Mangalyaan: ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

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Amber G.
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by Amber G. »

Posted before, but a really nice reference to find the position of MoM at anytime and see the orbit.

(You can see from the point of view from Earth, or Sun, or Mars at any time)

http://sankara.net/mom.html

Orbit data was updated on 18 October, 2014. MOM shows an orbit correction to avoid Comet Siding Spring's tail.

(It also has orbit/trajectory/path of Maven and Siding Spring)
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by member_28792 »

matrimc wrote:Let me give it a shot (or may be just some really tangential - no pun intended) at an approach to AmberG's poser.

(I am not a satellite guy either but taking off from Srikumar's insight on spheres, circles etc.)

1. First about atomic clock: Three and half decades ago, my cousin used to develop PLL - Phase Locked Loop - synthesizers using very finely cut piezoelectric crystals and MIL spec Opamps (Operational Amplifiers) connected in a difference amplifier configuration with a feedback loop. I am not sure whether something like that work at pico-second pulses? (looks like I am off by three orders of magnitude there - I guessed nanoseconds but that seems to be not enough resolution as pointed out by AmberG)

2. Two solid cylinders intersect in a sphere, is that right? There was a puzzle about this around 1987-88 in Martin Gardener's column in Sci. Am. I wonder what would be the intersection of two solid cones? Three cones? Four cones?

3. What is the projection of the intersection of four cones onto a sphere?
Source localization using an array of sensors is a well-studied problem for propagated (acoustic) signals and non-propagated (electromagnetic) signals. For acoustic signals the time-of-arrival differences are proportional to the differences in source-to-sensor range differences, with the locus of points that satisfy a constant range difference being described by hyperboloids. Here, the sensors form the foci of the hyperboloids and the source lies at their intersection. In general, a minimum of three or four sensors are required for locating a source in two dimensions, and four or five sensors are required for locating in three dimensions. You can obtain improved estimates using more sensors when there is noise. The number of sensors needed to unambiguously locate a source is dependent on the type of conic section (parabola, hyperbola, or ellipse). This will determine the positions of the foci and how the ambiguities should be resolved.
Last edited by member_28792 on 22 Oct 2014 12:52, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by member_28792 »

harbans wrote:^^ And that is the most amazingly "insignificant" pic of the Earth i have ever seen! :)
More humbling is the "Pale blue dot" image of the Earth taken by Voyager I as it left the Solar System (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot). It was the late Carl Sagan who had the idea of turning the camera of Voyager I around back to the starting point, and taking one last snapshot of Earth before Voyager I left the Solar System forever. It is a surprisingly emotional image. Makes you wonder about how small we are and how precious life is. But I agree with you that the view from Mars is just as humbling.
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by bharats »

And wondering if ISRO and BARC has any program on Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) power sources in satellites as Voyager 1 had. RTGs are usually the most desirable power source for robotic or unmaintained situations that need a few hundred watts (or less) of power for durations too long for fuel cells, batteries, or generators to provide economically and in places where solar cells are not practical.

Can we see them in MOM#3?
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by Amber G. »

I am sure you already know that RTG was used in Voyager I primarily because one can not use solar cells. For interstellar probes, or remote light houses on earth (as Soviet Union did), or powering the monitoring devices to monitor communist China on Himalayas (see note 1), RTG ( one of the best but not the only isotope used is Pu 238) has been used.

There have been cases, when these devices were stolen, or not accounted and then caused panic and harm due to radioactive stuff but imagine how many people will like a few Kg of Pu238 going on any space probe. What if the probe is burned while launching? (Politically it is not viable)..

Besides solar cells do nicely as long you do not venture too far from Sun.

