Bharat Rakshak

The science looks good, too. There have been some criticisms of the decision to include a methane detector on the mission. Recent results from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover suggest that methane gas will be hard to find in the Martian atmosphere, and the Indian detector will return a negative result. This expectation is sometimes presented as if there is no point in flying the methane experiment on the Mars Orbiter Mission.

Again, this is silly. Science is not a treasure hunt. It is the quest for truth, even when the truth is not as inspiring as our expectations. The Indian mission will nicely complement the ground data from NASA's rover. Two independent results from different missions in different places will forge a stronger case. There is probably no methane on Mars, and the data from these two missions will settle the question.

In addition, there are four other scientific payloads on the mission, including a colour camera. All of them are worthwhile. The heavy focus on the Martian atmosphere by this mission also offers more bang for the buck.

The fate of the Martian atmosphere, which is believed to have been thicker in the past, is one of the hottest questions in planetary science today. Like NASA's upcoming MAVEN mission, itself largely focused on atmospheric questions, India's orbiter will help to resolve other mysteries besides the hunt for methane.

rahulm wrote:Mythbusting India's Mars Mission

It is also one of a small number of nations to have successfully recovered a satellite from space. Indian satellites are used in communications, weather observation and land management. This vast nation would be much worse off without the benefits of its space program.

vinod wrote:Please pardon my ignorance:

Can some gurus explain why there is a lot of smoke when the rocket is lifting off? I was thinking by now we would have engines which burn cleanly. Is it because they use solid fuels and not liquid fuel? Compare the smoke trail to this chinese launch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aXRYZpFKfw

wilson_th wrote:

rahulm wrote:Mythbusting India's Mars Mission

It is also one of a small number of nations to have successfully recovered a satellite from space. Indian satellites are used in communications, weather observation and land management. This vast nation would be much worse off without the benefits of its space program.

When did we recover a satellite from space?

“The overall health of the spacecraft is normal. Systems on the orbiter such as gyros, accelerometer and star-sensors have been calibrated. In the spacecraft, everything is working normally,” Dr. Annadurai said. ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan told a press conference at Sriharikota on October 30 that after the Mars orbiter’s apogee is raised first on November 7 to 28,793 km, the second firing of the engine will take place on November 8 early morning. This second firing will take the orbiter’s apogee to about 40,000 km from the earth. The third orbit-raising operation will take place on November 9 when the apogee will be boosted to about 70,656 km. The fourth orbit-raising operation will take place on November 11 when the apogee will reach about one lakh km. The fifth manoeuvre will be done on November 16 when the apogee will reach 1.99 lakh km from the earth.

Dr. Radhakrishnan added: “We will then a have a crucial event — the trans-Martian injection [of the orbiter] from the earth-orbit towards Mars, which will take place at 0042 hours on December 1. This is the immediate action programme for the Mars orbiter. We have a long voyage of 300 days.

On September 24, 2014, we are planning to have the Mars orbit insertion of the spacecraft. Once it is successfully done, we will go for the experiments.”

The orbiter has five scientific instruments for analysing the Mars’ surface features, to find out whether it has methane and to study its mineralogy and the atmosphere.

ramana wrote:yes vinod, when solid propellants burn a lot of smoke is generated. Need all those metal particles to add mass to the exhaust gases. The ISRO launchers have solid boosters and main stage made with solid propellants. Its soon to change once the semi-cryogenic stage SC 200 comes into play.

Rahul M wrote:@LM

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24851242
India Mars probe makes first engine burn

Gagan wrote:Congratulations ISRO !

These are the Mars Orbiter Mission Groundstations:

SaiK wrote:^let us pray those flares bypass our mom. we can do a surya pooja to ward it off!

read this:
http://www.firstpost.com/india/ignore-t ... 13461.html

NRao wrote:ISRO is also *managed* very well. Something that was recognized as far back as the 70-80s.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/saritharai/ ... ate-costs/
5 points by forbes:

1. “I don’t like the phrase ‘frugal engineering’. ISRO’s general philosophy is cost effectiveness. The Russians look for robustness and the Americans go after optimization. Our aim at ISRO was how do we get the Mars mission done on a budget.”

2. “We adopted a modular approach. Take the launch vehicle, for instance. We acquired the technology for the Vikas engine in the 1970s by working with the French. There was no money transaction. We have since produced 120 such engines with Indian materials and fully fabricated here. For every successive launch, we have taken the base of our previous, proven launch technology, modified and built on it. Here, we had to add the cryo to the previous module as we needed higher power. We used the same modular tactic with our payload. Our approach gave us cost and schedule advantages.”

