Indian dream of conquering the red planet is just a few days away. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) headquarters in Bangalore is all set to conduct its last manoeuvre on September 24 in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is expected to be present to cheer up Indian space scientists on that crucial event.
ISRO’s pride Mars Orbiter, Mission Mangalyan is racing with time and space to enter the red planet based on a critical manoeuvre of the spacecraft which makes India enter the selected group of nation which conquered Mars. In its 300 days of journey linking Indian space capabilities, the Mars Orbiter would be nudged to Martian path on next Monday. ISRO’s endeavour proves beyond any doubt its capabilities in space science which is crucial for nation’s development.
Space scientists and technicians at ISRO are gearing up to switch on the engine which has been lying inactive for 10 months. This manoeuvre on Monday would be performed to slow down the tiny spacecraft which proves Indian dominance in space science. The scientists fire the engine for a few seconds to wake up the engine and to take control of the spacecraft. This precision operation will slowly make the spacecraft enter Mars orbit.
The MOM, India’s first interplanetary mission, was launched on November 5, 2013 by India’s workhorse Polar Satellite launch Vehicle (PSlV) from the spaceport of Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.
According to ISRO scientists, they were confident of passing the crucial test to place the spacecraft into Martian orbit. According to V Koteswara Rao, scientific secretary at ISRO, they were confident of conducting the operation to insert the spacecraft into Martian Orbit.
He said, “We are very confident; there is no reason, not to be confident going by the performance of the system so far. We have covered 98 per cent of the journey and another 2 per cent we are going to complete soon. We are very confident, teams are all very confident.”
“The remaining crucial thing is Mars Orbit Insertion, and if you see some missions have failed because of failures in estimates in the distance from the Mars, and if you see the history they were at very early stages....,” he added.If the Rs450-crore MOM mission turns out to be a success, ISRO would be the fourth space agency in the world to have sent a mission to Mars.
European Space Agency (ESA) of European consortium, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the US and Roscosmos of Russia are the only three agencies which have so far sent their missions to the red planet. Only 21 of the total of 51 missions sent to Mars by various countries have been successful.