India created history on September 24, becoming the first country to successfully get a spacecraft into the Martian orbit. Mangalyaan: 10 top things to know 1 Before India, various countries have launched Mars missions, but out of the 51 attempts, only 21 were successful. India now joins the Martian club that comprises the US, Russia and the European Space Agency 2 US space agency Nasa was one of the first to congratulate Isro on its success. Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a congratulatory speech highlighting the success and hardwork of the Isro scientists. 3 After the Mars mission, the Indian space agency will work together with Chinese space scientists to prepare a roadmap for a series of missions to be implemented together. Isro chiefs K Radhakrishnans tenure will come to an end by the time of 2014. The first three months of 2015 might see Radhakrishnan practice Kathakali. 4 A methane sensor will look for sources of the gas. While the Mars colour camera clicks away, a thermal infrared spectrometer will study heat emission, minerals and soil on Mars. 5 Indias MOM is the cheapest inter- planetary mission. It cost about a tenth of Nasas Mars mission Maven that entered the Martian orbit on September 22. PM Narendra Modi applauding Indian scientists had said,Hollywood movie Gravity costs more than our space mission. 6 The spacecraft structure and propulsion hardware configurations are similar to Chandrayaan 1, which was country’s first successful robotic lunar probe. Specific improvements and upgrades were made for a Mars specific mission. 7 The most important experiment is to check for the presence of methane that can indicate just what kind of life existed on Mars, if at all. 8 The orbiter, after a 300-day flight, has covered a distance of 680 million kilometres to reach the Red Planets orbit. 9 As it goes around Mars on an elliptical orbit with the closest point around 420km and the farthest around 80,000km, MOM will employ five equipment that collectively weight 15kg to do scientific studies. 10 The spacecraft trajectory would be tracked from Nasas Jet Propulsion Laboratory facilities at Goldstone (US), Madrid (Spain) and Canberra (Australia). information courtesy: TOI
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 18:37:03 +0000
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