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MANGALYAAN |
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Date-wise Events |
- November 23, 2008: On this day, the
first public acknowledgement of an unmanned mission to Mars
was announced by then-ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair.
- 2010: The MOM mission concept began
with a feasibility study in 2010 by the Indian Institute of
Space Science and Technology after the launch of lunar
satellite Chandrayaan-1 in 2008.
- August 03, 2012: The government of
India approved the MOM project on this day.
- October 28, 2013: It was oriinally
planned to launch MOM on this day but was postponed to 5
November 2013 due to poor weather in the Pacific Ocean.
- November 05, 2013:
It was launched on this day by the Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO). It is India's first interplanetary
mission and ISRO has become the fourth space agency in the
world to reach Mars, after the Soviet space program, NASA,
and the European Space Agency.
- November 30, 2013: The MOM probe
spent about a month in Earth orbit, where it made a series
of seven apogee-raising orbital manoeuvres before trans-Mars
injection on this day.
- December 11, 2013: While in
heliocentric phase on way to Mars, the first trajectory
correction was done on this day.
- June 11, 2014: While in heliocentric
phase on way to Mars, the second trajectory correction was
done on this day.
- September 22, 2014: While in
heliocentric phase on way to Mars, the third trajectory
correction was done on this day.
- September 24, 2014: Mangalyaan
started orbiting panet Mars since this date,
after a 298-day transit to this planet.
It is the first Asian Nation to reach Mars
orbit, and the first nation in the world to do so in its
first attempt.
- September 28, 2014: MOM controllers
published the spacecraft's first global view of Mars. The
image was captured by the Mars Colour Camera (MCC).
- September 30, 2014: During a
meeting on this day, NASA and ISRO officials signed an
agreement to establish a pathway for future joint missions
to explore Mars.
- October 07, 2014: ISRO altered MOM's
orbit so as to move it behind Mars for Comet Siding Spring's
flyby of the planet on 19 October 2014.
- March 04, 2015: ISRO reported that
MOM's methane sensors were functioning normally and are
studying Mars' albedo, the reflectivity of the planet's
surface. The Mars Colour Camera was also returning new
images of the Martian surface.
- March 24, 2015: MOM completed its
initial six-month mission in orbit around Mars. ISRO
extended the mission by an additional six months as the
spacecraft had enough of propellant remaining and all five
of its scientific instruments were working properly. It was
also said that the orbiter could probably continue orbiting
Mars for several years with its remaining propellant.
- June 06, 2015:
A 17-day communications blackout started on this day while
Mars' orbit took it behind the Sun from Earth's view. It
lasted till June 22, 2015.
- June 22, 2015:
A 17-day communications blackout started on June 06, 2015
while Mars' orbit took it behind the Sun from Earth's view.
It lasted till this day.
- September 24, 2015: ISRO released its
"Mars Atlas", a 120-page scientific atlas
containing images and data from the Mars Orbiter Mission's
first year in orbit.
- March 2016: The first science results
of the mission were published in Geophysical Research
Letters, presenting measurements obtained by the
spacecraft's MENCA instrument of the Martian exosphere.
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Description |
- The Mangalyaan mission of India is also called The
Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM)
- It was launched on November 05, 2013 and Mangalyaan
entered the orbit of Mars on September 24, 2014.
- The mission is a "technology demonstrator" project to
develop the technologies for design, planning, management,
and operations of an interplanetary mission.
- It carries five instruments that will help advance knowledge
about Mars to achieve its secondary, scientific objective.
- The spacecraft is currently being monitored from the
Spacecraft Control Centre at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and
Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bangalore with support from
Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antennae at Byalalu.
- The total cost of the mission was approximately ₹450 Crore
(US$73 million), making it the least-expensive Mars mission
to date.
- The low cost of the mission was ascribed by K.
Radhakrishnan, the chairman of ISRO, to various factors,
including a "modular approach", few ground tests and long
(18-20 hour) working days for scientists.
- BBC's Jonathan Amos mentioned lower worker costs, home-grown
technologies, simpler design, and significantly less
complicated payload than NASA's MAVEN.
- An opinion piece in The Hindu pointed out that the cost was
equivalent to less than a single bus ride for each of
India's population of 1.2 billion.
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