India's Triumphant Odyssey to the Red Planet !!!

Over Millennia, human beings are fascinated and inspired by what happens across the universe. We wonder at the infinite glory and beauty of the cosmic panorama. Through technological developments, we began to comprehend the complexity and challenges of probing a little beyond our own planet. The initial discoveries, which are the result of the new technological endeavors, point to the vast potential that exists for boundless knowledge and immense resource around our own solar system and beyond. In the quest for planetary exploration, Mars hold a very special position in view of the many similarities it has with Earth and because, it holds the secret of our past and the possibilities of our future.

One of the biggest accomplishment in Indian History is Mangalyaan (Mars Orbiter Mission – Mars). Indian Space Research Organization successfully launched a space probe that orbits Mars. The Mission was launched on November 5, 2013 for a 300 days journey to Mars. The fact in this mission is that India is the first in the world (Fourth after Soviet Space Program, NASA and The European Space Agency) to successfully launch the mission in the first attempt. An unbelievable fact about the mission is that it took only Rs. 454 crores to launch the mission. This is the cheapest Mars Mission ever (Rs. 12 per km).

The main objective or goal of Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) is the demonstration of India’s capability to build a spacecraft capable of travelling to mars and survive in an orbit around the red planet to gather useful scientific data. The Scientific Data collected, is about the surface of Mars, its very thin atmosphere as well as the space near mars.

India’s first Robotic Messenger to Mars:

Following the Prime Minister’s announcement on August 15, 2012 about India’s intention to send a robotic spacecraft to Mars, Indian Space Scientists began working with new vigour. They had to build a spacecraft capable of traveling to Mars in about a year or so.

But hundreds of ISRO scientists overcame this challenge by sheer dedication and focused their skills towards building a reliable Mars Exploration spacecraft. Many Centers of ISRO scattered in different parts of India came together and contributed their might. The spacecraft started taking shape at ISRO Satellite Center in Bangalore.

First, the ‘skeleton’ of India’s Mars Orbiter spacecraft was made ready. Then, it was taken to a huge ‘clean room’ and other parts of the spacecraft were brought there and assembled to the spacecraft in carefully planned steps.

A robotic spacecraft like Mars Orbiter Spacecraft functions like a human body in certain aspects. It needs a comfortable temperature range and energy (in this case its electrical energy) to function properly. Such a spacecraft needs an electronic brain and sensing devices for coordination and stability. It faithfully reports its findings as well as information about its health to Earth through radio.

To change its path or reorient itself, the robotic spacecraft needs rocket power. And to perform its assigned task, it carries scientific instruments or ‘payloads’ (carrying capacity of launch vehicle), like a doctor carries a stethoscope and a thermometer.

The structure ‘subsystem’ of the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft resembles the skeletal system of the human body. It was built using various alloys and a special plastic material called ‘Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic’ or CPRF for short. CPRFs have high strength and are relatively lighter compared to metals.

The 7 ft dish shaped antenna of the spacecraft essentially acts as its sensitive ear and mouth. It can transmit information about the health of the spacecraft as well as the gathered scientific information and receive the radio commands sent from the earth. The antenna also sends information that helps scientists to accurately find out the position and movement of the spacecraft in during its Mars Odyssey.

To enable the spacecraft to work in a safe temperature range, many coverings, special mirrors, paints, tapes and heaters were used. Of these, the one which is glaringly visible is the golden coloured ‘Thermal Blanket’ which resembles a Diary Milk chocolate wrapping!

Three solar panels of the spacecraft generate the electric power by converting sunlight to electricity. And, the large dish antenna of the spacecraft essentially helps it to communicate with the earth. Folded to the sides of the spacecraft during its journey in PSLV, these are deployed (made to spread out) in space.

Like any electrical device, say, a mobile phone, Mars Orbiter Spacecraft needs electrical power to work. Its three solar panels generate about 800 Watts of life giving electrical power near Mars (They generated more power near the Earth, Which is much nearer to the sun!). A rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery supplies power to the spacecraft when sunlight is not falling on the solar panels.

We humans stand upright and walk on two legs. This orientation is properly maintained by a mechanism in the inner ear of the human body. Similarly, to perform its assigned task properly, the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft needs to orient its various faces towards Earth, Mars and Sun. Electronic devices called Sun Sensors and Star Sensors as well as gyroscopes provide the necessary reference information for this important task.

Using this information, the electronic brain of the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft does the necessary but highly complex calculations to perform the job of properly orienting the spacecraft. Besides, the brain instructs the four rapidly spinning wheels (Reaction Wheels) in the spacecraft or the spacecraft’s small rocket engines called ‘Thrusters’ to perform the task.