3. “When we conducted ground tests – which are time consuming and expensive – we kept the number of tests small but wrung out the best out of each. This is our way, historically.”

4. “For transferring Mangalyaan from the earth’s orbit to Mars’ orbit, we used a couple of strategies to bring down fuel consumption drastically.”

5. “We are schedule-driven to the extreme. That prevents cost over-runs. This mission has taken 15 months from the time our Prime minister announced it in August last year it to the liftoff. In parts of Europe, even space scientists have 35-hour work weeks. Here, 18-hour days are common. During the launch period, many of our scientists were working for 20 hour-days. Being time effective makes us cost effective.”

Sridhar wrote:
The best reference for reading about ISRO's evolution, and also specifically about why it chose the technologies it chose is N Gopal Raj's book titled "Reach for the Stars". It was written in 2003 and hence does not cover more recent developments, but it is an excellent reference nevertheless.

The short answer is that ISRO chose a low-risk, high return strategy, progressively building on its solid capabilities developed since the early sounding rocket days, and crucially for the SLV-3. ...

My dear friends please wait unitl 2030 the scenario will change. The developed countries too more than hundred years to become “Developed” If you go back to the ancient history India was the most developed country then.. ) So please give us some more time folks. George Washington became the first President of US in 1789. India got independence only in 1947. US is 158 years ahead of India.. India will take another 15-20 years to reach that level..

That is what they said when India sent satellite in the 1970… But today more than a 100000 where saved in one of the states from a cyclone stronger than Sandy… Just imagine the loss if the warning was not available. We can say that the amount spent on this was earned by saving those people thereby. saving some financial loss. ISRO earned the amount and has the right to do more research and use it as it likes to use. Imagine 100 years down the line if minerals have to be bought back from Mars. Indian rockets can do it in at the cost that you make a movie..

The Hollywood film Gravity took 100 million dollars to make.
India’s mission to mars took 75 million dollars to fund.

… it costs more to make movies about space, than to actually go to mars. Good job India!
the one

“As poor as India is, New Delhi managed to carry out its Mars exploration programme with a budget of only $73 million, much less than the spending of China and Japan,” the newspaper said.

“Nonetheless,” it added, “it is not immune from critics at home and abroad, who wonder whether it’s worthy for a country where more than 350 million people live on less than $1.25 a day and one third of the population are plagued by power shortages to spend millions of dollars travelling hundreds of millions of kilometres for a few Mars pictures.”

08-11-2013
The second orbit raising manueour of Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, starting at 02:18:51 hrs(IST) on Nov 08, 2013, with a burn time of 570.6 seconds has been successfully completed.The observed change in Apogee is from 28814 km to 40186 km.

wilson_th wrote:

rahulm wrote:Mythbusting India's Mars Mission

It is also one of a small number of nations to have successfully recovered a satellite from space. Indian satellites are used in communications, weather observation and land management. This vast nation would be much worse off without the benefits of its space program.

When did we recover a satellite from space?

saravana wrote:

08-11-2013
The second orbit raising manueour of Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, starting at 02:18:51 hrs(IST) on Nov 08, 2013, with a burn time of 570.6 seconds has been successfully completed.The observed change in Apogee is from 28814 km to 40186 km.

putnanja wrote:The schedule of orbit raising manoeuvres. The one on Nov 7th has been done successfully. The others will be done in the coming days.

ISRO rehearses orbit-raising manoeuvres for Mars orbiter

“The overall health of the spacecraft is normal. Systems on the orbiter such as gyros, accelerometer and star-sensors have been calibrated. In the spacecraft, everything is working normally,” Dr. Annadurai said. ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan told a press conference at Sriharikota on October 30 that after the Mars orbiter’s apogee is raised first on November 7 to 28,793 km, the second firing of the engine will take place on November 8 early morning. This second firing will take the orbiter’s apogee to about 40,000 km from the earth. The third orbit-raising operation will take place on November 9 when the apogee will be boosted to about 70,656 km. The fourth orbit-raising operation will take place on November 11 when the apogee will reach about one lakh km. The fifth manoeuvre will be done on November 16 when the apogee will reach 1.99 lakh km from the earth.

Dr. Radhakrishnan added: “We will then a have a crucial event — the trans-Martian injection [of the orbiter] from the earth-orbit towards Mars, which will take place at 0042 hours on December 1. This is the immediate action programme for the Mars orbiter. We have a long voyage of 300 days.

vnmshyam wrote: What was the expected apogee?