Indian mission heads for Mars; among global space leaders The Mars Orbiter is supposed to reach the red planet by September 2014 Share129 Share 44 Previous123Next Mars orbiter enters Earths orbit Sriharikota: Indias first Mars orbiter Tuesday successfully began an ardous 400 million km long journey to Mars, making it the first Asian country and the fourth in the world to undertake a mission to the red planet in the hope of finding methane and minerals. Indias Rs.450 crore (about $72.9 million) Mars orbiter was successfully placed in orbit by an Indian rocket in what scientists said was a flawless launch. Exactly at 2.38 p.m., the Indian-made rocket - Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-C25 (PSLV-C25) standing around 44 metres tall and weighing around 320 tonnes - rose from its launching pad slowly, and then gathered speed as it zoomed into the skies on a plume of fiery orange flames. The expendable rocket, costing around Rs.110 crore had a single but important luggage, the 1,340-kg Mars orbiter costing around Rs.150 crore. Around Rs.90 crore has been spent on augmenting the ground support/tracking systems. The orbiter now heads to the red planet that gets its red hue from the iron in its soil. Named after the ancient Roman god of war, Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the planet closest to Earth. NASA says Mars is about one-sixth the size of Earth. Its scientific mission will be to explore the Mars surface features, morphology, or the study of organisms, mineralogy, the study of minerals, and Martian atmosphere by all Indian-made scientific instruments. India began its space journey way back in 1975 with the launch of Aryabhatta, using a Russian rocket and, till date, it has accomplished over 100 space missions. In 2008, India expanded its space explorations with its maiden Moon mission - Chandrayaan-1. The mission led to the discovery of water on the Moon. The country is planning another Moon mission in two years time. According to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) officials, the Mars orbiter will orbit the Earth till Nov 30 and then its motors will be fired to push it towards the red planet. For nearly 300 days the motor will be off while the spacecraft floats through the inky void towards Mars. When the spacecraft nears Mars, the motors will be restarted and fired again to carry out maneuvers to put it in Martian orbit around September 2014. Following that, the on-board instruments would carry out their jobs. (Continued)
Posted on: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 16:36:18 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015