Mangalyaan (спутник Марса) - PSLV-C25 - 05.11.2013 13:08 ЛМВ - Шрихарикота

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Veganin пишет:
Так орбита гиперболическая - улетит в межзвездное пространство. На ее бы зонд высадить с аппаратурой и автоматическая межзвездная станция готова  

Методом Дип Импакта на скорости 55 км в секунду?    

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Новые данные по сближению кометы C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) с Марсом

Как я писал ранее, недавно открытая комета C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring), 19 октября 2014 года сблизится на рекордно малое расстояние с Марсом. Не исключен и сценарий столкновения кометы с планетой. Сегодня, на обсерватории ISON-NM, были получены новые астрометрические измерения этой кометы. На основе имеющихся измерений, были рассчитаны уточненные элементы ее орбиты. Результаты повторного расчета параметров сближения показывают то, что комета может пройти всего в 41 000 км (0.000276 а.е.) от центра планеты, т.е. менее чем в 37 000 км от ее поверхности!

Принимая во внимание размер комы, который должен превысить 100 000 км, вблизи перигелия ее орбиты, практически со ста процентной уверенностью можно сказать, что планета пройдет сквозь газовую оболочку кометы C/2013 A1. Обладая сверхразряженной атмосферой, поверхность красной планеты будет подвержена интенсивной бомбардировке микрочастицами, что, в том числе, может вызвать выход из строя работающие АМС.

Наблюдения продолжаются и будут прерваны лишь в конце весны, из-за малой элонгации кометы. Во второй половине лета наблюдения возобновятся и мы продолжим уточнять параметры тесного сближения кометы C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) и Марса.

http://spaceobs.org/ru/2013/02/27/new-data-concerning-the-close-approach-of-comet-c2013-a1-to-mars/

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Isro to launch Mars mission in October

BANGALORE: The country's first mission to Mars will be launched in October, a source at the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) here confirmed to TOI. It'll be the culmination of 10 missions planned this year.

It'll be launched using a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle's (PSLV) XLor extended model rocket from Sriharikota. On reaching the red planet, it'll be ins erted into its electrical orbit.

The nine-month voyage will study the origin of Mars and gain more information about the planet, the source said. "Methane sensors will be used to predict the possibility of life on the planet," the official added.

Isro chairman, K Radhakrishnan, in a recent interview to TOI, said 58 space missions have been planned during the 12th Plan. These include comprising 33 satellite missions and 25 launch vehicle missions (17 PSLVs, 6 GSLVs and 2 GSLV MK III).

"This plan necessitates 25 launches from Sriharikota over five years for injecting 23 Indian satellites and a few foreign satellites onboard PSLV. The 10 heavier Indian geostationary satellites will be launched from an overseas location," he said.

Isro officials confirmed the agency is se t to launch the Indo-French satellite SARAL which will study ocean currents and sea surface heights on Feb 25 from Sriharikota. The launch was initially scheduled for December 12, 2012 but was delayed as the agency found some problems during the satellite's space simulation tests at Bangalore in October.

Missions in 2013

Feb 25: Indo-French satellite SARAL using PSLV-C20 launch vehicle

May: GSLV D5 carrying communication satellite GSAT 14

June/July: Launch of INSAT 3D and GSAT 7

Third quarter 2013: Launch of India's first navigational satellite, Indian Regional Navigational Satellite Series, IRNSS

October: Mars mission

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Isro-to-launch-Mars-mission-in-October/articleshow/18621944.cms

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http://m.indianexpress.com/news/mars-mission-gets-october-2013-launch-date-deadline-as-india-reaches-out-to-the-stars/1054576/

[Veganin]

instml пишет:
Методом Дип Импакта на скорости 55 км в секунду?  

Гм, это я упустил     Хотя есть снаряды, чья электроника выдерживает тысячи g перегрузки. Быть может наноэлектроника и графен помогут отечественной космонавтике?   
А индусы молодцы. У них бы Роскосмосу поучиться.

