Crucial Mangalyaan Mission: Furtherance for India’s Space Missions

India’s most ambitious Mangalyaan or the MOM (Mars Orbiter for Mission) flagged off from SHAR, on Nov 5^th, 2013 is in its last leg after successfully completing 98% of its journey.  It is scheduled to enter the orbit of Mars on Sept 24^th. MOM a brain child of ISRO was built indigenously and designed in a record time with a frugal budget. Mangalyaan cost roughly a tenth of the NASA’s Mars space mission Maven scheduled to enter the Mar’s Orbit on September 21^st. Successful rendezvous of Mangalyaan with Mars would greatly boost the morale of ISRO and India’s aspirations of entering the global space technology market worth $300 billion. ISRO has embarked on the challenging mission of interplanetary space voyage for not executing some exotic experiments but to prepare ground for future missions. The purpose of the mission was to test India’s ability to send a satellite which can go way beyond Mars and orbit around the planet. This unostentatious satellite as a part of mission housed 5 indigenously built instruments to study the planet’s surface, mineral composition and look for presence of Methane gas, a crucial component of life.

Barring a small glitch after few days of launch, the spacecraft has moved along the expected trajectory hence correction exercises were not executed. Unlike the Mars Mission of NASA, India’s mission was quite complicated as it needed repeated firing of satellite thrusters and intricate manoeuvres before it began on its journey to Mars. Even the launch was complex and has a 25 minutes long coast between the third and fourth stage during which the engines were shutdown. When the satellite entered the earth’s orbit, six- orbit raising manoeuvres lasting for 25 days were performed before it left the earth’s ambit. All these manoeuvres required precise calculations. Maven on the other hand required five minute push from the powerful upper stage of the rocket, just 27 minutes after lift-off. After lying dormant for almost 10 months, the engine would be switched on Monday, 22^nd September with preloaded commands will fire for four seconds to reduce its speed. If it fires well, ISRO will fire it for 24 minutes on September 24^th to facilitate the entry of spacecraft into the orbit of Mars. If it fails ISRO will nudge the spacecraft into the orbit by firing eight small thrusters on September 24^th. In any case, the spacecraft will successfully accomplish its mission unless something unexpected happens.

Mangalyaan is now travelling at speed of 22km per second with respect to sun. This speed has to be lowered to 4.3 km per second with respect to Mars to enter its orbit. This can be achieved by reorienting the spacecraft and firing an engine in opposite direction and Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) is entrusted with this job. Since LAM has been tested in the last two decades by ISRO, it is confident of its execution abilities. By September 24^th spacecraft would be 224 million km away from earth and signals from earth will take 12.5 minutes to reach the satellite and vice-versa. Hence operating satellite in real time is not possible. Preloaded commands will fire the engine by 7:17am IST on the D-day and spacecraft will be reoriented too.

Impeccable execution of commands will accord ISRO a higher status in the space research as no other country could reach Mars without failures. ISRO has already crossed two major hurdles by meticulous rocket liftoff and flawless injection of satellite around the earth. Most countries failed in their Mars missions as they were unable to understand Mar’s gravity. ISRO has so far managed to navigate around Mars and satellite is also in good health. Contingent plans for firing the engine are in place. If LAM fails to fire, the eight thrusters will inject the satellite into a little higher orbit and then scientific goals will be adjusted accordingly. In any case, ISRO will create history by successfully putting Indian satellite orbiting the red planet within few days in its maiden effort.

A successful Mars Mission will embolden India’s resolve to build new satellite launching centres capable of carrying heavier satellites into space. India having launched 40 satellites has already proven its mettle in deploying lighter satellites. With this new accomplishment India can be a tough competitor to China, an established player in the space technology market.

 

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