S.K. Shivakumar, one among the space scientists from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) behind the country’s successful Mangalyan mission or Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), gave an outline of the ISRO’s historic first interplanetary mission, and enlightened the audience on how the premier space research organisation accomplished its ‘Mission to Mars’.
The spacecraft was placed around the Mars in a record duration of 15 months, said Dr. Shivakumar, Director, ISRO Satellite Centre, Bengaluru, at the National Science Day lecture at the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing (AIISH) here on Friday.
Dr. Shivakumar, who earlier served as the project director for realising India’s first indigenous deep space network antenna that was used for communicating with Chandrayaan-1 — the country’s first mission to the Moon — disclosed that the ISRO started working on ‘MOM’ in 2011 and got consent in 2012 from the Government of India for executing the mission, a challenging assignment for the ISRO.
“The MOM was launched in November 2013 and it entered the orbit of Mars in September 2014,” he explained.
According to Dr. Shivakumar, the MOM spacecraft weighing around 1,350 kg entered the orbit after traversing a distance of 650 million km in a span of 300 days. It was launched from the PSLV in Sriharikota.
ISRO’s successful mission to the Red Planet got global attention and was hailed across the globe. India was one of the few countries whose mission to the Red Planet tasted success.
Of the 51 missions to Mars, 21 were successful, including ISRO’s MOM. Nobody had thought India could achieve success in its maiden attempt to the Red Planet. But, we at the ISRO successfully left a mark on Mars with teamwork and hard work, Dr. Shivakumar said.
One of the reasons for the unsuccessful missions in the past by other agencies was not the hostile climate on Mars, but due to launch-related issues, he explained.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had witnessed the successful insertion of Mars spacecraft in the orbit and congratulated the scientists on their feat. “We at the ISRO are looking at special missions like Chandrayaan and Mangalyan instead of normal missions,” he said.