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7 месяцев до 25 октября!

[Bizonich]

Индусы и в правду молодцы, удачи им!

[Salo]

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2013/01040907-isro-mars-update.html

Updates on ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission: five instruments to be delivered in March

Posted By Emily Lakdawalla

2013/01/04 11:27 CST

Several news articles appeared in Indian media today about the upcoming launch of ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission. It's the first time I've seen such detailed information about the spacecraft. There were two distinct articles appearing across numerous media outlets, so it must be a wire story or perhaps even an ISRO press release; I'm not sure how these things work in India. There isn't a release posted on ISRO's website, as far as I can find. Here's a summary of those, one printed in the Deccan Chronicle, Economic Times, Indian Express, and elsewhere, and the other posted at Parda Phash, IBN live, and other places.

The information comes out during the 100th Indian Science Congress, taking place this week in Kolkata.

    Spacecraft facts:
        Its main engine generates 440 Newtons of thrust.
        Launch mass: 1350 kg.
        It bears a single solar panel, 1.4 by 1.8 meters, producing 750W at Mars. [Note]
        For attitude control it has four reaction wheels, eight 22-Newton thrusters.
    Those are mostly pretty similar to Chandrayaan-1, except for the size of the solar panel. Chandrayaan-1 had a single 2.15-by-1.8-meter panel that generated 750W at the Moon. My guess is that the diagram below is correct and that the Mars spacecraft has a single solar array consisting of three panels 1.4 by 1.8 meters each, which would, together, manage to produce similar power at Mars that the single, larger panel did at the Moon.
    Five instruments have been selected, including:
        A color camera
        A Thermal Infrared Imaging System
        A Lyman-alpha photometer
        An Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyzer
        A Methane Sensor
    The engineering model is complete, and the flight model should be completed in March.
    ISRO expects instruments to be delivered in March for integration beginning in April.
    Launch to Earth orbit will take place "some time in October."
    The spacecraft will depart Earth orbit on November 26 and arrive at Mars on September 22, 2014.

The mission does not yet have a formal name ("Mangalyaan" is not it -- as far as I can tell, that name was made up by newspapers needing a name and following the "Chandrayaan" convention). For lack of a better one, though, I'll not change it in my previous posts until we find out what the formal name is going to be.

Jitendra Nath Goswami, director of ISRO's Physical Research Laboratory, is quoted as saying: "We are trying hard and by mid-October we are expecting to launch the Mars mission." And: "The mission has a very specific science objective as we want to study the atmosphere of Mars. This mission will explore things which have not been done previously by other countries." And: "The previous missions to Mars have shown that there was water on the planet. We would want to know how and why the planet lost water and carbon dioxide."

Although these goals sound similar to those of NASA's MAVEN, the instrument package is more general than MAVEN's -- color imaging, nighttime thermal infrared, and so on. Only the Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyzer seems to overlap with MAVEN. In any case, it's my impression that science is only a secondary goal for this mission. The primary goals are engineering ones: simply to succeed at launching a spacecraft on an Earth-to-Mars transfer orbit, successfully navigate it to Mars, successfully enter orbit at Mars, and operate it there at all would be major achievements for India, regardless of any scientific data return.
Mangalyaan


ISRO
Mangalyaan
Artist's concept of ISRO's Mangalyaan Mars orbiter.

[Salo]

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ISRO's Mars mission now undergoing assembly and testing; NASA, ISRO agree to future space science cooperation

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2013/04011229-isros-mars-mission-now.html

[Salo]

http://www.dnaindia.com/scitech/1819996/report-dna-exclusive-comet-mars-isro-s-rs450cr-dream-mission

dna exclusive: Comet Mars Isro's Rs450cr dream mission
Monday, Apr 8, 2013, 9:30 IST | Place: Bangalore | Agency: DNA
Nirad Mudur  

India's Mars mission is suffering from birth pangs. A comet heading towards the planet could derail Indian Space Research Organisation's (Isro) project, worth Rs450 crore, scheduled to take off in October-November this year.

