Indian Martian exploration program

[Sridhar]

Re: Mars spacecraft shipped out of Bangalore for mission

First and Second stages of PSLV-C25 at Mobile Service Tower

Hoisting of PSLV-C25 second stage in the Mobile Service Tower

PSLV-C25 first stage being surrounded by strap-ons in the Mobile Service Tower

Hoisting of an interstage of PSLV-C25 during vehicle integration

 

[Sridhar]

Re: Mars spacecraft shipped out of Bangalore for mission

One of the strap-ons of PSLV-C25 being lowered to its position during vehicle integration

One of the strap-ons of PSLV-C25 being lowered to its transporter

Preparation of one of the strap-ons before its integration with PSLV-C25 first stage

Fully integrated first stage of PSLV-C25 in the Mobile Service Tower

 

[Sridhar]

Re: Mars spacecraft shipped out of Bangalore for mission

Joining of two segments of PSLV-C25 First Stage in progress in the Mobile Service Tower

Hoisting of one of the segments of PSLV-C25 First Stage during vehicle integration

Two segments of PSLV-C25 First Stage being joined in Mobile Service Tower

PSLV-C25 First Stage Nozzle End Segment being placed on the launch pedestal

 

[Sridhar]

Re: Mars spacecraft shipped out of Bangalore for mission

Mars Orbiter - Payloads

http://isro.org/pslv-c25/pdf/mom-payloads.pdf

 

[Sridhar]

Re: Mars spacecraft shipped out of Bangalore for mission

Spacecraft Integration - Video

Welcome To Indian Space Research Organisation -Mars Orbiter Mission

 

[Free Karma]

^^ I kinda wish they'd stop using cheesy 80's style pop music, but woot!! gogo!

 

[Sridhar]

Fiji, to be hub of India's Mars Orbiter Mission

07:07 Today

Taken from/By: Google
Report by: Shireen Lata

Fiji will be the data collection hub for the $127.3m Mars Orbiter Mission called Mangalyaan to be launched from India.

An eighteen member team of top scientists and engineers from India's International Space Research Organisation is in the country to identify specified destination points for the monitoring of the mission.

An official at the Indian High Commission office in Suva, Vikrant Rattan says the mission will be monitored from Fiji and other parts of the Pacific Ocean.

"In Fiji the ships will do refueling and other logistical arrangements will be put in place including integration of equipment onboard the ship which are basically communication equipment and from here the ships will sail further onto the observation point into the Pacific."

Rattan says two ships will be deployed to the Pacific and final preparations are being done.

Once this is completed, the ships will be sailing to these specified destination points for the monitoring of the mission.

"Fiji has been chosen mainly because of the location and because we have excellent relation with the people and the government of Fiji, the location of the observation point in the pacific are 1500 miles to 2000 mile eastofFiji and this makes Fiji as one of the best location."

Indian Scientist – Umang Parikh says one goal for the interplanetary journey is to hunt down methane gas, a byproduct from living organisms.

"The final preparation is going as per schedule and the actual rocket which we call the launch vehicle is ready and integrated at our launch centre in India and in another one week the rocket will be fully ready for launched."

The Mars Orbit Mission is expected to be launched by the end of this month and scientists believe this is the optimal timing for a Mars mission.

FBC News

 

[Sridhar]

India's Mars mission ready, but cyclone in the Pacific a worry, says ISRO

New Delhi: First the good news. India's satellite for its maiden mission to Mars, the Mangalyaan and its rocket launch vehicle, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), are fully tested and ready.

But the bad news is that a cyclone lashing through the Pacific Ocean could slow things down. A final decision on whether the launch can take place on October 28 as per plan will be made only on Saturday when the final review is over.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said this as it conducted its final mission readiness review for Mangalyaan. The unmanned scientific satellite mission has cost India Rs. 450 crore.

For the first time India is deploying two special ships hired from the Shipping Corporation of India - the Nalanda and the Yamuna will monitor the health and movement of India's rocket several minutes after the launch while it is coasting in the sky over the Pacific Ocean. This is a special requirement for the Mars mission.

