Source- dnaindia.com
On September 27, 2022, the Indian Space and Research Organization (ISRO) organized a day National meeting to commemorate the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) on the event of completion of its eight years in the Martian orbit, which is a great achievement in itself since the mission was predicted to last only for 6 months.
The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) has, reportedly, run out of fuel, making it difficult to be revived in the Red Planets orbit. This mission was sent to Mars in 2013 to study the Martian atmosphere and its elements.
What Was Mangalyaan Mission?
Mangalyaan (derived from the Sanskrit language means mars vehicle in English) mission also popularly known as Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), was a space probe which orbited Mars the fourth nearest planet to the sun from 24 September 2014 till early October 2022, for eight long years.
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launched this mission on 5 November 2013 it was India's first interplanetary mission and made ISRO the fourth space agency to achieve Mars orbit, after Roscosmos, NASA, and the European Space Agency. It made India the first Asian nation to reach the Martian orbit and the first nation in the world to do so in its maiden attempt.
The objective of this mission was aimed at study the Martian atmosphere. Its primary aim was to explore Martian surface features, mineralogy, morphology and atmosphere using indigenous specifically designed scientific instruments. A crucial goal of MOM was to develop technologies required for planning, designing, management and operations of an interplanetary mission. It is interesting to note that ISRO only spent $75 million to launch this interplanetary mission, which made it the least-expensive Mars mission in the history of interplanetary missions.
Historic Launch of MOM
The Mars Orbiter Mission probe was launched from the First Launch Pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Andhra Pradesh, using a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket C25 at 09:08 UTC on 5 November 2013. The launch window was approximately 20 days long and commenced on 28 October 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 30 November 2013 (UTC). After a 298-day transit to Mars, it stepped onto Mars orbit on 24 September 2014.
The mission was a technology-driven project to develop the technologies for designing, planning, managing, and operations of an interplanetary mission. It carried five different scientific instruments for its findings and observations. The spacecraft was monitored from the Spacecraft Control Centre at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru with support from the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antennae at Bengaluru, Karnataka.
Receiving Worldwide Recognition
In 2014, soon after the mission reached Mars, our neighbour China referred to India's successful Mars Orbiter Mission as the "Pride of Asia", which was a proud accomplishment for all the scientific minds of India.
The Mars Orbiter Mission team won the US-based National Space Society's 2015 Space Pioneer Award in the science and engineering category. NSS said the award was bestowed because the Indian agency had successfully executed a Mars mission in its first attempt, and the spacecraft was in an elliptical orbit with a high apoapsis with its high-resolution camera and took full-disk colour imagery of Mars. Very few full-disk images have ever been taken in history and these images will be extremely helpful to all planetary scientists across the globe.
Very few vigilant citizens of India are aware of the fact that the illustration of Mangalyaan is displayed on the reverse side of the Mahatma Gandhi New Series ₹2000 banknote, which is in circulation since 2016 post demonetization.
Mission Successful
The MOM mission, which cost India only $74 million, was designed for only six months but lasted a good eight years. This led prime minister Narendra Modi to famously remark that the mission was much cheaper than the $100 million production budget of the Hollywood movie Gravity.
The instruments onboard the probe included a colour camera, a thermal infrared sensor, an ultraviolet spectrometer to study deuterium and hydrogen in the red planet’s upper atmosphere, a mass spectrometer to study neutral particles in its exosphere and a methane sensor.
The probe sent some of the most stunning images of the Martian surface and other valuable data that was also shared with the US space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under an agreement.
Conclusion
This maiden effort made by India in 2013 made groundbreaking records and a Bollywood movie titled ‘Mission Mangal’ was loosely based on the Mangalyaan mission which launched about eight years ago. India takes immense pride in successfully launching its first interplanetary mission into space.
Written by Chitra Gangwani
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