Scientists are now exploring the possibility of postponing the launch to allow the comet to pass by Mars before the spacecraft lands.

The comet — C/2013 A1 — is approaching the red planet at a speed of 2 lakh km/hour and has a probability of 1 in 8,000 to strike Mars.

As per current trajectory projections, calculated by US' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), the comet will be closest to Mars at a distance of 3 lakh km. But the planet will be engulfed in the tail of the comet — extending to millions of kilometres — which will be on Mars' sunward side.

The tail of a comet points away from the sun due to radiation effects.

The comet poses a problem because no one knows its precise properties, and therefore, the effects it'll leave behind. It was discovered only on January 3 this year by Rob McNaught at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. And our mission will reach the planet just a month before the comet's arrival.

Isro scientists admit that India's Mars mission will be affected by the comet.

One of the main objectives of the mission is to detect methane in the Martian atmosphere with a methane sensor for Mars (MSN). The sensor will be one of the five payloads on board the unmanned spacecraft, which is expected to orbit the planet at an altitude of 500km after covering a journey 5.46 crore km through space in nine months.

A senior scientist working on the Mars mission explains how the comet could scuttle the project.
"Most comets have methane, and there is a good chance that our MSN payload may confuse the methane it detects from the comet as that of Mars and transmit wrong data. Such data will mislead us. Even Nasa is wary."

Prof Tushar Prabhu, dean of Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), agrees that the comet's tail, which is packed with methane, will play the spolier. He hopes that Isro will take a guarded decision on the mission.

M Annadurai, Mars mission project director, is non-committal on whether the launch date would be pushed ahead, saying it all boils down to the comet's trajectory. "It's too early to say anything right now....but we are in touch with Nasa scientists on this."

Although he neither denies nor confirms the rescheduling, he gave enough hints that the current date — November 27 — of the launch could be changed.

Isro had zeroed in on three launch windows for the mission — November 2013-January 2014, January-April 2016; and April-May 2018.

Isro scientists are not sure if the launch date could be postponed within the current launch window (November 2013-January2014) or if they'd have to wait till 2016 or 2018.

But Prof UR Rao, one of India's staunchest supporters for exploring and colonising Mars and who is also chairman of the governing council of Isro's Ahmedabad-based Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), suggests that "we have to take some risks".

"There is still time [to change plans]," says IIA's Prof Prabhu. "I hope Isro scientists take the right decision on time. It will be a difficult decision."

The presence of methane on Mars is indicative of two things — signs of life or possibilities of chemical reactions, just like on Earth.

Methane was faintly detected on Mars a few years ago. But its presence could not confirmed as the Nasa rover then could detect only a larger volume of the gas at a go — about several parts per billion.

Prof JN Goswami, director of PRL, says India's MSN payload can detect even faint amounts — 10 parts per billion.

The comet has taken even Nasa by surprise. It, too, will send out a craft — MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) — to study Mars' upper atmosphere in November this year.

The launch was planned much ahead of C/2013 A1's discovery and its close Mars fly-by. It will reach the planet around the same time as India's spacecraft.

Isro Mars probe, the victim
Scheduled to be launched on November 27, 2013

Will carry five payloads, including those to detect methane and hydrogen

Will take nine months to reach Mars, which is 54.6 million kilometres away

The problem
Mars will be within the comet's tail from October 19, 2014, but no one knows for how long

This would confuse the spacecraft-borne detectors about the source of the gases they are trying to detect

The entire Rs450-crore mission could be affected because the comet's properties could be confused with those of Mars by the spacecraft's sensors

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http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29440.msg1040216#msg1040216

Mars Orbiter on track, comet no deterrent: ISRO chief

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Mars-Orbiter-on-track-comet-no-deterrent-Isro-chief/articleshow/19606336.cms

Спойлер

BANGALORE: A comet heading towards Mars' orbit in 2014 will not delay Isro'sRs450-crore Mars Orbiter Mission, said K Radhakrishnan, chairman, Indian Space Research Organization, of the country's premier space agency, on Wednesday.