According to ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan, the movement of Indian ships in the Pacific has been slowed down due to bad weather conditions. In a few days, the picture would be clearer.

The Mangalyaan satellite was today fully fuelled and the spacecraft is now being mated to its rocket at Sriharikota. Both the machines, according to Mr Radhakrishnan, are in a state of readiness to meet the first launch window.

This time of the year is always a worry for ISRO as the weather at Sriharikota is influenced by the cyclone season in the Bay of Bengal.

For the first time, the ISRO is worried about weather in far- away Pacific Ocean to arrive at an opportune launch window for India's first inter-planetary mission.
India's Mars mission ready, but cyclone in the Pacific a worry, says ISRO | NDTV.com

 

[Ash]

India's first Mars mission said to blast off Seeking Methane signature

India is gearing up for its first ever space undertaking to the Red Planet – dubbed the Mars Orbiter Mission, or MOM – which is the brainchild of the Indian Space Research Organization, or ISRO.

Among other objectives, MOM will conduct a highly valuable search for potential signatures of Martian methane – which could stem from either living or non living sources. The historic Mars bound probe also serves as a forerunner to bolder robotic exploration goals.

If all goes well India would become only the 4th nation or entity from Earth to survey Mars up close with spacecraft, following the Soviet Union, the United States and the European Space Agency (ESA).

The 1,350 kilogram (2,980 pound) orbiter, also known as 'Mangalyaan', is slated to blast off as early as Oct. 28 atop India's highly reliable Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from a seaside launch pad in Srihanikota, India.



MOM is outfitted with an array of five science instruments including a multi color imager and a methane gas sniffer to study the Red Planet's atmosphere, morphology, mineralogy and surface features. Methane on Earth originates from both biological and geological sources.

ISRO officials are also paying close attention to the local weather to ascertain if remnants from Tropical Cyclone Phaillin or another developing weather system in the South Pacific could impact liftoff plans.

The launch target date will be set following a readiness review on Friday, said ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan according to Indian press reports.


Mangalyaan' is undergoing final prelaunch test and integration at ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Srihairkota on the east coast of Andhra Pradesh state following shipment from ISRO's Bangalore assembly facility on Oct. 3.

ISRO has already assembled the more powerful XL extended version of the four stage PSLV launcher at Srihairkota.

MOM's launch window extends about three weeks until Nov. 19 – which roughly coincides with the opening of the launch window for NASA's next mission to Mars, the MAVEN orbiter.


MAVEN's on time blastoff from Florida on Nov. 18, had been threatened by the chaos caused by the partial US government shutdown that finally ended this morning (Oct. 17), until the mission was granted an 'emergency exemption' due to the critical role it will play in relaying data from NASA's ongoing pair of surface rovers – Curiosity and Opportunity.

NASA is providing key communications and navigation support to ISRO and MOM through the agency's trio of huge tracking antennas in the Deep Space Network (DSN).

As India's initial mission to Mars, ISRO says that the mission's objectives are both technological and scientific to demonstrate the nation's capability to design an interplanetary mission and carry out fundamental Red Planet research with a suite of indigenously built instruments.

MOM's science complement comprises includes the tri color Mars Color Camera to image the planet and its two moon, Phobos and Diemos; the Lyman Alpha Photometer to measure the abundance of hydrogen and deuterium and understand the planets water loss process; a Thermal Imaging Spectrometer to map surface composition and mineralogy, the MENCA mass spectrometer to analyze atmospheric composition, and the Methane Sensor for Mars to measure traces of potential atmospheric methane down to the ppm level.

It will be of extremely great interest to compare any methane detection measurements from MOM to those ongoing from NASA's Curiosity rover – which found ground level methane to be essentially nonexistent – and Europe's planned 2016 ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter.

MOM's design builds on spacecraft heritage from India's Chandrayaan 1 lunar mission that investigated the Moon from 2008 to 2009.

The 44 meter (144 ft) PSLV will launch MOM into an initially elliptical Earth parking orbit of 248 km x 23,000 km. A series of six orbit raising burns will eventually dispatch MOM on a trajectory to Mars by late November, assuming an Oct. 28 liftoff.

