A red-letter day for India’s space history as the country’s first foray to the Red Planet through the Mangalyaan satellite successfully completes one year of its life around Mars on September 24, 2015, where it is ‘fully fit and healthy’. Made to last just six months, surprisingly it still has enough punch left to last for more than a decade in the Martian orbit.
The Mangalyaan has been a 100-per-cent success after it was injected into the Martian orbit, where it has already completed some 120 orbits. Meanwhile on Earth, the country struggles with an ailing health sector that fails to vaccinate infants, leaving every third child un-protected, and an outbreak of dengue in Delhi creates a frenzy that leaves hospitals brimming with patients. The contrast is appalling.
In this hard-fought Asian race to Mars between regional rivals China and India, New Delhi undoubtedly beat Beijing! There is no doubt that the Mars mission has enhanced the national image: U.S. President Barack Obama acknowledged that “India and America are both countries that have reached Mars”; even China sheepishly termed the success of Mangalyaan as “Asia’s pride”.
The Mangalyaan mission also made the world leader in space, U.S., take note of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s capabilities. The United States, a country that tried hard to scuttle the ISRO in its early stages, now seeks to make it a partner. On September 28, 2015 the world will come full circle when, for the first time, India launches four tiny satellites called LEMUR on a commercial basis for an American company for which, till recently, ISRO was no-go. Mangalyaan helped break the shackles. In another five years, ISRO and NASA will together build and launch an Earth Observing satellite called NISAR -- the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar mission -- to study climate change.
Meanwhile, Indians have not stopped basking in the glory of the mission’s success. Dr. Jitendra Singh, Minister of State in charge of the Department of Space says, “the mission undoubtedly enhanced India’s pride and has made the world look at India seriously”. Kiran Kumar, Chairman of ISRO, says he is extremely happy with the Mars mission and hopes some good science will emerge from this largely “technology-demonstrator” mission because it will be able to study seasonal variations on Mars. Mr. Kumar confirms that “MOM has detected signals of the presence of methane on Mars” but scientific validation is still not complete for the results. If indeed MOM confirms the presence of methane gas on Mars, it will be a stellar finding since the next big question will be, is there carbon-based life on Mars?
Back on Earth, India also re-discovered the Department of Space after ISRO’s love affair with the Red Planet. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a known space buff, commandeered the various Ministries mostly represented at the Secretary-level to look at how India’s huge capabilities in space could be better utilised.
Mr. Modi sat like an ordinary participant as 1600 top government officials brainstormed at the ‘National Meet on Promoting Space Technology based Tools and Applications in Governance and Development’ on September 7, 2015 in New Delhi. Here Mr. Modi mandated that ISRO do “much more of India centric observations” and said “no space should be left between the common man and space technology”. Mr. Kumar took immediate note and said future earth-observation satellites could be placed in equatorial orbit to get more coverage of India.
ISRO says the Mars Orbiter Mission still has some 45 kg of fuel left which could, in theory, keep the mission going for at least 15 years. One cannot get a better bang for the buck! According to ISRO, for normal housekeeping operations and orbit maintenance only about two kg of fuel is necessary per year. However, will other instruments be able to cope with the intense radiation they are subjected to? A million dollar question, but since this is India’s maiden outing beyond the influence of earth’s gravitation every step is a big lesson learnt. Some 350 stunning photos of the Red Planet have already been beamed back by the satellite.
India has had two outings beyond Earth, the first being Chandrayaan-1 launched in 2008 and subsequently Mangalyaan launched in 2013. Both missions have had their fair share of pains and gains. Many lessons were learnt by the ISRO as it leapfrogged from Moon to Mars.
In 2013 India fast-tracked the making of Mangalyaan, putting it in orbit within 18 months at a cost of Rs. 450 crores with no cost or time overruns -- an almost unheard of phenomenon in the perpetually lethargic Indian system. MOM made global history as India became the first country to successfully reach the Martian orbit in its debut attempt -- even giants like U.S. and Russia could not do it. The mission cost less than the Hollywood blockbuster ‘Gravity’, and as a consequence India has now set the benchmark for sub-$100 million inter-planetary travel.
This dash on a marathon stretch meant India had to forge ahead alone as ISRO was not able to invite any international partners to participate in the scientific experiments.
On the other hand, Chandrayaan-I was made ready in almost eight years, though it died prematurely. This long gestation however period gave India the opportunity to invite partnerships from NASA, the European Space Agency. In fact, Chandrayaan-1 was truly an international mission where India was the captain. To top it, international partnerships were executed when ISRO was still reeling under sanctions and technology denials since the Indo-U.S. Civilian Nuclear Deal had not been inked.