Note 1 - (CIA and Indian Intelligence (one of a few times when US/India worked together in the cold war) used these devices in 1960's to monitor China's nuke programs on places like Nanda Devi - One episode (to recover one of these old devices in late 70's) ended in disaster - (climb was difficult, Sherpas did not know the danger and a few died ... PM, Morarji Desai, had to make a statement to the Indian parliament revealing the details of the mission and denying that the lost equipment posed any health hazards...ityadi.
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by Amber G. »

^^^ Added later - small tidbit of Pu238, Apollo 13, carried one RTG see the picture below (from NASA's image library)
<click for image>
>> Caption:
Jim Lovell, who is carrying the ALSEP packages in the foreground, and Fred Haise, who is in the background with the Hand Tool Carrier (HTC), The RTG package is on Jim's left .. 28 January 1970. Scan

This RTC package came back to earth ( Apollo 13 was not successful), and actually fell in Pacific (Near Fiji)
From Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13
(
The Lunar Module burned up in Earth's atmosphere on April 17, 1970, having been targeted to enter over the Pacific Ocean to reduce the possibility of contamination from a SNAP 27 radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) on board. Intended to power the mission's ALSEP, the RTG survived re-entry (as designed) and landed in the Tonga Trench. While it will remain radioactive for several thousand years, it does not appear to be releasing any of its 3.9 kg of radioactive plutonium-238


Also may be of interest - see last few pages.....http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/neep602/SPRING00/lecture39.pdf
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by member_28108 »

Amber G. wrote:I am sure you already know that RTG was used in Voyager I primarily because one can not use solar cells. For interstellar probes, or remote light houses on earth (as Soviet Union did), or powering the monitoring devices to monitor communist China on Himalayas (see note 1), RTG ( one of the best but not the only isotope used is Pu 238) has been used.

There have been cases, when these devices were stolen, or not accounted and then caused panic and harm due to radioactive stuff but imagine how many people will like a few Kg of Pu238 going on any space probe. What if the probe is burned while launching? (Politically it is not viable)..

Besides solar cells do nicely as long you do not venture too far from Sun.

Note 1 - (CIA and Indian Intelligence (one of a few times when US/India worked together in the cold war) used these devices in 1960's to monitor China's nuke programs on places like Nanda Devi - One episode (to recover one of these old devices in late 70's) ended in disaster - (climb was difficult, Sherpas did not know the danger and a few died ... PM, Morarji Desai, had to make a statement to the Indian parliament revealing the details of the mission and denying that the lost equipment posed any health hazards...ityadi.
You do not need them when solar power is adequate. Using them is done only when we do cannot depend on solar power as issues during alunch can lead to radioactive contamination.
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by Amber G. »

Bharatsji - You may find this interesting. recent updates on RTG's NASA fact sheet-
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mars2020/files ... 0-2-13.pdf
an overview from Stanford..
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2013/ph241/jiang1/
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by Amber G. »

:) Happy One Month Anniversary! :)

(Google, generally celebrates anniversary (as in annual events) but rarely after a MONTH.).

https://www.google.com/doodles/1-month- ... mars-orbit
Image


Google Doodle

Let me also wish Happy Diwali to Mangalyaan and all the folks here on earth..

(The photo was taken on 2012 Diwali. Image acquired November 12, 2012, via NASA’s Earth Observatory)


Image
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by SSSalvi »

This is NOT artist's impression.. this is REAL.

Images of MARS and Comet captured by a spacecraft are combined to give a never before impression.

Image

Obtained by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

The comet passed by Mars at approximately 87,000 miles (about one-third of the distance between Earth and the Moon). At that time, the comet and Mars were approximately 149 million miles from Earth.
The comet image shown here is a composite of Hubble exposures taken between Oct. 18, 8:06 a.m. EDT to Oct. 19, 11:17 p.m. EDT. Hubble took a separate photograph of Mars at 10:37 p.m. EDT on Oct. 18.

The Mars and comet images have been added together to create a single picture to illustrate the angular separation, or distance, between the comet and Mars at closest approach. The separation is approximately 1.5 arc minutes, or one-twentieth of the angular diameter of the full Moon. The background starfield in this composite image is synthesized from ground-based telescope data provided by the Palomar Digital Sky Survey, which has been reprocessed to approximate Hubble’s resolution. The solid icy comet nucleus is too small to be resolved in the Hubble picture. The comet’s bright coma, a diffuse cloud of dust enshrouding the nucleus, and a dusty tail, are clearly visible.

This is a composite image because a single exposure of the stellar background, comet Siding Spring, and Mars would be problematic. Mars is actually 10,000 times brighter than the #MarsComet, and so could not be properly exposed to show detail in the Red Planet. The comet and Mars were also moving with respect to each other and so could not be imaged simultaneously in one exposure without one of the objects being motion blurred. Hubble had to be programmed to track on the comet and Mars separately in two different observations.

