dust storms and other opportunistic imaging. Analysis of these payloads have churned interesting results -
@@ Line 128: / Line 128: @@
 Also long term change detection (four decades) was done by comparing snow/ice area from MCC images with Viking images. MCC showed a range 6,33,825 km2 to 9,52,700 km2 during imaging period, while during same imaging season of Viking mosaic (1976 to 1980) showed snow/ice area to be approximately 7,83,412 km2 which is within the range calculated by MCC.
 ===Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA)===

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 .
 The spacecraft trajectory would be tracked from Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory facilities at Goldstone (US), Madrid (Spain) and Canberra (Australia).
 ==2020: clicks photograph of Mars’ biggest moon==
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 MOM, also popular as Mangalyaan, is studying the Martian surface and mineral composition as well as scanning its atmosphere for methane (an indicator of life on planet Mars).
-[[Category:India|M
+=Amount spent on Mars Orbiter Mission=
 MARS ORBITER MISSION]]
-[[Category:S&T|M
+[[Category:S&T|MMARS ORBITER MISSION
 MARS ORBITER MISSION]]

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 |}
-[[Category: S&T |M]]
 =Timeline=
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 “Unlike the Mars mission, which was a one-time project when cleared, the GSAT programme envisages launching several more satellites. Therefore, the money saved from its launch is with Isro to be used for future satellites,“ a senior official said.

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:58, 31 July 2017
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		+	[[File: Mangalyaan , India Today .jpg\| Mangalyaan , India Today \|frame\|500px]]
		+
	[[File: Mangalyaan's journey to Mars.jpg\|Mangalyaan's journey to Mars; Graphic courtesy: [http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/mangalyaan-indias-mars-orbiter/article6429902.ece ''The Hindu''], September 25, 2014\|frame\|500px]]		[[File: Mangalyaan's journey to Mars.jpg\|Mangalyaan's journey to Mars; Graphic courtesy: [http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/mangalyaan-indias-mars-orbiter/article6429902.ece ''The Hindu''], September 25, 2014\|frame\|500px]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:42, 22 January 2017
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	'''24-09-2014: ''' Mangalyaan enters Mars orbit.		'''24-09-2014: ''' Mangalyaan enters Mars orbit.
−
−	~~=Amount spent on Mars Orbiter Mission=~~
−	[http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=Isro-spend-on-MOM-wasnt-even-Rs-450cr-18112016011007 Chethan Kumar, Isro spend on MOM wasn't even Rs 450cr, Nov 18 2016 : The Times of India]
−
−
−	The Indian Space Research Organization (Isro), which, according to all official claims, is reported to have spent Rs 450 crore on the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), did not even spend the whole of that shoestring budget.
−
−	~~An austere Isro managed to save Rs 2.61 crore which it promptly returned to the Centre, reaffirming MOM to be the world's cheapest mission to the red planet, at a cost of Rs 447.39 crore.~~
−
−	~~Documents revealing the audited expenditure of all Isro projects in the last five years reveal that MOM isn't the only such project.~~
−
−	Though Isro sought Rs 892.69 crore to launch the GSAT-15 communication satellite, the Centre released on ly Rs 830.88 crore. But Isro, which launched GSAT-15 last November, completed the project using just Rs 806.4 crore, saving Rs 24.48 crore. Similarly, it had sought Rs 897.94 crore for GSAT-16 but got only Rs 865 crore and the space agency went on to complete the project with Rs 864.12 crore.
−
−	“Unlike the Mars mission, which was a one-time project when cleared, the GSAT programme envisages launching several more satellites. Therefore, the money saved from its launch is with Isro to be used for future satellites,“ a senior official said.

	=Important factoids=		=Important factoids=

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:40, 22 January 2017
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	10.		10.
	The spacecraft trajectory would be tracked from Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory facilities at Goldstone (US), Madrid (Spain) and Canberra (Australia).		The spacecraft trajectory would be tracked from Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory facilities at Goldstone (US), Madrid (Spain) and Canberra (Australia).
		+
		+	=Amount spent on Mars Orbiter Mission=
		+	[http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=Isro-spend-on-MOM-wasnt-even-Rs-450cr-18112016011007 Chethan Kumar, Isro spend on MOM wasn't even Rs 450cr, Nov 18 2016 : The Times of India]
		+
		+
		+	The Indian Space Research Organization (Isro), which, according to all official claims, is reported to have spent Rs 450 crore on the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), did not even spend the whole of that shoestring budget.
		+
		+	An austere Isro managed to save Rs 2.61 crore which it promptly returned to the Centre, reaffirming MOM to be the world's cheapest mission to the red planet, at a cost of Rs 447.39 crore.
		+
		+	Documents revealing the audited expenditure of all Isro projects in the last five years reveal that MOM isn't the only such project.
		+
		+	Though Isro sought Rs 892.69 crore to launch the GSAT-15 communication satellite, the Centre released on ly Rs 830.88 crore. But Isro, which launched GSAT-15 last November, completed the project using just Rs 806.4 crore, saving Rs 24.48 crore. Similarly, it had sought Rs 897.94 crore for GSAT-16 but got only Rs 865 crore and the space agency went on to complete the project with Rs 864.12 crore.
		+
		+	“Unlike the Mars mission, which was a one-time project when cleared, the GSAT programme envisages launching several more satellites. Therefore, the money saved from its launch is with Isro to be used for future satellites,“ a senior official said.