Pages

Indian Mars Orbiter Mission

PSLV C19 on launch pad photo: ISRO Mars Orbiter Mission is Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) first interplanetary missi...

PSLV C19 on launch pad photo: ISRO
Mars Orbiter Mission is Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) first interplanetary mission to planet Mars with a spacecraft designed to orbit Mars in an elliptical orbit of 372 km by 80,000 km. 
Mars Orbiter mission is India’s next challenging technological mission out of the Earth’s gravitational field. Currently the mission is schedule for November 2013. The major demands will be critical mission operations and stringent requirements on propulsion, communications and other bus systems of the spacecraft. The primary driving technological objective of the mission is to design and realize a spacecraft with a capability to reach Mars (Martian transfer Trajectory), then to orbit around Mars (Mars Orbit Insertion) which will take about nine months time. 
Yet another technological challenge is to realize related deep space mission planning and communication management at a distance of nearly 400 million km. ISRO's workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV will be used to inject the spacecraft from SDSC, SHAR in the 250 X 23000 km orbit with an inclination of 17.864 degree. As the minimum energy transfer opportunity from Earth to Mars occurs once in 26 months, the opportunity in 2013 demands a cumulative incremental velocity of 2.592 km/sec.


This satellite will also carry compact science experiments, totaling a mass of 15 kg, as listed in the table below which has been reviewed and selected by Advisory Committee for Space Sciences (ADCOS).
Payload
Primary Objective
Lyman Alpha Photometer (LAP)
Escape processes of Mars upper atmosphere through Deuterium/Hydrogen
Methane Sensor for MARS (MSM)
Detect presence of Methane
Martian Exospheric Composition
Explorer (MENCA)
Study the neutral composition of the Martian upper atmosphere
MARS Colour Camera (MCC)
Optical imaging
TIR imaging spectrometer (TIS)
Map surface composition and mineralogy
Deployed views of the Mars Orbiter
India will be the sixth country to launch a mission to Mars after the US, Russia, Europe, Japan and China.