The images were taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3.

(Image Credit: NASA, ESA, PSI, JHU/APL, STScI/AURA)


https://www.facebook.com/MAVEN2Mars?hc_ ... n=timeline
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by member_28108 »

Wonder why no images have been released by MOM team so far.
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by bharats »

Did Art of 'Jugaad' Make India’s Low-cost Mars Mission Possible?
By Karine Schomer, Ph.D., is president of CMCT and leads The CMCT India Practice.
Karine is a South Asia expert and advisor to project teams that work with India. She is based in the San Francisco Bay Area

Link: http://www.indiawest.com/blogs/did-art- ... 85d5d.html

On Sept. 23, India’s Mars Orbiter Mission successfully entered orbit around Mars, two days after NASA’s MAVEN reached the Red Planet. India became the first Asian nation to join the global space elite of the U.S., Europe and Russia, and accomplished its Mars mission on the first attempt. Most astonishing of all was the fact that India’s MOM had cost $74 million to NASA’s $671 million for the MAVEN project.

What made this possible? What fundamental strength of the Indian way of getting things done and approach to innovation accounts for this technological feat on a shoestring?

A few months earlier, I had been invited to brief a project team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., working on a joint mission between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization to design and launch a satellite with advanced radar imaging to observe the natural processes of the changing earth. The purpose of the briefing was to create awareness of cultural differences in thinking, communication, ways of working and management style that can affect India-U.S. collaborations.

At JPL, I met Alok Chatterjee, the Indian American Mission interface manager and main architect of this joint project with India. A veteran of both ISRO and NASA/JPL, he had also helped set up JPL support for ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission. We discussed at length the differences in how projects are planned and carried out in India and the U.S., and how to make such project collaborations successful.

The parallel development and launching of the India and U.S. Mars orbiters provided us with a high-profile case in point for a fundamental aspect of the Indian mindset that needs to be understood, appreciated and negotiated on a daily basis by all who work with Indian partners and counterparts. This approach and way of thinking is superbly captured by the colloquial Hindi term ‘jugaad’ – India’s art of ingenious improvisation.

There are myriad examples of ‘jugaad’ in action in India at the level of everyday work style as well as fundamental attitude and belief. What each reveals is that, in the Indian environment, flexibility and “playing it by ear” is not only habitual, and often a matter of necessity, but is considered a strength rather than a weakness. Historically, under feudalism, colonialism and — later on — the “bureaucracy raj” of the first 40 years of independent India, the ability to work around the system, to improvise (and to circumvent the rules!) was often required for any kind of success.

Of course, ‘jugaad’ is a two-edged sword. Social commentators and management theorists in India line up on opposite sides of an ongoing and heated national debate about the pros and cons of the ‘jugaad’ approach. For some, it's "an Indian commodity ripe for export,” while for others it's an attitude that can mean choosing expediency over long-term effectiveness.

It's not surprising, then, to see Indian commentary on the Mars Orbiter Mission phrased in terms of the ongoing national debate about ‘jugaad’. “No Room for Jugaad on Mars” is the title of a Times of India op-ed piece. But for JPL's Alok Chatterjee, “’Jugaad’ is the Indian approach of getting the maximum out of spending the least amount of resources, including time. And while ‘jugaad’ cannot defy the laws of physics in getting a complex space mission like MOM accomplished, it is definitely a time-tested approach that has proved applicable to processes for achieving the mission's accelerated goals.”

India’s “space venture on a shoestring” was thus made possible not only by less expensive engineering talent willing to work around the clock, but also by using ingenious improvisation to cope successfully with resource constraints and exceptionally tight timelines. ISRO built the final model of the orbiter from the start instead of building a series of iterative models, as NASA does. They limited the number of ground tests. They used components and building blocks from earlier and concurrent missions. They also circumvented the lack of a rocket powerful enough to launch the satellite directly out of the earth’s gravitational pull by having the satellite orbit the earth for a month to build up enough speed to break free from the earth’s gravitational pull.