"India's Mars Orbiter is on schedule. The five instruments are ready and will be integrated soon.

The spacecraft sub systems are in the process of integration while the launch vehicle, PSLV, is also getting ready. It will be integrated from August onwards," said Radhakrishnan, at the sidelines of a national conference on 'Space Based Navigations' held at Isro Satellite Centre on Wednesday.

Comet C/2013 A1, discovered on January 3 by Rob McNaught at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia, is approaching Mars at a speed of 2 lakh km/hour. There's a probability of 1 in 8,000 chance that it might strike Mars.

The Isro chief said it is yet to be studied how the comet might affect their observations.

"The comet could bring some constituents, but we don't expect any effect on the spacecraft. It will pass 50,000 km away from Mars' surface. We will get more information on the comet in future and scientists are looking at all possibilities," he said.

The Mars Orbiter, set to be launched on November 27, will take about 300 days to reach the planet, after leaving Earth's orbit. Once the satellite reaches Mars' orbit around September 2014, which is an electrical orbit of 500 km when it comes closest to mars, and 80,000 km at furthest, a number of experiments will be conducted by Isro. Some of them are looking at Mars with a thermal infrared imaging system, and also at the possible presence and source of methane in the Martian environment.

"The Mars Orbiter Mission will essentially to prove the country's capability to reach the Martian orbit using its technology," he said.

Five Payloads of Mars Orbiter

MARS Colour Camera (MCC): Weighing 1.24 kg, it will take pictures in red, green and blue colours. It can capture a complete image of Mars in a single shot from an altitude of 80,000km. The camera will help understand the Martian dust storms or dust devils.

A Thermal Infrared Imaging System: A 4.1-kg Thermal-Infrared Imaging Spectrometer will map the surface and mineral composition of Mars. Through this, scientists will know if there is hydrothermal activity that will help locate water.

Lyman-alpha photometer: Among the other things, it will measure atomic hydrogen in Martian atmosphere.

Martian Exospheric Composition Explorer: It will study the neutral composition of the Martian upper atmosphere.

Methane Sensor for MARS: It will measure methane in the Martian atmosphere with a high level of accuracy.

[свернуть]

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=1173.msg1029975#msg1029975

November 27 - PSLV C25 (XL) - MangalYaan (Mars Orbiter)

Однако, я думаю, что пуск по прежнему планируется на конец октября или начало ноября, а 27 ноября относится к планируемой дате выхода на межпланетную траекторию.

[Salo]

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India's Mars mission to be launched in October-November this year: official

Updated: April 30, 2013 21:03 IST

Chennai: Aspiring to join the select group of countries that have explored Mars, India will launch its space mission to the Red Planet in October-November this year, a top ISRO official said today.

"The (Mars Orbiter) mission is planned when Mars would be closest to the Earth. It would be launched either in the last week of October or the first week of November this year," Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman K Radhakrishnan said.

Mars comes very close to the Earth once in 26 months and the next such instance would occur during the last week of October and first week of November, he said at the convocation of Sathyabama University in Chennai.

By launching this mission, India would become part of the select few countries that have achieved this rare feat, he said.

India will be the sixth country to launch a mission to Mars after the U.S., Russia, Europe, Japan and China.

Under the mission, India will put in orbit a spacecraft using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. The satellite will undertake a 300-day journey to Mars.

Elaborating on the mission challenges, Radhakrishnan said the closest (apogee) and farthest (perigee) points in the satellite's orbit around Mars would be 317 km and 80,000 km respectively and studies on the planet can be done effectively when the satellite is closest to the planet.