One important feature of Mars Orbiter Spacecraft is its ability to take certain decisions on its own to maintain its working status. This is needed because of the difficulty of the scientists on the ground to immediately identify a problem on the spacecraft and to take suitable action very quickly. This is what they normally do in the case of artificial satellites.

But the enormous distance that separates Mars orbiter Spacecraft and Earth results in considerable delay in the reception of the information sent by the spacecraft through radio. Same thing happens to the radio instructions sent by scientists to the spacecraft. This is the reason why ISRO scientists have put certain ‘Artificial Intelligence’ features into the electronic brain of the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft. This makes the spacecraft quite autonomous.

With this feature, the spacecraft is able to identify some of its ‘health problems’ and can take corrective actions on its own immediately.

PSLV-C25 rocket that launched Mars Orbiter Spacecraft carried it into a large egg shaped orbit around the Earth. From there, the job of taking the spacecraft to distant Mars and to make it to circle the red planet was assigned to the spacecraft’s main rocket engine known as LAM.

The liquid propellants (Fuel-Oxidiser combination) needed for LAM as well as its eight thrusters were stored in the spacecraft. It was mainly LAM, supported by the eight ‘Thrusters’, that was responsible for the successful entry of the spacecraft into an orbit around Mars on September 24, 2014.

At the time of its launch, Mars orbiter Spacecraft weighed 1,337 kg. Of the total weight, 850 kg was of propellants. The rocket propellants stored inside the spacecraft are Mono Methyl Hydrazine or MMH and mixed oxides of Nitrogen or MON-3.

In this way, Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, which is a confluence of various subsystems (Like nervous system, digestive system or circulatory system) functions as a ‘system’(Human body in many respects).

Scientific Instruments of India’s Mars Spacecraft:

Scientists refer to the scientific instruments carried by robotic spacecraft as ‘Payloads’. There are five payloads in Mars orbiter Spacecraft. Together they weigh only 15kg! Of the five, two are intended for the study of Mars, while the other three are concerned with the study of the atmosphere of Mars and the space near the planet.

The first payload of Mars Orbiter Spacecraft is ‘Mars Colour Camera’. As the name indicates, this camera was built to take the pictures of the Martian surface. By looking at those pictures, scientists can study various events taking place on the surface of Mars. They can also study surface features of Mars and try to understand the way in which they were sculpted by nature.

With the tongue twisting name ‘Thermal Infrared Imaging spectrometer’, fortunately shortened as ‘TIS’, the second payload of Mars Orbiter Spacecraft help us study and understand the minerals on the surface of Mars. It is interesting to note that scientists recognize the existence of various minerals by studying the way they reflect or emit infrared rays.

The third payload on India’s first Mars spacecraft is called ‘Methane Sensor for Mars’. This highly sensitive instrument is built to sense the extremely minute quantities of Methane gas possibly present in the thin atmosphere of Mars. At the same time, this scientific instrument may help us identify the source of the methane. This is very important because Methane can be generated through geological as well as biological processes.

One of the questions haunting scientists today is about the loss of water from Mars. Lyman Alpha Photometer or LAP for short, the fourth payload of Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, may help scientists to understand the way water was lost from the Martian atmosphere in the past.

The fifth scientific instrument of Mars Orbiter spacecraft is yet another payload with a tongue twisting name ‘Mars Exospheric Neural Composition Analyser’. Its name is also shortened as ‘MENCA’. This instrument will study neural atoms in the outer atmosphere of Mars. It is expected that MENCA may help us understand as to how most of the once thick atmosphere of Mars escaped gradually.

PSLV: The muscle power to lift Mars Orbiter Spacecraft from Mother Earth

To leave the mother Earth is not easy. For that, the spacecraft has to oppose the tremendous gravity of the Earth that continuously attracts objects toward its centre. Besides, the spacecraft has to pass through Earth’s thick atmosphere which also opposes the movement of the vehicle through it.

Rockets are the only known vehicles capable of opposing the mighty gravitational force of the Earth and travel in the vacuum of space. Thus, they are utilized for launching satellites as well as manned and unmanned spacecraft to Earth orbit and beyond.

The giant rocket, to be more precise, the ‘Launch Vehicle’ that lifted Mars Orbiter Spacecraft from the surface of the Earth and put into a ‘Parking Orbit’ around the earth was Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle or PSLV. Before launching Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, this ‘trusted work horse’ of ISRO has scored 23 successes continuously.

As the 15 storey high PSLV stood majestically on the first launch pad at Sriharikota Island, it looked like a giant pencil from a distance. Placed on top of one another were the four stages of PSLV. The 1,337 kg Mars Orbiter Spacecraft was placed over the fourth stage of PSLV and was covered by the heat shield of the rocket. This would protect the spacecraft as PSLV Sliced through the Earth’s atmosphere at tremendous speed.