Right now, in the afterglow of India’s space age triumph on a frugal budget, the strengths of the ‘jugaad’ philosophy seem vindicated. But had the Mars Orbiter Mission story ended differently, in failure, as have 30 out of the 51 attempts the world has made to reach Mars, the talk in India today would be far different from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hailing of the mission as “a shining symbol of what we are capable of as a nation.” There would be questioning of whether the national genius for low-cost improvised innovation and ingenious workaround solutions – ‘jugaad’ — is indeed the key to a successful future.
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by Varoon Shekhar »

^
Okay article, but not cheerful or effusive enough. Ends on a wishy washy note, after going on about the advantages of "jugaad" for the whole piece.
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by Amber G. »

Somewhat related - (US NASA Antares rocket exploded just after launch ..
Breaking News: ( WWBT)
About six seconds after lifting off in a rescheduled launch from Wallops Island, an Antares rocket loaded with supplies and experiments for the International Space Station exploded in a fireball.

Click here to WATCH LIVE on your mobile device: shout.lt/JrLt

Monday's launch was canceled with ten minutes left in the countdown due to a boat that had come too close to the launch site.
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by sanjaykumar »

I hope this does not disappoint those perfectionist Pakistanis as does Indian rocketry.
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by SaiK »

^^that jugaad article: nonsense! pls throw such article to dustbins. shame on those who use such terms.

a rich dog's grudge is no answer when it can't enjoy eating from haystack as a care and loving poor cattle can.
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by Amber G. »

^^Yes, that article, to put it mildly, is silly. Apart from irrelevant and useless information (eg MoM arrived 2 days later has little scientific significance/information/insight - ) the article shows little understanding of anything I care, from some self-described "Global Management Consultant types" expert in "South Asian Studies"...

For a successful MOI type event, one needs science, engineering -- not experts on "culture"
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by SSSalvi »

There is no jugaad in MOM story. It is utilization of science within the resources in your hand.
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by SSSalvi »

20014 ...

2014 .. one of the best year in Space studies!!

Rosetta , the ESA spacecraft launched in 2004 to study a comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. It is in its final and most crucial phase to launch a lander Philae which will anchor itself to the comet. In fact even now it is sending high resolution images of the comet from as near as 8 kms ( Yes.. eight kms ).
Read about it : http://sssalvi.blogspot.com/2014/10/201 ... udies.html

Image
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by Amber G. »

SSSalvi wrote:20014 ...

2014 .. one of the best year in Space studies!!

Rosetta , the ESA spacecraft launched in 2004 to study a comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. It is in its final and most crucial phase to launch a lander Philae which will anchor itself to the comet. In fact even now it is sending high resolution images of the comet from as near as 8 kms ( Yes.. eight kms ).
Read about it : http://sssalvi.blogspot.com/2014/10/201 ... udies.html
Thanks. Very nice and informative write-up. Thanks for putting the link here.
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by member_23370 »

OK, where are the pics from MOM?
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by SSSalvi »

^^^

My guess .. ( only guess ) is :

They failed to point correctly the camera to comet SS and hence could not obtain the images .. and by the time it was realized and correct values computed, the comet was beyond a useful resolution distance.

Hence no images.
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by member_28820 »

@SSSalvi
Could it be a scenario where they don't release on public domain ?
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by bharats »

ISRO plans second Mars Mission with rover and lander in 2018
Link: http://zeenews.india.com/news/sci-tech/ ... 91602.html

Bangalore: After the success of the recent Mars Orbit Mission (MOM), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is planning to revisit the Red Planet in 2018 with a heavier satellite which will carry a lander and a rover. The Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO) Satellite Centre Director S Shiva Kumar said the space agency is planning to launch a second Mars mission in 2018, to conduct more experiments for which they have to develop new technologies.

In September 24, the state-run space agency successfully inserted its spacecraft(MOM) in the Martian orbit with five scientific instruments to search for life-sustaining elements on the planet over nine months after it was launched November 5, 2013 from its spaceport at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, about 90 km northeast of Chennai. “We will be able to take the Mars-2 mission after launching the second mission to the moon (Chandrayaan-2) in 2016 with our own lander and rover, which will help us develop a separate lander and rover for the red planet,” Kumar said, ahead of a three-day ‘Engineers Conclave-2014’ by the space agency with the Indian National Academy of Engineering here.