"Since the communication delay would be over 20 minutes, we have to work harder," he said.

He also said the space agency was planning to launch 12 missions this year, including indigenous GSLV.

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/india-s-mars-mission-to-be-launched-in-october-november-this-year-official-361074

[Salo]

http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekContent.do?contentId=14101697&programId=1073755753&tabId=13&categoryId=-201541

Red Hot
By Rekha Dixit/Bangalore
Story Dated: Monday, May 20, 2013 9:15 hrs IST
The ambitious Mars Orbiter Mission looks set to make India the first Asian nation to probe the red planet

Mars movement: The ISRO is set to launch its orbiter rover on October 22 this year.
 
She stretches her cervical vertebrae, moving her head up and down. Then she twists her body, checking out her azimuthal movements. "She is ready. We are all ready," proclaims R. Raghunath, proud of the 300-tonne, 32m-diameter dishy beauty he is in charge of.

We are at the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) Indian Deep Space Network Centre, spread across 150 acres of rocky terrain in Byalalu, about 40km fr om Bangalore.

Raghunath's charge wears a clean coat of ivory paint. She is the biggest deep space network antenna in South Asia, crafted indigenously before Chandrayaan. It is fr om here that scientists will be communicating with India's Mars orbiter rover, when the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) to explore the red planet takes off in October this year. The antenna will beam messages to the rover and receive every data gleaned from the mission.

Inside the eight-storey-high antenna, workers are servicing the hardware: a seven-mirror periscope system of data transmission that minimises loss of information. The antenna can move in two directions, up and down (elevation) and around a pivot (azimuthal); scientists can fine-tune its accuracy to an exacting 60 millidegrees.

"When distant planets communicate, they whisper. You have to have very fine receptors to decipher the messages," says B.R. Guruprasad, ISRO's public relations officer. "Mars will, on the one hand, communicate its vital parameters—surface temperature and air pressure, which are easy to pick up. On the other, the probe will try to find traces of methane and life. There would be barely hints of such information, which is why they have to be captured with great precision."

Back in the city, at a cutting-edge facility with restricted access, the grand antenna's counterpart is being tested. THE WEEK gets a privileged peek. We don sterile suits and caps before stepping into a corridor wh ere an automatic 10-second air shower starts. "This is to minimise dust in the 'clean room'. We allow less than one lakh dust particles in one cubic metre of space," says D.R. Suma, general manager, ISRO Satellite Integration and Test Establishment (ISITE).

Suma is proud of her clean room, the largest such facility in the world, built about six years ago. Dust is to an electronic system what microbes are to a medical one. Even a speck can damage a circuit.

Suma shows us an array of satellites in various stages of tests, some swaddled in insulating gold foil. "Seven satellites are being tested here right now," she says.

Suma then guides us to a high-ceilinged, deep room (18x16x30m). The walls are covered with sinister-looking spikes made of foam. The entire room is walled with blue foam, providing an environment free of electromagnetic interference. At the centre sits a modest 2.1m antenna, which will be fixed onto the Mars rover.

Distances being phenomenal, once the satellite is in Mars's orbit, it will take 20 minutes for a message to go one way. So for two-way communication, the time lag can be over half an hour. Thus, a big challenge is to set a high degree of autonomy for the orbiter, so that it can take emergency decisions.

What was once a nebulous dream is finally taking shape. India's Mars mission is pacing towards a launch this October. A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle is being readied at ISRO's Telemetry Tracking and Command Network facility in Bangalore, while the payloads are being made at Ahmedabad's Space Application Centre.

Ultimately, all the components will be assembled at ISITE in August and subjected to another round of comprehensive tests. Then, they will be sent to Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, for the blast-off.

