Mars Orbiter Mission


Mars Orbiter Mission, unofficially known as Mangalyaan, is a space probe orbiting Mars since 24 September 2014. It was launched on 5 November 2013 by ISRO. It was India's first interplanetary mission and it made ISRO the fourth space agency to achieve Mars orbit, after Soviet space program, NASA, and the European Space Agency. It made India the first Asian nation to reach Martian orbit. It also made ISRO the first national space agency in the world to do so with an indigenously developed propulsion system and the second national space agency to succeed on its maiden attempt, after the European Space Agency accomplished this in 2003 using a Roscosmos Soyuz/Fregat rocket.
The Mars Orbiter Mission probe lifted off from the First Launch Pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Andhra Pradesh, using a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket C25 at 09:08 on 5 November 2013. The launch window was approximately 20 days long and started on 28 October 2013. The MOM probe spent about a month in Earth orbit, where it made a series of seven apogee-raising orbital maneuver before trans-Mars injection on 30 November 2013. After a 298-day transit to Mars, it was put into Mars orbit on 24 September 2014.
The mission was a technology demonstrator project to develop the technologies for designing, planning, management, and operations of an interplanetary mission. It carried five scientific instruments. The spacecraft was monitored from the Spacecraft Control Centre at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network in Bengaluru with support from the Indian Deep Space Network antennae at Bengaluru, Karnataka.
On 2 October 2022, it was reported that the orbiter had irrecoverably lost communications with Earth after entering a seven-hour eclipse period in April 2022 that it was not designed to survive. The following day, ISRO released a statement that all attempts to revive MOM had failed and officially declared it dead. The loss of fuel preventing the attitude adjustment of the spacecraft required to sustain battery power to the probe's instruments had been discussed at an ISRO conference on September 27 commemorating the spacecraft's eight-year anniversary of insertion into Mars orbit.

History

In November 2008, the first public acknowledgement of an uncrewed mission to Mars was announced by then-ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair. The MOM mission concept began with a feasibility study in 2010 by the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology after the launch of lunar satellite Chandrayaan-1 in 2008. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh approved the project on 3 August 2012, after ISRO completed of required studies for the orbiter. The total project cost may be up to. The satellite costs and the rest of the budget has been attributed to ground stations and relay upgrades that will be used for other ISRO projects.
The space agency had planned the launch on 28 October 2013 but was postponed to 5 November following the delay in ISRO's spacecraft tracking ships to take up pre-determined positions due to poor weather in the Pacific Ocean. Launch opportunities for a fuel-saving Hohmann transfer orbit occur every 26 months, in this case the next two would be in 2016 and 2018.
Assembly of the PSLV-XL launch vehicle, designated C25, started on 5 August 2013. The mounting of the five scientific instruments was completed at U. R. Rao Satellite Centre, Bengaluru, and the finished spacecraft was shipped to Sriharikota on 2 October 2013 for integration to the PSLV-XL launch vehicle. The satellite's development was fast-tracked and completed in a record 15 months, partly due to using reconfigured Chandrayaan-2 orbiter bus. Despite the US federal government shutdown, NASA reaffirmed on 5 October 2013 it would provide communications and navigation support to the mission "with their Deep Space Network facilities.". During a meeting on 30 September 2014, NASA and ISRO officials signed an agreement to establish a pathway for future joint missions to explore Mars. One of the working group's objectives will be to explore potential coordinated observations and science analysis between the MAVEN orbiter and MOM, as well as other current and future Mars missions.
On 2 October 2022, it was reported that the orbiter had irrecoverably lost communications with Earth after entering long eclipse period in April 2022 that it was not designed to survive. At the time of communications loss it was unknown whether the probe had lost power or inadvertently realigned its Earth-facing antenna during automatic maneuvers.