The space agency is looking for a slot in 2018 as the mission to Mars can be launched only after two years. They also hope to have a heavy rocket - fully operational to carry a lander and rover with scientific experiments as additional payloads by then. “We hope to have fully operational heavy rockets over the next two-three years for carrying communication satellites weighting two-three tonnes into the geo-stationary orbits around the earth,” Kumar said.

The space agency has developed the geo-synchronous satellite launch vehicle (GSLV-Mark I-III) with indigenous cryogenic engine to launch satellites weighing more than two tonnes and three tonnes into the geo-orbit at 36,000km above Earth.
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by Amber G. »

SSSalvi wrote:^^^

My guess .. ( only guess ) is :

They failed to point correctly the camera to comet SS and hence could not obtain the images .. and by the time it was realized and correct values computed, the comet was beyond a useful resolution distance.

Hence no images.
Also, for perspective:
- Comet Siding Spring turned out to be smaller (nucleus part) and less brighter (coma). This is not unusual, as comets are unpredictable. (Remember, initially I though that a small telescope (or a good SLR camera) will be enough to see it from earth, but brightness rapidly declined, and one needed better equipment to properly see it from earth). The nucleus turned out to be smaller than one thought before. Just about half a Km.

- The nucleus thus had an angular dimension of about 1/250,000 Radians (about 1000 of the size of the moon - or a cricket ball from 25 Km away.

- Photographing the nucleus (to show any interesting details) thus was not easy. Remember SS was also moving with 50 Km/sec (~200,000 Km/Hr) relatively. (Imagine photographing a fast bowler's cricket ball from 25 Km - how good a photograph would be).

- HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) Camera did take pictures, posted in this dhaga, but even here the nucleus occupied about 3 pixels.

- As far as coma is concerned, looks like there were much less particles evaporating. (I did point out that chances of a particle hitting MoM was rather slim (something like 1 in a million)). I have not seen any dramatic photos of aurora borealis on Mars. Yes coma was much brighter seen from Mars, and would be a dramatic site - much brighter than the brightest stars.

It may take some time to analyze all the data, but I would be still be interested in what MoM's spectrometer found in terms of Methane contents. .. MoM may be lucky.

Just some random thoughts...
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by Amber G. »

NRao, Prasannasimha, Saik etc..
Here is a picture of Siding Spring comet taken with a much smaller telescope (4" or 10 cm)..(The kind I was talking about - or what it would have looked if taken with DSLR given long (5 minutes) exposure)--

Image

Link: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... 9014543294

(Comet is on the same horizontal line a mars, to the right (3/4 way right - middle of photo)
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by member_28108 »

I am not so sure that they 'missed " it as they mentioned in one of the tweets that they did "watch " it.
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by member_28108 »

Amber G. wrote:NRao, Prasannasimha, Saik etc..
Here is a picture of Siding Spring comet taken with a much smaller telescope (4" or 10 cm)..(The kind I was talking about - or what it would have looked if taken with DSLR given long (5 minutes) exposure)--

Image

Link: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... 9014543294

(Comet is on the same horizontal line a mars, to the right (3/4 way right - middle of photo)
Can you circle it on the image . I see one which is robably the comet but not sure.?
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by Amber G. »

^^^ Center of the circle:
Image

(Helpful to look at the references of the background stars in other pictures.. say this one:
SS picture with background stars ..orientation angle is tilted..
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by SSSalvi »

ISRO made the last comment on twitter :
ISRO's Mars Orbiter @MarsOrbiter · Oct 20
Phew! Experience of a lifetime. Watched the #MarsComet #SidingSpring whizzing past the planet. I'm in my orbit, safe and sound.
Later nowhere there is any mention of SS. Had they succeeded there would have been some reference in several press briefings on other subjects.

Under normal circumstances MOM cameras are always pointed in the plane of the orbital ellipse towards Mars which is at the focus of ellipse. SS was almost perpendicular to the orbital ellipse of MOM. At the distance between MOM and SS, the camera had to be pointed within 1/3 rd of Mars dia and out of the plane of orbit .. so designers must have been suddenly put in a totally untried territory of spacecraft attitude so mispointing is possible. ... That is one possibility I had mentioned.