Following a 300 day interplanetary cruise phase, the do or die orbital insertion engine will fire on September 14, 2014 and place MOM into an 377 km x 80,000 km elliptical orbit.

NASA's MAVEN is also due to arrive in Mars orbit during September 2014.

The $69 Million 'Mangalyaan' mission is expected to continue gathering measurements at the Red Planet for at least six months and perhaps ten months or longer.



Read more: India's First Mars Mission Set to Blast off Seeking Methane Signature



Read more: India's First Mars Mission Set to Blast off Seeking Methane Signature



Read more: India's First Mars Mission Set to Blast off Seeking Methane Signature

 

[t_co]

Go India! Space exploration is good for everyone.

 

[vram]

Re: India's first Mars mission said to blast off Seeking Methane signa

Read more: India's First Mars Mission Set to Blast off Seeking Methane Signature

All the Best ISRO.. But if you ask me this is a purposeless exercise as the current MOM wieght had to be reduced to increase chances of success using the PSLV.
The ideal solution would have been for the ISRO to concentrate and bring GSLV online with full steam and then slingshot for Mars during the next available window which is I believe around 2016-18

 

[kseeker]

Re: Life on Mars? We will seek to reveal: ISRO

India to launch Mars mission on Nov 5 - Hindustan Times

India's ambitious space mission to explore Mars would be launched on November 5 from the spaceport of Sriharikota, Indian Space Research Organisation(Isro) said on Tuesday

'The launch of India's first interplanetary probe, Mars Orbiter Spacecraft onboard PSLV-C25 (in its XL version), is scheduled on November 5, 2013 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota. The lift-off time is at 14:36 hrs IST," an Isro spokesperson told HT.

The spacecraft has been integrated to the launch vehicle and we expect the countdown to begin from November 3, he added.

One of the main objectives of the first Indian mission to Mars is to develop the technologies required for design, planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission.

The initial launch for the MOM was slated for October 28. It was decided to defer the launch because of the delay in the arrival of the Indian ship-borne terminals to their intended location, about 300 nautical miles from the Fiji island.

The launch window for the MOM mission is from October 28 to November 19. The American NASA/JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) is also providing communications and navigation support to this mission with their deep space network facilities.

Mars Orbiter Mission —onboard PSLV-C25, is India's maiden effort to explore the red planet. It will place India among the six nations to launch a mission to Mars.

After leaving the Earth's orbit, the spacecraft will cruise in deep space for about ten months using its own propulsion system and will reach Martian transfer trajectory in September 2014.

 

[pmaitra]

India Mars launch stokes Asian space race with China

The forthcoming launch of a spacecraft to Mars by India is likely to stoke the fires of a burgeoning Asian space race.

The Mangalyaan probe was to have been launched as early as 28 October, but rough weather in the Pacific forced officials to delay the launch by a week. The unmanned mission has a launch window lasting until 19 November.

Read full article: BBC News - India Mars launch stokes Asian space race with China

Nothing new from what we already know. I saw this interesting picture with the article.

India's space programme has moved on significantly since its early days.

Satellite on bullock-cart, Elvis Presley style shirts and bell-bottom pants - so 1980s, and so inspirational!

 

[kseeker]

Defence News - ISRO chief highly optimistic of its challenging Mars mission

ISRO is highly optimistic of the success of the country's maiden inter-planetary probe to Mars from Sriharikota on November 5. The mission will begin its odyssey at 2.36 pm, with a window of only five minutes.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is highly optimistic of the success of the country's maiden inter-planetary probe to Mars from Sriharikota on November 5. The mission will begin its odyssey at 2.36 pm, with a window of only five minutes.

Each of the phases has its own challenges and problems as it is an inter-planetary mission with a long navigational path of 300 days from earth to the Martian orbit.

Speaking to Express, ISRO Chairman Dr K Radhakrishnan said: "This is a very complicated mission, but we have the capability to do it. We have developed new knowledge and we are very confident that we can achieve the navigation from earth to Mars accurately and properly.

Although the influence of sun (varying solar pressure) and other planets have to be taken into account to make the mission a success, if we have done it for communication satellites, Chandrayaan and others, we can do it for this too. The previous experiences of launching four different missions with the same PSLV vehicle stands good as we have a good understanding of this rocket."

