Though science is at the core of their work, scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation are a religious group. In the past, ISRO chairmen have been known to transport toy models of spacecraft and launch vehicles to temples around south India for blessings of gods. As work at over five different ISRO centres began converging this week towards the planned October 28 launch of the space agency's Mission to Mars, or the Mangalyaan Mission, religious rituals are back to the fore.
Ahead of the rollout of the spacecraft—the 1,343-kg main bus carrying the 15-kg Mars Orbiter—prayers were conducted for success and blessings were sought for the spacecraft.
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Over the next three weeks, as final checks are conducted, 852 kg of solid and liquid fuel is loaded for rocket engines, the spacecraft is integrated with the launch vehicle and the final countdown is started, a core group of 50 scientists will be at work 24/7.
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The scientists can be forgiven for invoking god this time. Once at the forefront of space-faring nations, India has fallen behind in recent years, with no commercial launches of note, failed missions—including experiments with the heavy lift Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV)—and a scam embroiled ISRO.
The Rs 450-crore Mars Orbiter Mission is being seen at the space agency as a chance at redemption. Despite its relative lack of novelty in global terms, the mission is a challenge for ISRO since it will be the agency's first attempt outside the sphere of influence of Earth. A Russian-Chinese joint attempt to send an orbiter to Mars failed in November 2011 after the spacecraft failed to leave Earth's orbit and crashed back.
Mars spacecraft shipped out of Bangalore for October 28 mission
The numbers alone tell the challenges: the interplanetary journey has been attempted 51 times since the Russians aimed for Mars in 1960, and only 21 of these—restricted to three space agencies (from the US, Russia and Europe)—have been successful.
It will take 299 days for the Indian Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft to traverse the 400 million kilometres to reach an orbit around Mars for example. Every piece of communication that the spacecraft sends will have a 40-minute lag before it is received.
The launch is scheduled for the October-November window, when Mars is closest to Earth (a window that opens every 780 days).
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The priority of the mission, according to the Department of Space and ISRO, is to understand how to carry out deep-space missions in order to sit at the high table of nations with these capabilities. "It will bring strategic advantage to India in the international decision-making process on matters related to Mars," believes the Department of Space.
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As ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan stated a few months ago, following government nod to the mission, their next goal would be investigating the atmosphere of Mars. Dr M Annadurai, who was the project director for Chandrayaan-I and is responsible for the Mars Mission, says: "It is a logical extension of the Moon Mission."
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So, at the end of October, ISRO will send a small spacecraft with a 15-kg payload, comprising five instruments, to orbit around Mars—at distances ranging between 350 km and 80,000 km—and to carry out experiments that have largely been done by several other missions. Originally intended in 2006 to be an ambitious 500-kg payload with multiple instruments, it was scaled down primarily on account of the repeated failure of test missions of the indigenous GSLV programme since 2010.
The stalling of the GSLV programme, meant to carry heavy spacecrafts deep into space and expected to be the bedrock of the Indian space programme, has meant that the Mars Mission is going to be carried out by the PSLV XL, a tried and tested vehicle.
The PSLV XL was proven in the Chandrayaan-I, GSAT 12 and RISAT missions of ISRO. The main spacecraft on which the Mangalyaan mission will take place is a variation of the existing 1,350-kg Chandrayaan mission bus.
"Originally the mission was planned on the GSLV. In that case we could have had 12 instruments, and we could have gone to a respectable orbit around Mars. But now, since the GSLV is not ready, an alternative is being sent to Mars using the PSLV. This is a compromise solution," says former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair, who was discredited in 2011 by the Antrix-Devas scam.
According to Nair, the Mars Mission is only a showpiece that is not going to push the Indian space programme forward in any way since it is largely an improvement on the Moon Mission and INSAT programmes in terms of mission strategies.
ISRO's overall Mars Mission in-charge Dr Annadurai is however of the view that it poses new tests and challenges for the space agency. "The approach to Mars must be with the required velocity at the proper location and direction. This calls for doing orbit transfer at the precise time, precise orientation and imparting precise velocity increments," he says.
"Mars, its atmosphere, its gravity field, these are all things one has to take into account in mission calculations," notes ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan.
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jai Mahakal
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