Mangalyaan’s mission cost much less than MAVEN.
By Dileep Thekkethil
BANGALORE: September seems to be a busy month for Mars with two unmanned spacecraft from Earth reaching its orbit to study the red planet, which many scientists believe have traces of pre-existence of life.
NASA’s MAVEN mission reached the Martian orbit on Sunday night at around 9:50 pm after a 700 million kilometer journey. Scientists in NASA confirmed that MAVEN fired up its thrusters and entered the planet’s orbit.
John Grunsfeld, Nasa’s chief for science missions said, “This is such an incredible night.”
The MAVEN mission in the coming days will study the high atmosphere of Mars, trying to answer questions regarding what happened to the air in Mars. Now, the air pressure in Mars is too high that even if water existed in the planet it would boil away instantly.
The data from MAVEN will help scientists understand the past climate of the red planet along with an in-depth detailing of the current atmosphere.
“As the first orbiter dedicated to studying Mars’ upper atmosphere, MAVEN will greatly improve our understanding of the history of the Martian atmosphere, how the climate has changed over time, and how that has influenced the evolution of the surface and the potential habitability of the planet,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “It also will better inform a future mission to send humans to the Red Planet in the 2030s.”
Moving forward, NASA will conduct a six week commissioning which includes the testing of instruments on board and also manoeuvring the space craft into its final orbit. In the initial stage MAVEN will take the measurement of the composition, structure and escape of gases on Mars’ upper atmosphere along with the interaction it has with the sun and solar wind.
MAVEN was launched on November 18, 2013 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. It carries three instrument packages for conducting study on Mars. The concept of having a spacecraft orbiting Mars was originally conceived 11 years back, but the implementation phase took years to complete.
On the contrary, India’s maiden Mars Mission, Mangalyaan, is also nearing the orbit of Mars. Indian space agency, ISRO launched the Mars mission on November 5th, 2013. This mission took off within a year after ISRO got approval from the Government of India.
Mangalyaan is expected to reach Mars orbit on Wednesday, two days after its American counterpart. If the mission becomes a success, ISRO can prove that it can successfully launch a Mars mission for a mere cost of $74 million when compared to $105 million spent by NASA for MAVEN mission.
Mangalyaan used earth bound manoeuvring strategy to reach heliocentric trajectory toward Mars whereas MAVEN used Atlas 5 rocket to directly enter into a Hofmann Transfer Orbit which saves time but costs more.
The main objective of Mangalyaan mission is to showcase that India has the capability to develop the technologies required for design, planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission.
Mangalyaan also carries necessary instruments to conduct exploration of Mars surface features including morphology, mineralogy and Martian atmosphere.
ISRO confirmed that the 440 Newton Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) of India’s Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, last fired on December 1, 2013, was successfully fired for a duration of 3.968 seconds on September 22.
If Mangalyaan reaches the Mars orbit on September 24, India will become the fourth country to successfully complete the Mars mission.