Dr Radhakrishnan added that the levels of autonomy built in the spacecraft was such that it does not take any wrong decisions.

"The required level of autonomy onboard the spacecraft has been provided as the distance from the ground stations is 400 million km. For the first time, ground operations have been built into the satellite so that it can identify whether systems are functioning well. If not, it can switch over to standby systems. A second level of autonomy too has been provided, which is a chain of commands, stored in the computer and initiated in times of serious problems. The ground control finds a solution that puts the Mars Orbiter in a 'safe mode' facing the earth where it can receive the commands and open the solar panels," he detailed.

This is the first time that Nalanda and Yamuna — the ships of the Shipping Corporation of India — have been requisitioned for tracking the ignition of the fourth stage of PSLV and a good amount of its powered phase, as there are no tracking stations in this region. Because of bad weather, there was a delay in the ships reaching their destination.

They have reached Fiji Islands now and will move 1,000 nautical miles eastwards on October 27.

 

[nimo_cn]

Re: India has Red Planet Fever.

no moon mission?

Sent from my HUAWEI T8951 using Tapatalk 2

 

[cobra commando]

India set to launch its debut Mars mission


India set to launch its debut Mars mission - space - 23 October 2013 - New Scientist

 

[cobra commando]

Propulsion System-Assembly of Oxidizer tank

Prof. U R Rao, Former Chairman of ISRO, Inaugurating the Integration activities of the Mars Orbiter spacecraft.

Mars Orbiter Spacecraft's Primary structure in the clean room-Ready for commencement of Spacecraft integration activities.

SCI Yamuna left Fiji islands for its designated position in the Pacific ocean in the wee hours of this morning-Intended for tracking the upper stages of the PSLV C25-Mars Orbiter Mission.
(Wednesday /23.10.2013)

PSLV, Spacecraft and the Ground system are now ready for final level of electrical checks.

Spacecraft getting integrated on the PSLV-C25 vehicle.

Spacecraft going through pre- launch operations in Sriharikota.

 

[cobra commando]

PSLV C25 Heat Shield closure activity is completed Launch scheduled on November 05, 2013 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota

 

[kseeker]

Mars mission will be a big leap for the country: ISRO - The Economic Times

By Hari Pulakkat, ET Bureau | 25 Oct, 2013, 03.00AM IST

The spacecraft's arrival point on Mars has to be calculated to an accuracy of 60 miles about 280 days in advance," says Radhakrishnan.

BANGALORE: If the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) lifts off on November 5 from Sriharikota as planned, it will be watched by more than a normal share of anxious eyes. It is a difficult mission, and fickle weather adds to the complexity.

But ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan is not prone to fits of worry. "The PSLV is the best vehicle in its class," he says, "which is why many countries are using it now to launch their satellites." A mission to Mars will require taking into account the influence of earth, the moon, the sun and, of course, the destination planet, all of which keep changing positions with the day of the launch.

A small error in calculation will miss the target by tens of thousands of miles. "The spacecraft's arrival point on Mars has to be calculated to an accuracy of 60 miles about 280 days in advance," says Radhakrishnan. "It takes beyond textbook mechanics to achieve this precision." An excursion to the red planet does not come easy to even to the most experienced.

The Russians have a long history of failures in Mars missions. The Chinese have not yet attempted its own mission, and so Mangalyaan is extra special for India. "It will be a big leap for the country," says Goverdhan Mehta, space commission member. The Americans, Russians and Europeans have used larger rockets for their Mars missions. India is using the smaller PSLV, usually used to put small satellites into a low-earth orbit over the poles. The launch window to Mars is very small, the next one being available only in 2018. ISRO has already postponed the launch once due to bad weather.

If the PSLV does not go up before November 19, ISRO has to wait for another five years to get similar conditions. The PSLV is India's most mature rocket. ISRO has launched 35 satellites so far using PSLV and 10 are in waiting list for launch. The Mars mission will use PSLV in new ways, thereby adding new complexities. The trajectory of the spacecraft is very different to begin with.

