Achievement bigger than cricket team winning tournament: Modi.
By Dileep Thekkethil
BANGALORE: It’s a historic moment for India and space research worldwide as ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), dubbed as Mangalyaan, successfully entered the Martian orbit.
The tense moments in the control station was followed by rounds of applause when the mission director, Kiran Kumar, announced the successful ejection of MOM into the elliptical orbit of Mars, which meant success for India’s maiden Mars mission.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi who monitored the whole operation, congratulated the ISRO team for completing a mission which many believed was impossible. He said “Now Mars has a MOM from India”.
With today’s spectacular success, ISRO joins an elite group, of only 3 other agencies worldwide to have successfully reached red planet: PM
— PMO India (@PMOIndia) September 24, 2014
Scientists in the Space Center at Bangalore had sleepless nights in the last few days as there existed an air of uncertainty over the firing capability of the Liquid Apogee Motor engine of the Mars orbiter, which was last used before 300 days.
But after the successful test fire on Monday that lasted for 4 seconds, ISRO confirmed that the Engine was performing in pristine form.
The final path correction and the speed reversal maneuvers to put the spacecraft on Mars orbit went as scheduled.
The commands for firing the liquid engine and thrusters in the Mars orbiter were sent from the ground station in Bangalore before 10 days. The scientist kept their fingers crossed, to see how the spacecraft executed these commands today.
Mars Orbiter spacecraft started executing to commands and began rotating forward, a process which will reverse the direction before firing the liquid engine and thrusters to get into the Martian orbit.
What happened later was a textbook-style finish. The Liquid Engine reverse fired for 24 minutes and reduced the speed of Mangalyaan to 2.3 miles/sec allowing it to enter the elliptical orbit of the mars by making use of its gravitational pull.
The Mars orbiter went into the darker side of Mars during its entry into the orbit.
Mangalyaan after coming out from the dark executed the command for another reverse rotation to reorient the gain antenna, allowing the control station to resume communication with MOM, which meant a successful Mars Mission.
As the signals from the mars orbiter had to travel a distance of more than 600 million kilometres, it took about 12 minutes to reach the ground station in Bangalore.
Modi along with Chief Minister of Karnataka, K Siddaramaiah, reached the ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network in Bangalore early in the morning to witness the final proceedings of Mangalyaan.
After witnessing the path breaking achievement of India in sending interplanetary spacecraft, Modi said, “I congratulate all ISRO scientists and all Indians on this historic occasion. History has been created today. We have dared to reach out to the unknown.”
He said that the new achievement will go into the annals of India’s history because ISRO attempted to do something that not many have dared to do. Innovation at its best comes when people take risks to venture into the dark.
He also said that he admired the patience of the scientists in ISRO.
“It takes more time for our scientists to convey a message to Mangalyaan than it takes the sunlight to reach Earth. The odds were stacked against us. Of 51 missions attempted in world only 21 succeeded. We have prevailed.”
Modi ended his speech by urging the people to celebrate the achievement of ISRO as “Anand Utsav”. He said, “If our cricket team wins a tournament, then nation celebrates. Our scientists’ achievement is much greater. Today all of India should celebrate our scientists. Schools, colleges should applaud this.”
With the success of Mangalyaan, ISRO has proved that it can successfully launch interplanetary missions in a cost effective and time bound way. Mission Manglyaan was made possible at a cost of $70 million, less than the budget of the Hollywood movie Gravity.
MAVEN, the mars orbiter mission of the US had reached the Martian orbit on Sunday. NASA had spent $105 million for completing this mission. Even though MAVEN was sent a month after the launch of Mangalyaan, it reached the destination first. This is because Mangayaan used 7 earth bound maneuvers to raise its altitude whereas MAVEN used a rocket to exit earth’s field of gravity.
The main objective of Mangalyaan mission is to showcase India’s capability in developing technologies required for design, planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission. K. Radhakrishnan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization said, “I would say 85 percent of the success is assigned to realization of this objective.”
Mangalyaan will also study the presence of methane gas in the atmosphere of Mars, giving clues about the pre-existence of life in the Red Planet.
With Mangalyaan in Mars orbit, India has become the first country to successfully complete maiden mars mission. India has also become the fourth country to successfully venture into Mars.