On November 05, 2013 at 2:38 pm in the afternoon, the twenty fifth flight of PSLV (named as PSLV-C25) began. As the first stage of the rocket roared into life, it magnificently soared into the sky. In the next 9 minutes that followed, the first three stages of PSLV as well as its six smaller rockets called ‘strap-ons’, worked perfectly and separated from the rest of the rocket at the assigned time. In between, once the PSLV cleared thick atmosphere, the heat shield was also discarded and Mars Orbiter Spacecraft was exposed to space.

Then, for nearly 24 minutes, PSLV continues its journey without any power. Later, the two engines of the PSLV fourth stage started firing right on time. Ultimately, about 44 minutes after lift-off, PSLV provided the necessary speed (to be more precise, velocity) to Mars Orbiter Spacecraft to go round the Earth in a ‘Parking Orbit’ and separated. This speed was about 35,000 kilometers per hour!

In this highly oval shaped orbit, the spacecraft was at a distance of only 248 km from the Earth’s surface at its nearest point, but 23, 553 km at its farthest point. And, it took some six hours to circle the Earth once.

Two Indian ships stationed on the vast Pacific Ocean – Yamuna and Nalanda – equipped with dish shaped radio antennas, monitored the performance of the PSLV fourth stage as well as the Successful entry of the spacecraft into its ‘Earth Parking Orbit’.

Spacecraft’s Odyssey from Earth to Mars:

Following the successful completion of the first phase of its long journey to Mars, the mars Orbiter Spacecraft was ready for the next step. That was known as ‘Orbit Raising’.

During that phase, the main liquid rocket engine (LAM) of the spacecraft was fired six times. This was done during November 7th to 16th of 2013, when the spacecraft was at its nearest point to earth. Each time when LAM was fired, the farthest point of the orbit climbed higher and higher, finally reaching almost 193,000 km!

And now, the time was ripe for yet another important step. In the early morning hours of December 01, 2013, the spacecraft faithfully followed the radio instructions earlier sent by ISRO scientists from its control centre in Bangalore. Like an obedient servant, the LAM engine came to life right on time, fired precisely for the duration they wanted and stopped at the required moment!

With this precise rocket firing, Mars Orbiter Spacecraft acquired sufficient energy to escape from circling the Earth and followed a path (Mars Transfer Trajectory) that would take it near Mars on September 24, 2014.

A few days after its escape from the Earth orbit, as it crossed a distance of about a million kilometres from the Earth, the spacecraft left Earth’s sphere of influence. In the following 300 days or so, it would have to travel a distance of about 667 million kilometres (nearly 67 crore kilometres) to reach Mars.

As it sped towards its target point in deep space, scientists who built the spacecraft thoroughly tested it. Besides, its scientific instruments (remember, they are referred to as ‘payloads’ by scientists) were also checked out thoroughly. On April 09, 2014, Mars Orbiter Spacecraft successfully crossed half way mark in its journey to Mars.

By September 15, 2014, India’s Mars Orbiter Spacecraft had covered about 653 million kilometres (65.3 crore kilometres) from Earth in its curved path around the sun. This was 98% of its total travel distance to Mars. On that day, a radio message from Earth to spacecraft took about 12 minutes to reach it and again the same time to reach the Earth back!

So, after saying ‘hello’ to the spacecraft through radio, one had to wait for about 24 minutes to receive the acknowledgement of that ‘hello’ from the spacecraft on that day!

On the early morning of September 24, 2014, the spacecraft was made to slowly turn and orient its LAM in the required direction. This was to ensure that the firing of LAM would put a break to the speed of the spacecraft.

Then at 7:17 AM IST on that day, as the spacecraft passed close to Mars, its main rocket engine (LAM) fired once again, right on time! Along with it eight ‘Thrusters’ of the spacecraft also fired.

This LAM firing which lasted for about 24 minutes, slowed down the spacecraft sufficiently and allowed the weak gravity of Mars (compared to Earth) to capture the spacecraft in a highly oval shaped orbit around the planet.

Thus India achieved a roaring success in its very first attempt to put a spacecraft into an orbit around Mars.

Ground Facilities The vital link between the Spacecraft and Earth

Building a spacecraft capable of travelling to planet Mars and explore the red planet while circling it, is undoubtedly a complex task indeed. Besides, perfecting a giant rocket capable of very accurately launching that spacecraft into Earth orbit as a first step in sending the spacecraft towards Mars, is yet another herculean task. Though these tasks are necessary, they are not sufficient to realise the goal of successfully exploring Mars with that spacecraft.

For that, establishing well-equipped ground facilities becomes very much essential. Those facilities should be capable of communicating with the spacecraft, controlling it as well as receiving and storing the precious information sent by the spacecraft from the depths of space. ISRO has well established ground facilities capable of performing these tasks.

