Prime Minister Narendra Modi is keen to be a part of history at ISRO where India’s tryst with Mars destiny has entered the last leg of its odyssey. Modi, who has arrived on a two-day State visit to Karnataka on Tuesday, would be visiting ISRO’s mission control centre in the telemetry, tracking and command network (Istrac) on the outskirts of Bangalore to witness Mangalyaan entering the Mars orbit.
According to a space scientist at ISRO, the Prime Minister was very keen to be a part of this historic moment and wants to sit with the space scientists to witness the last keg of its odyssey.It is also interesting that Modi is witnessing India’s maiden space act ahead of his crucial US tour.
“The PM is very keen to be a part of this occasion where we are going to prove our rare achievement in space. He is directly in-charge of space department. The PM was also there at Sriharikota and witnessed the launch of PSlV which carried French weather satellite and other four satellites as piggyback load,” said a senior space scientist.
“Though the orbit insertion exercise begins at 4.17 am, the Prime Minister will be at the mission control centre from 6.45 am to watch the crucial operation when the spacecraft main engine will be fired at 7.17 am to carry it through the region to enter the Martian orbit by 7.53 am,” the official said.
As command signals to the spacecraft and signals from it to the mission control centre take 12.5 minutes each way, confirmation about its insertion into the orbit will be known by 8.15 am.ISRO chairman K Radhakrishanan and senior scientists in-charge of the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) will brief the Prime Minister about the operations.
According to ISRO sources, only 21 of the 51 missions to Mars have succeeded in reaching the Mars. If ISRO succeeds in its Mars venture on Wednesday it becomes the first nation to send a spacecraft to Mars in its first attempt. This achievement for ISRO is very significant as even China’s Mars mission Yinghuo-1 failed in 2011. In fact, Russian Phobos-Grunt mission also failed in its first attempt. Fobos-Grunt or Phobos-Grunt was an attempted Russian sample return mission to Phobos, one of the moons of Mars. Fobos-Grunt also carried the Chinese Mars orbiter Yinghuo-1 and the tiny living Interplanetary Flight Experiment funded by the Planetary Society.
It was launched on November 9, 2011 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, but subsequent rocket burns intended to set the craft on a course for Mars failed, leaving it stranded in low Earth orbit. Efforts to reactivate the craft were unsuccessful, and it fell back to Earth in an uncontrolled re-entry on 15 January 2012, reportedly over the Pacific Ocean west of Chile.