Team

Some of the scientists of ISRO and engineers involved in the mission include:
  • K. Radhakrishnan led as Chairman ISRO.
  • Mylswamy Annadurai was the Programme Director and was in charge of the overall project, budget management as well as direction for spacecraft configuration, schedule and resources.
  • V Kesava Raju was the Mars Orbiter Mission Director.
  • Subbiah Arunan was the Project Director at the Mars Orbiter Mission.
  • BS Kiran was the Associate Project Director of Flight Dynamics.
  • V Koteswara Rao was the ISRO scientific secretary.
  • Chandradathan was the Director of the Liquid Propulsion System.
  • R.Satish was the Deputy Project Director of Spacecraft Mechanical Systems.
  • K.Suresh was the Deputy Project Director of Spacecraft Electrical Systems
  • Moumita Dutta was the Project manager of the Mars Orbiter Mission.
  • Nandini Harinath was the Deputy Operations Director of Navigation.
  • Ritu Karidhal was the Deputy Operations Director of Navigation.
  • B Jayakumar was an Associate Project Director at the PSLV programme which was responsible for testing the rocket systems.
  • S Ramakrishnan was the Director who helped in the development of the liquid propulsion system of the PSLV launcher.
  • P. Kunhikrishnan was the Project Director in the PSLV programme. He was also a Mission director of the PSLV-C25/Mars Orbiter Mission.
  • A. S. Kiran Kumar was the Director of the Satellite Application Centre, who later went on to be the Chairman ISRO after this, when the team studied the Mard
  • M. Y. S. Prasad is the Director at Satish Dhawan Space Centre. He was also the chairman of the Launch Authorisation Board.
  • MS Pannirselvam was the Chief General Manager at the Sriharikota Rocket port and was tasked to maintain launch schedules.
  • S. K. Shivakumar was the Director at the ISRO Satellite Centre. He was also a Project Director for the Indian Deep Space Network. Mars Orbiter Mission is the product of ISRO Satellite Centre. He spearheaded the task of conceptualization, design and realization of the unique spacecraft MOM. He ingeniously planned to realize the spacecraft in a record time of 15 months.

    Cost

The total cost of the mission was approximately 450 Crore, making it the least-expensive Mars mission to date. The low cost of the mission was ascribed by ISRO chairman K. Radhakrishnan to various factors, including a "modular approach", few ground tests and long working days for scientists. BBC's Jonathan Amos specified lower worker costs, home-grown technologies, simpler design, and a significantly less complicated payload than NASA's MAVEN. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the mission cost just ₹7/km, cheaper than a ₹10/km auto ride in Ahmedabad and less than the film Gravity.

Mission objectives

The primary objective of the mission is to develop the technologies required for designing, planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission. The secondary objective is to explore Mars's surface features, morphology, mineralogy and Martian atmosphere using indigenous scientific instruments.
The main objectives are to develop the technologies required for designing, planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission comprising the following major tasks:
  • Orbit manoeuvres to transfer the spacecraft from Earth-centred orbit to heliocentric trajectory and finally, capture into Martian orbit
  • Development of force models and algorithms for orbit and attitude computations and analysis
  • Navigation in all phases
  • Maintain the spacecraft in all phases of the mission
  • Meeting power, communications, thermal and payload operation requirements
  • Incorporate autonomous features to handle contingency situations

    Scientific objectives

The scientific objectives deal with the following major aspects:
  • Exploration of Mars surface features by studying the morphology, topography and mineralogy
  • Study the constituents of Martian atmosphere including methane and using remote sensing techniques
  • Study the dynamics of the upper atmosphere of Mars, effects of solar wind and radiation and the escape of volatiles to outer space
The mission would also provide multiple opportunities to observe the Martian moon Phobos and also offer an opportunity to identify and re-estimate the orbits of asteroids seen during the Martian Transfer Trajectory. The spacecraft also provided the first views ever of the far side of Martian Moon Deimos.

Studies

In May–June 2015 Indian scientists got an opportunity to study the Solar Corona during the Mars conjunction when earth and Mars are on the opposite sides of the sun. During this period the S band waves emitted by MOM were transmitted through the Solar Corona that extends millions of kms into space. This event helped scientists study the Solar surface and regions where temperature changed abruptly.

Spacecraft design

  • Mass: The lift-off mass was, including of propellant.
  • Bus: The spacecraft's bus is a modified I-1 K structure and propulsion hardware configuration, similar to Chandrayaan-1, India's lunar orbiter that operated from 2008 to 2009, with specific improvements and upgrades needed for a Mars mission. The satellite structure is constructed of an aluminium and composite fibre reinforced plastic sandwich construction.
  • Power: Electric power is generated by three solar array panels of each, for a maximum of 840 watts of power generation in Mars orbit. Electricity is stored in a 36 Ah Lithium-ion battery.
  • Propulsion: A liquid fuel engine with a thrust of is used for orbit raising and insertion into Mars orbit. The orbiter also has eight thrusters for attitude control. Its propellant mass at launch was .
  • Attitude and Orbit Control System: Maneuvering system that includes electronics with a MAR31750 processor, two star sensors, a solar panel Sun sensor, a coarse analog Sun sensor, four reaction wheels, and the primary propulsion system.
  • Antennae: Low gain antenna, mid gain antenna, and high gain antenna.