Chandrayaan-1 was designed to last two years in the lunar orbit but died in ten months. However, it gave the world the first clinching evidence of the presence of water molecules on the parched lunar surface. A truly remarkable achievement when one considers that the Americans have been playing with lunar dust and rocks ever since Neil Armstrong’s famous “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” in 1969. Subsequently a dozen Americans have walked on the moon surface but it was left to India’s Maruti-800-sized Chandrayaan-1 satellite costing Rs. 386 crore to change the understanding of the hydrogeology of the Moon.
Chandrayaan-1 was truly a scientific mission that made global history but the government, it seems, was not pleased since China had beaten India in the race to the Moon in 2007, even though they had started late. So miffed was the then UPA government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the Moon mission team was even denied the customary laudatory handshake and audience with the PM. A fact that caused a lot of heartburn among the men and women who made the lunar mission a success.
In contrast, the Mangalyaan mission, even though it was merely a “technology demonstrator”, saw the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the mission control centre in Bengaluru when a year ago on September 24, 2014 the Tata Nano-sized satellite entered the Martian orbit. Mr. Modi’s “fifty-six-inch chest” was puffed with pride and he pumped the hands of the mission team. The government it seems was so pleased that India finally beat China in space that earlier this year two of the lead team members were bestowed with Padma awards.
It is still early days and the data from Mangalyaan is still being analysed. Till date not a single research paper has been published by team ISRO using data generated from MOM. ISRO has now invited proposals from the wider Indian scientific community to analyse the data.
ISRO, in fact, failed to even name a chief scientist for the MOM mission possibly because not many Indian scientists have actively worked on deciphering Mars. K. Kasturirangan, former chairman of ISRO, says “it is high time the Department of Space brought the larger Indian scientific community on board with Mangalyaan, not involving the science academies in the planning of the Mars mission has left a big void. The sooner it is corrected the better it will be”.
In contrast, the Chandrayaan-1 team has published over two dozen papers including a landmark cover paper in the prestigious American journal Science in which they announced the discovery that the lunar surface was not as parched as it was thought to be.
It was claimed when the lunar mission was launched in 2008 that it would yield the most comprehensive high-resolution image atlas of the Moon surface as it carried a very powerful camera, but unfortunately it remained largely incomplete. On the other hand, MOM has made global visual history by giving the world maximum number of high-clarity “full disc images” of Mars. Team Mangalyaan even won an American award for this feat. Until date, only a handful of images of the full disc of Mars have been taken and more than half are by India. ISRO also released some photos they described as “breathtaking” images of the extinct volcanoes and deep valleys of the Martian surface taken by an off-the-shelf, not-so-high-resolution camera on board Mangalyaan. That the satellite had not been equipped with a better camera is a regret many in the Mars team harbour.
In a classic understatement, according to ISRO “the knowledge acquired by the analysis of these data suggested enhanced possibility of the presence of life on this now dry and dusty planet”. This possibly refers to the Mangalyaan recording signals of the presence of methane gas in the Martian atmosphere. The signals still need to be scientifically validated and hence we will have to wait for final confirmation if India’s low-cost mission will rewrite history of life in the universe as we know it.
ISRO it seems learnt a bitter lesson when the Chandrayaan-1 satellite failed less than halfway into its mission life. Later, a government fact-finding committee revealed that a component called a ‘DC-DC Convertor’ that helps supply electricity to the satellite was not radiation hardened and its failure led to the unforeseen collapse of the mission in 2009. For Mangalyaan, ISRO used a more robust component which has survived the arduous 666 million kilometre journey through some very harsh environments and continues to work normally.
What about the future? While there is a government-sanctioned Chandrayaan-2 mission, which will have an orbiter, lander and lunar rover, it awaits the full deployment of India’s heavy-duty launcher -- the Geo-Stationary Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark II (GSLV- MK II). Another foray to Mars by India is only being bounced around as an idea and hopefully the pains of undertaking a mission to the Red Planet will get translated into everlasting gains. The beauty of planet Venus is also attractive to ISRO and a mission to the planet is on the anvil, confirms Mr. Kumar.
Undoubtedly, the truly ‘made in India’ Manglayaan mission opened the eyes of the world to the fact that that India was indeed a serious space-faring and precision manufacturing nation. In fact, Mr. Modi has made MOM the unofficial mascot for the ‘Make in India’ initiative.
(Pallava Bagla is Science Editor at NDTV and author of ‘Reaching for the Stars: India’s Journey to Mars and Beyond’.)