"The rule of the thumb is: one month of preparation, one minute of testing, and another one month of analysis," grins Jagdish Babu, in-charge of the acoustic and vibration testing room, which can simulate the high-intensity sound vibrations generated during launch. A satellite should withstand the vibrations, or it will crumple. "Outer space is a demanding place," says Babu. "It does not allow you to even make a small error."

MOM is India's most ambitious space venture, and there is certainly a lot more than the Rs.450 crore riding on it. If India succeeds, it will be the first Asian nation to go probing Mars. The China-Russia joint mission last year flopped. While the American and Russian explorations of Mars started much after their success in space travel and Moon probes, India is attempting a Mars mission just five years after its maiden Moon probe.

Chandrayaan-I was primary-school level compared with the complexity involved this time. "For the Moon mission, the satellite remained within Earth's orbit. Here, we have to first launch the probe into the geocentric phase wh ere it will be within Earth's orbit. Then, gradually, it has to be taken to the heliocentric phase in 10 months," says Subbiah Arunan, MOM project director, who was Chandrayaan's assistant project director. "Ultimately, it has to be set into the Mars-centric phase. This requires a quantum leap in technology. Let us not forget that our friendly neighbourhood planet is around 400 million km away."

since Mars revolves in such an elliptical orbit that once in 26 months, it comes as close as 54.6 million km from Earth. ISRO scientists hope to catch that window in November.

"If you send the rover too early, it will be exposed to unnecessary radiation which will reduce its life and efficiency. Send it too late, and it will not be able to ins ert itself into the Martian orbit," explains K. Radhakrishnan, chairman of ISRO and the Space Commission. "We will have to launch the rocket on October 22, so that it can depart the Earth's orbit on November 26 and enter the Martian orbit on September 21, 2014." Incidentally, Chandrayaan, too, was launched on October 22, 2008.

So, what is it that MOM seeks to find? Unlike NASA's Curiosity, which is sitting pretty on Mars, sending out exploratory vehicles, collecting soil samples and digging in to virgin rocks with robotic diligence, MOM will be just a blip on the Martian sky. At its closest, it will be 370km from the planet's surface, and at the farthest, 80,000km up in the sky.

The payload comprises five indigenous scientific instruments. They are the Mars Colour Camera to take pictures of the planet and its satellites, Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer to map the surface composition and mineralogy, Martian Exospheric Composition Explorer to study the neutral composition of the planet's upper atmosphere, Alpha Photometer to analyse the ratio of hydrogen to deuterium in the atmosphere and Methane Sensor, which will try detect the presence of methane (an indicator of life) and its source, whether biological or geological.

Exploring Mars is the hottest thing in space science now. Though the first Mars-bound rover was sent by the erstwhile USSR in 1960, unsuccessfully, NASA got the first pictures of the planet five years later. In 1971, both NASA and the USSR successfully sent the first rovers to orbit another planet.

The Soviets were the first to land a probe on Mars, but it crashed. The first successful lander was American. Over the decades, NASA has had maximum success with Mars explorations. The European Space Agency (ESA) also managed a successful orbiter, Mars Express, in 2003 and a flyby in 2007.
 
Japan's satellite, Nozomi, failed to enter Mars's orbit and became a mere flyby in 2003, while the UK's Beagle that year failed, too. In 2011, the Chinese launched Yinghuo-1 from Russia's Baikonur launch facility, but it failed to escape the Earth's orbit.

If India succeeds, it will be a thumping attestation of the nation's space exploring prowess. The Chinese are already hot on the heels with a launch planned for the next close-contact phase with Mars in 2016.

Although the Indian space establishment rules out a space race, MOM is certainly at a tangent from the standard Indian portfolio of space probes that are application-based. "Yes, this is a test of our technological prowess and endurance," says Dipankar Banerji, associate professor at Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bangalore.