 

[Abhijeet Dey]

India's space odyssey
The Financial Express
Pratik Kanjilal, Oct 24 2013, 02:43 IST

ISRO's Mangalyaan is a lucky omen for India, shifting the focus from meaningless prestige projects like putting a man on the moon to hard-nosed investment in space. Of course, our first planetary probe has invited the customary dissent notes from fans of displacement analysis. They protest that the money spent on space missions would have been better invested in vaccines and blackboards, though no one has ever insisted with any vehemence that health and education must be sacrificed at the altar of space. And, quite inexplicably, the BBC has chosen to regard Mangalyaan as the starter's pistol for an Asian space race between India and China, a dim echo of the Cold War rivalry of the US and the USSR.

But that's a fallacy. The 20th century space race was actuated purely by geopolitical rivalry and consisted mainly of grandstanding by the two most powerful and technologically proficient nations. The Russians got off to a head start with the first satellite (Sputnik), and the first dog, man and woman in space (Laika, Yuri Gagarin, Valentina Tereshkova), and then the Americans trumped them with the first man on the moon (Neil Armstrong). Live payloads indicate political priorities, not scientific or commercial imperatives, though the spinoffs included technological advances of incalculable commercial value, like Velcro and the compact, rechargeable batteries that, 50 years later, now power mobile devices and cameras.

However, in the last half-decade, space has become contested territory. Formerly the monopoly of powerful nations, it is now the speculative playground for business leaders like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk, co-founder of Tesla Motors and PayPal. When nations were in charge, space exploration subserved national interests. Now, commercial interest and the private fascinations of CEOs and investors could become prime movers. The implications of the exploration and colonisation of space, which are more or less agreed upon, may become unpredictable and disruptive.

It was traditionally surmised that precious metals would power the first boom in space. One result could be a sudden influx of gold, but this never caused anxiety because nations, the promoters of space projects, abhor uncertainty in currency markets. But what about corporations? Electronics and computer manufacturers use precious metals for making fine, highly conductive connections between microprocessors and circuits. An increase in supply would reduce manufacturing costs. And since a few of their number, such as Samsung and Apple, have the wherewithal to fund space exploration, the prospect of a gold glut is not entirely theoretical. This is just a random what-if example, though.

Corporations would also benefit from setting up manufacturing centres under zero gravity in a vacuum, where many processes deliver far better product quality than in earthbound factories, and hazardous technologies can be used without environmental anxieties. Space factories would also have an inexhaustible source of power—sunlight, unimpeded by an atmosphere and uninterrupted by night. It is hazarded that the first commercially successful off-earth factories would be space stations using solar power, lifting raw materials cheaply from low gravity sources like asteroids and small moons and producing small, light, high-value finished goods. Since lifting anything out of earth's gravity well imposes huge costs—whether raw materials or plant, equipment or food for staff—the entire process needs to be sustainable in space.

India is taking a stake in this game with Mangalyaan, following on from Chandrayaan, which had helped to settle a hoary old question by discovering water on the moon. But following that success, the space programme had developed a curiously antiquated desire to put a man on the moon, at the expense of contemporary priorities like the huge potential market in launch vehicles and payload design. But another break with the past must be made, because participation in developing space settlements appears to be more rewarding than colonising planets and moons. The solar system is littered with asteroids, many containing commercially valuable metals in unbelievable quantities. Despite high initial investment, mining and related manufacturing in the asteroid belts using habitats in space, not planets, promises to be very rewarding over the long term. Incidentally, the latest space habitat model, an improvement over the Stanford Torus and the O'Neill Cylinder of the 1970s and NASA's Lewis One of the 1990s, is named Kalpana One after Kalpana Chawla.

Indian space scientists should consider commercial issues because now that corporates are entering the space game, the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 could be sidestepped. The basis of space law, it designates outer space as the common heritage of humankind, promotes cooperation in exploration and prohibits the sequestration of its assets by nations. That's the problem. The treaty is signed by nations. It assumes that only nations can be players in space and says nothing clearly about individuals or commercial interests. It leaves the door wide open to a wild new commercial frontier.