If they DID acquire the SS image then two possibilities exist.. one is what Pavankumar mentioned above .. that they discovered some hitherto unknown fact and they want to ensure that they register Intellectual Property rights first before disclosing it. But nobody stops you from disclosing the fact before a formal IPR is obtained.

Another possibility is based on the fact that the SS will cover only a few pixels in the image and the image has brought out some imperfections in camera optics at pixel level ( e.g. Coma .. the optical aberration .. AmberG has talked above about another Coma .. part of a comet ) which is not noticeable in wider objects.

I mentioned the possibilities ( except IPR ) based on the actual situations faced in Earth imaging.

You can see the dark black areas surrounding the cars on road in the image on right ( from Bhuvan ) below resulting out of the algorithm attempting to mask the effect of Coma. Other image of the same area from Wikimapia.

Image
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by SaiK »

asking a KG question:

when the tail spread from comets, those split hydrogen and oxygen atoms keep pace by trails to form the tail.. now, when they move towards the dark zones away from sun's heat, is it more the gravity or hydrogen bonding forces that pulls them back as one mass? or is it more like it bonds first to become water at Goldilocks zone, and then as it drifts away from Sun, these water balls freezes again to become solid and then gravity kicks in to join the mass travelling in front of the trailing frozen solids?

assuming: water molecules split by sun's uv rays
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by Amber G. »

This story (Isro Says Mangalyaan Mars Orbiter Passes Major Comet Hurdle) does not give any details... there is some really sloppy reporting for example..MoM was re-positioned to "avoid collision :shock:
The comet, known as Siding Spring (C/2013 A1), made its closest encounter with Mars on October 19th midnight for which Isro had repositioned its Mars Orbiter satellite to avoid collision.
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by csaurabh »

Amber G. wrote:This story (Isro Says Mangalyaan Mars Orbiter Passes Major Comet Hurdle) does not give any details... there is some really sloppy reporting for example..MoM was re-positioned to "avoid collision :shock:
The comet, known as Siding Spring (C/2013 A1), made its closest encounter with Mars on October 19th midnight for which Isro had repositioned its Mars Orbiter satellite to avoid collision.
Yes exactly. Isro is fairly poor at communicating.
Either they are afraid they are doing something wrong, or think that the public does not care. both attitudes are bad.

Consider instead how NASA made a video to explain the encounter with the comet

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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by member_28820 »

So it is official now, "We plan to launch a second mission to Mars in 2018, probably with a lander and rover, to conduct more experiments for which we have to develop new technologies," ISRO satellite centre director S Shiva Kumar told reporters in Bangalore.

Source: http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/i ... 11826.html
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by Bade »

So the GSLV-III developmental flights will be used to test SRE experiments and probably the first of Commercial launches will be for the Mars mission.
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by Anant »

Any idea what is going on with MOM? No news on any outlet since October 20th. Seems unusual.
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by sarulan »

Anant wrote:Any idea what is going on with MOM? No news on any outlet since October 20th. Seems unusual.
Second that :cry:
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by SagarAg »

sarulan wrote:
Anant wrote:Any idea what is going on with MOM? No news on any outlet since October 20th. Seems unusual.
Second that :cry:
This is giving me shibers onlee :((
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by SSSalvi »

Quoting from a post comparing the spacecrafts that could have imaged Siding Spring:
Seven Mars spacecraft attempted observations of comet Siding Spring. How did they go?
.... six of the seven Mars spacecraft have now checked in with quick looks at their images of the encounter.

The very best photos of the close approach of the comet to Mars were actually not taken from any of the Mars spacecraft; they were taken by astronomers on Earth, mostly amateurs.

I've heard nothing about ISRO's Mars Orbiter images, but I presume we would have heard something by now if the comet were detectable in them.

The one thing this image does tell you is that Mars Express was successful in targeting the comet; hitting the SRC field of view is no easy task.
Just reproduced parts I liked ..
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Re: Mangalyaan : ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission

Post by HKumar »

^^

wasn't MOM moved away so it be protected behind the red planet when the comet came by?
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