He says that there is always a debate between investing in applied and pure science, but every once in a while countries need to invest in big missions. "It is true that MOM is more of a prestige issue, a platform to show the international community our indigenous technological capability. I do not, however, think it can be called a luxury or indulgence," says Banerji. "Peer recognition is very important. While there is a high rate of failure in inter-planetary expeditions, ISRO has a very reliable launch vehicle, the PSLV. So they have reason to be confident on that front."

Should ISRO have attempted Chandrayaan II before MOM? "No. The Mars window is very small, had we missed this deadline, the next opportunity would have come after more than two years," explains Banerji.

Former ISRO chief Madhavan Nair initially argued that not much science would be generated from the mission. But not all agree. Dibyendu Nandi, solar physicist at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata, believes that even if the mission generates very little science, it would at least be the first step in collecting our own data.

"Even if the mission fails at any stage, there will be lots to learn. We have to be tolerant to the risk of failure," says Nandi. "Look at the US. They have lost lives, had great accidents like Challenger and Columbia. That did not dampen their mission. I believe ISRO needs to take up more such challenging missions."

If successful, MOM will elevate India in the list of space-faring nations, from the current sixth position, one rung behind China. Already, the world is looking at the Indian attempt with mixed feelings. While most space exploratory organisations, at least outwardly, believe that this is the age of international cooperation in such endeavours, national pride does come first.

The UK press, for instance, regularly comments on how India takes aid from the UK but nurtures fanciful ambitions. One English MP even said the UK should stop aid to India. Interestingly, the British press does not bring up the failure of Beagle when lampooning MOM. But they surely have not forgotten, have they?

For now though, whether sceptical, enthusiastic or indifferent, anyone who has even an iota of interest in space is closely following the progress of MOM with fingers crossed (superstition is intrinsic to the space world; see graphics). As the ISRO chief sums it up: "The mission to Mars is a small but major step."

[smokan]

Salo пишет:
The ambitious Mars Orbiter Mission looks set to make India the first Asian nation to probe the red planet

Ну а Nozomi разве не был фэст? Или Япония это не Эзиан?
...или может чуть-чуть не считается  :|

[Georgij]

нодзоми марс не исследовал

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http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29440.msg1063572#msg1063572

 1) The integration of the spacecraft purse, comprising the structure and several sub-systems, including power systems, controlling systems, telemetry and command systems, has begun at the Isro Satellite Centre

2) This process is likely to take another four weeks, following which the integration of the payloads will commence. "We will move the satellite and the spacecraft to Sriharikota by September, from where it will be launched.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/338379/india039s-mars-mission-takes-shape.html

[Salo]

India's Mars mission takes shape      
Bangalore, June 12, 2013, DHNS:
                                                           
India's maiden mars mission is taking shape with the integration of the spacecraft purse having commenced at the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) Satellite Centre here.
 
A senior official of Isro said: "The integration of the spacecraft purse, comprising the structure and several sub-systems, including power systems, controlling systems, telemetry and command systems, has begun at the Isro Satellite Centre. "

This process is likely to take another four weeks, following which the integration of the payloads will commence. "We will move the satellite and the spacecraft to Sriharikota by September, from where it will be launched," he said.

The satellite will be leaving the earth's orbit in November this year and will cruise in sp­a­ce for about 10 months before finally entering the Red Planet.

The preliminary design reviews of the payloads are complete and the process to begin the integration has begun, the source said. The structure has been delivered to clean room and the propulsion system integration is in the final stage.

Termed the Mars Orbiter Mission, the spacecraft to be launched for the mission will be launched using the PSLV launch vehicle. The 1,350-kg spacecraft will carry five instruments/payloads totaling a mass of 15-kg sel ected by the Advisory Committee for Space Sciences, to study the Martian surface, atmosphere and mineralogy.

 Among the important things that Isro hopes to achieve is check for methane as also map Mars's surface besides send in data fr om the optical imaging payload. Still high on the significant findings made by Chandrayaan 1, it would be another achievement for Isro if methane is found on Mars, as it is an indication that life existed there.

[Global Ural]

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