[meteorite-list] Indian Spacecraft Soars on Historic Journey To Mars (MOM)

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/pslv/c25/131105launch/

Indian spacecraft soars on historic journey to Mars
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
November 5, 2013

India's workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle blasted off Tuesday with 
the country's first Mars mission, a low-budget project marking India's 
foray into an elite club of space powers.

The 146-foot-tall rocket, specifically tailored for the Mars mission, 
launched at 0908 GMT (4:08 a.m. EST) Tuesday from the Satish Dhawan Space 
Center, India's spaceport on Sriharikota Island about 50 miles north of 
Chennai.

The launch took place at 2:38 p.m. local time, and the PSLV's six-strap 
on boosters and core solid-fueled motor combined to produce more than 
2 million pounds of thrust to push the rocket through low-level clouds 
on an easterly course over the Bay of Bengal.

A live broadcast of the launch beamed around the world showed spectators 
in the control center applauding as the rocket hit its marks during a 
44-minute mission ending with the deployment of the 2,950-pound Mars-bound 
probe at 0952 GMT (4:52 a.m. EST).

The launch marked the 25th PSLV mission since 1993 and its 21st consecutive 
success.

"I'm extremely happy to announce that the PSLV-C25 vehicle has placed 
the Mars orbiter spacecraft very precisely into an elliptical orbit around 
Earth," said K. Radhakrishnan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization. 
"This is the 25th flight of our PSLV, and it has been a new and complex 
mission design to ensure that we would be able to move the Mars orbiter 
spacecraft from the orbit of Earth to the orbit of Mars with minimum energy."

The PSLV placed the Mars probe in an orbit with a low point of 153 miles 
and a high point of 14,643 miles, very close to the rocket's target parameters, 
according to Kunhi Krishnan, the PSLV's mission director.

"PSLV has once again proven its mettle that it can perform any kind of 
mission," said S. Ramakrishnan, director of India's Vikram Sarabhai Space 
Center, a rocket development facility. "This was only the first step for 
this Mars mission ... [but] crossing this major first milestone is very 
important to us."

Indian officials confirmed the spacecraft deployed its solar panels to 
generate power following launch.

The flawless launch did not put the Mars probe on a direct course to the 
red planet. Six firings of the probe's on-board propulsion system, derived 
from a thruster demonstrated on India's communications satellites, will 
raise the spacecraft's orbit over the next few weeks and send it on a 
trajectory to escape the grasp of Earth's gravity. Radhakrishnan said 
the final Earth departure maneuver is scheduled for Dec. 1.

"Then in September 2014, we expect this spacecraft to be around Mars, 
and the challenge then is to precisely reduce the velocity and get into 
orbit. Once that is achieved, we have five beautiful scientific instruments, 
and we expect to provide scientific knowledge to the Indian scientific 
community and to humanity."

Developed in less than two years for $73 million, the Mars Orbiter Mission 
aims to make ISRO the fourth space agency to put a probe into orbit around 
Mars, following in the footsteps of the United States, Russia and the 
European Space Agency.

"I want to salute the entire ISRO community who made this possible in 
a very limited time," Radhakrishnan said in post-launch remarks at the 
PSLV control center in Sriharikota.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh issued his congratulations on the 
launch.

"I congratulate all scientists of the Indian Space Research Organization 
for the successful launch today of the Mars Orbiter Mission, the most 
complex space mission of the country," Singh said in a statement. "The 
successful launch is the first step towards a successful mission and is 
testimony to ISRO's mastery of the launch vehicle technology.

"I wish the ISRO scientists all the best for the delicate next steps in 
this ambitious and long mission to Mars which will be the most significant 
milestone in our space program and I remain confident that they will do 
the country proud," Singh said.

The probe's arrival at Mars is fixed on Sept. 24, 2014, when the spacecraft's 
main engine will ignite to guide itself into a unique high-altitude orbit 
around the red planet.

Operating from a perch taking the spacecraft from just above the Martian 
atmosphere to a peak altitude of nearly 50,000 miles, the Mars probe will 
survey the planet with five science instruments, gathering data on the 
history of the Martian climate and the mineral make-up of its surface.

The mission carries a color imaging camera to return medium-resolution 
pictures of the Martian surface, a thermal infrared spectrometer to measure 
the chemical composition of the surface, and instruments to assess the 
Mars atmosphere, including a methane detector.

Scientific assessments of methane in the Martian atmosphere have returned 
mixed results.

Methane is a potential indicator of current microbial life on Mars, but 
some types of geologic activity can also produce trace levels of the gas.

Following up on detections from ground-based telescopes and Europe's Mars 
Express orbiter, NASA's Curiosity rover measured no methane in the Martian 
atmosphere when it sucked air into its internal instrument suite on several 
occasions since landing in August 2012.

"One of the important objectives of the scientific part of this mission 
is to see the presence of methane or otherwise," Radhakrishnan told India's 
NDTV television network before launch. "We have an instrument for that 
purpose. We also want to see, if methane is present, is it because of 
geological activity or biological activity?"

But the mission's primary objective is not scientific; it is technological.

"First and foremost, India should be able to orbit a spacecraft around 
Mars," Radhakrishnan told NDTV before launch. "We are moving from Earth's 
orbit to the orbit of Mars through a long cruise phase around the sun. 
It's almost 400 million kilometers (248 million miles) away, and the spacecraft 
has to travel nearly 780 million kilometers (484 million miles)."

Indian engineers added autonomous capabilities to the spacecraft to account 
for the communications lag between Earth and Mars, which will be as much 
as 21 minutes during the mission. The probe is designed to detect faults 
and put itself into safe mode if something goes wrong, a feature officials 
say will ensure the spacecraft is in a stable configuration while ground 
controllers resolve problems.

In an effort to reduce the risk of a long-distance mission to Mars, engineers 
authored new software code and added redundant components to the probe's 
propulsion system to ensure it would survive the 10-month cruise and still 
function for the make-or-break orbit insertion burn.

NASA is helping India with navigation and communications support from 
experts at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which oversees all of the U.S. 
missions currently at Mars.

NASA's Deep Space Network antennas will track the Indian probe throughout 
the mission, helping Indian engineers and scientists collect telemetry 
on the spacecraft's health and reap the benefits of its scientific data.

India's Mars mission launch comes less than two weeks before NASA's next 
Mars orbiter is set to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, mission is scheduled 
for launch Nov. 18 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. MAVEN 
will arrive at Mars two days before India's orbiter to survey the red 
planet's atmosphere for at least one year.

Bruce Jakosky, the University of Colorado scientist in charge of MAVEN's 
research mission, said U.S. and Indian officials have held preliminary 
discussions to collaborate on some overlapping objectives once the spacecraft 
arrive at Mars.