Scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) are all set to open a new chapter in the history of the country’s space programme on Tuesday. A Polar Satellite launch Vehicle (PSlV), the country’s trusted workhorse, with a 1,350-kg spacecraft on-board, will lift off from Satish Dhavan Space Centre at Sriharikota, 80 km north of Chennai, at 2.38 pm marking India’s first inter-planetary exploration, the Mars Mission.
ISRO bosses describe the Rs 460-crore project as the cheapest ever inter-planetary mission. Only three countries, USA, Russia and Europe have succeeded in sending exploratory missions to Mars, popularly known as the Red Planet. Efforts by Japan and China failed midway through.
“The spacecraft, named Mars Orbiter, carries a 15-kg payload which includes a methane sensor to measure the methane gas in Mars’ atmosphere, a composition analyser to study Martian atmosphere, a photometer, which will study relative abundance of hydrogen in Mars’ upper atmosphere, a colour camera which would send images and data on surface features and composition of Mars and an imaging spectrometer for mapping the surface composition and minerology,” said Devi Prasad Karnik, ISRO’s chief spokesman.
The nearest point to the Martian surface the spacecraft would approach is 363 km and the farthest point is 80,000 km. Karnik, the space engineer-turned-spokesman of ISRO, said the orbiter would go close to 363 km away from the Mars.
“We expect to get pictures of 25 km resolution from that point. But the top priority of ISRO is to send a message to the world that we have the technical capability and expertise to get close to the Mars,” he said.
Space scientists describe the mission crucial and critical as it would test the mettle of Indian space engineers to manoeuvre a spacecraft travelling at a distance of 400 million km from earth.
“The real test will come during September 2014, when the orbiter has to be manoeuvred from earth’s orbit to Martian orbit through a series of commands from our Deep Space Network Communication Centre at Bylau near Bangalore,” said Karnik.
The countdown for the mission started on Saturday. Top space scientists of the country led by K Radhakrishnan are camping at SDSC, described as India’s gateway to the stars. Monday morning saw Radhakrishnan accompanied by a group of space scientists paying their obeisance at the holy shrine of lord Balaji at Tirupati.
The ISRO chairman offered the replicas of the launch vehicle at lord Balaji Temple, Kalahasti temple and Angammal Koil Temple near Sulurpet near Sriharikota seeking divine intervention for the success of the mission.
However, a section of space scientists, including former ISRO Chairman Dr G Madhavan Nair, is skeptical of the mission. “I saw a news clipping in one of the news channels where the current ISRO Chairman makes a statement that the mission is supposed to be looking for life on Mars. This, according to me, is utter nonsense. With a minuscule methane sensor, even if you want to look at methane, it cannot be done,” he told the media.
“NASA has come out very publicly after a rover experiment that there is no trace of life on Mars. In spite of that, somebody making this kind of statement....they are fooling the nation. There is a limit to fooling the people and fooling the nation,” he said negating the statement of ISRO chairman Dr Radhakrishnan, who had said that the mission would also probe life on Mars.
Some other serving senior scientists, on condition of anonymity, also expressed reservations about the mission pointing out that Curiosity rover, launched by NASA, which had a soft landing on Mars, had proved that there was no methane present in the planet.
Curiosity analysed samples of the Martian atmosphere for methane six times from October 2012 to June 2013 and detected none. The NASA scientists used a state-of-the art Tunable laser Spectrometer to reach the conclusion about the absence of methane in Mars.
“This mission will not bring or collect any data about Mars which is not available in the public domain. What ISRO should have done was to focus on the early standardisation of its Geosynchronous Satellite launch Vehicle (GSlV) powered by the indigenously developed cryogenic engine,” said a senior scientist.
Some space experts are worried over the ISRO shifting focus from societal application of space technology like communication transponders, tele-medicine and tele-education facilities to elite projects like Mars mission.
But reputed space scientist and former ISRO chief Dr K Kasturi Rangan felt the Mars mission would place India on a selected list of countries with an eye on the deep space exploration.
ISRO Chairman Dr Radhakrishnan had said sometime back justified the Mars mission saying it would boost Indian space capabilities and it was relevant to the country. M Annadurai, Programme Director of Indian Remote-sensing Satellites and Small Satellites Systems, ISRO, called the Mars Orbiter Mission “a logical extension of Chandrayaan-1”.