Remember, even at its nearest, Mars is about 150 times as far from the Earth as the Moon is! This complicates the task of building radio communication equipment that can help us to be in touch with the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft during its journey to Mars as well as the time during which it circles Mars.

Because of the enormous distance involved, even radio waves (to be more precise, in this case microwaves) travelling at the speed of light (300,000 Kilometers per second!) take tens of minutes to travel from Earth to a spacecraft orbiting Mars. Because of this reason, sometimes ISRO scientists have to wait up to 42 minutes after sending a radio instruction to the Mars orbiter Spacecraft to know the result of their action!

For communicating with the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, ISRO Scientists have been mainly using a giant dish shaped radio antenna which is 32 metre (105 feet) wide. This was conceived and built by Indian Engineers.

Equipped with special mirror like devices, this ground antenna acts as the ‘sensitive ear’ to listen to the faint radio signals ‘whispered’ by Mars Orbiter Spacecraft. Those unbelievably faint radio signals carry information about the health of the spacecraft as well as the precious information gathered by the spacecraft’s scientific instruments.

Besides, this antenna behaves like a ‘loud mouth’ to transmit radio instructions to the spacecraft. This huge antenna is situated in a place called Byalalu, about 35 km from Bangalore. Another nearby antenna which is 18 metre wide was also used for this work. Theses two antennas are part of what is known as ‘Indian Deep Space Network’.

Besides these antennas, Byalalu has yet another important facility. This obtains, processes, systematically stores and distributes the precious scientific information from Mars Orbiter Spacecraft received by ground antennas.

The ‘nerve centre’ of all the important activities of Mars Orbiter Spacecraft is a very high tech spacecraft control centre situated at Peenya, in North Bangalore.

Engineers who guide and control Mars Orbiter Spacecraft work there 24 hours a day and seven days a week. They cautiously monitor the health of Mars Orbiter Spacecraft as well as the progress of its flight and maintain it safely in space.

Having patiently struggled to make Mars orbiter Mission a success ISRO is now filled with a sense of immense satisfaction after the safe entry of Mars Orbiter Spacecraft into the desired orbit around planet Mars on September 24, 2014 and the spacecraft successful completion of six months in that orbit.

ISRO has achieved grand success its very first attempt to send a robotic spacecraft to the distant Mars as well as to make it go round the Red Planet. Undoubtedly, Mars Orbiter Mission is one of the greatest achievements of Modern India.

Of all the planets in the solar system, Mars has sparked the greatest human interest. The conditions in Mars are believed to be hospitable since the planet is similar to Earth in many ways. For ages, humans have been speculating about life on Mars. However, the question that is to be still answered is whether Mars has a biosphere or ever had an environment in which life could have evolved and sustained.

The team involved in India's Mangalyaan Mars mission

We bring you the 14 brains behind Mangalyaan who helped put India in the elite club.

While much has been talked about the team of women who helped make the Mangalyaan mission a reality, it is also worth taking a look at others who made the Mars mission possible.

K Radhakrishnan lead the mission and oversaw the activities of ISRO as well as the mission.

S Ramakrishnan was a Director who helped in Development of the PSLV and liquid propulsion system.

P. Kunhikrishnan was a Project Director in the PSLV programme. He was also a Mission director of PSLV-C25/Mars Orbiter Mission.

Moumita Dutta was the Project manager of the Mangalyaan mission.

Nandini Harinath was the Deputy Operations Director of Navigation.

Ritu Karidhal was the Deputy Operations Director of Navigation.

BS Kiran was the Associate Project Director of Flight dynamics.

V Kesava Raju was the Mission Director at the Mars Orbiter Mission.

V Koteswara Rao was ISRO scientific secretary.

Chandradathan was the Director of the Liquid Propulsion system.

AS Kiran Kumar was the Director of the Satellite Application Centre.

M Annadurai was the Programme Director and in charge of budget management as well as direction for spacecraft configuration, schedule and resources.

MYS Prasad: Director at Satish Dhawan Space Centre. He was also the Chairman at Launch Authorisation Board.

SK Shivakumar was a Director at ISRO Satellite Centre. He was also a Project Director for Deep Space Network antenna.

S Arunan was a Project Director at Mars Orbiter Mission and he led the team to build the spacecraft.

B Jayakumar was an Associate Project Director at the PSLV programme who was responsible for testing the rocket systems.

MS Pannirselvam was the Chief General Manager at the Sriharikota Rocket port and was the man tasked to maintain launch schedules.

India is the fourth country to accomplish a successful mission and first country to do so in the very first attempt. The landmark work of Indian scientists – The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM),also known as 'Mangalyaan' was a monumental event for every Indian.