Important Details you should know about India's Mars Orbiter Mission / Mangalyaan

Friends, as all of you know, Today (24th September 2014), India has created space history by successfully placing its low-cost Mangalyan spacecraft  in orbit around the Red Planet. With this, India became the first nation to reach Mars on its maiden attempt. Our Mangalyaan spacecraft successfully entered orbit around the Red Planet after a 10-month journey. The success of the mission, which is designed to search for evidence of life on the Red Planet, is a huge source of national pride for India as it leaves its Asian rivals, including China, in the shade.  It is a significant achievement after Chandrayaan.

India now joins an elite club of the United States, Russia and Europe who can boast of reaching Mars. The United States had its first success with a 1964 flyby by a spacecraft called Mariner 4, returning 21 images of the surface of the planet. Theformer Soviet Union reached the planet in1971, and the European Space Agency in 2003. More than half of all missions to the planet (23 out of 41 missions) have ended in failure, including China's in 2011 and Japan's in 2003. No single nation had previously succeeded at its first go, although the European Space Agency, which represents a consortium of countries, did also pull it off at its first attempt.

Now Mangalyaan has reached Mars, it is expected to study the planet's surface and scan its atmosphere for methane, which could provide evidence of some sort of life form.

Here are some Important points you shoulkd know about MOM / Mangalyan

• The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), also called as Mangalyaan (Mangalyan is an unofficial name)
• This program is run by ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization)
• Manufactured by Indian Space Research Organisation Satellite Centre (ISAC)
• Launched into Earth orbit on 5th November 2013
• It was launched from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.
  
• This project is aimed as a "technology demonstrator". It will showcase and prove the capability for inter-planetary missions
• The launch was made using PSLV-XL C25 rocket
• The orbiter will have a life of 6 to 10 months in the orbit
• While orbiting Mars the orbiter will study surface features, minerals and atmosphere on Mars
• There are 5 main instruments on the orbiter
1. Lyman-Alpha Photometer (LAP)
2. Methane Sensor For Mars (MSM)
3. Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA)
4. Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (TIS)
5. Mars Colour Camera (MCC)
• It was successfully inserted into orbit of Mars on 24 September 2014
• India the first Asian nation to reach Mars orbit.
• The Mars Orbiter Mission was achieved on a budget of $74 million, nearly a tenth of the amount the US space agency Nasa spent on sending the Maven spacecraft to Mars.
• This mission has been executed without any association with any foreign country. ..itscompletely indigenous.
• The spacecraft has traveled more than 650 crore kilometers in around 300 daysto complete this journey.

Team Members worked on Mangalyaan Mission

• K Radhakrishnan
• Chairman of ISRO, secretary in department of space.
• Responsible for leading the mission and overall activities of Isro.
• M Annadurai

• Programme director, Mars Orbiter Mission
• Responsible for budget management, direction for spacecraft configuration, schedule and resources.
• S Ramakrishnan
• Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and Member Launch Authorisation Board.
• Responsible for realising the rocket (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) that would ferry the Mars orbiter.
• SK Shivakumar
• Director, Isro Satellite Centre.
• Responsible for developing satellite technology and implementing satellite systems for scientific, technological and application missions.
• P Kunhikrishnan
• Project director, PSLV programme; ninth time as mission director.
• Responsible for seeing the rocket completes its mission successfully and that the satellite is correctly injected in the designated orbit.
• Chandradathan
• Director, Liquid Propulsion system.
• Made rich contribution to the realisation of solid motors for sounding rockets
• AS Kiran Kumar
• Director, Satellite Application Centre
• Responsible for designing and building three of the orbiter payloads - Mars Colour Camera, Methane Sensor and Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer.
• MYS Prasad
• Director, Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Chairman, Launch Authorisation Board
• Responsible for range safety and schedules, overall in-charge at rocket port.
• S Arunan
• Project director, Mars Orbiter Mission.
• Responsible for leading a team to build the spacecraft.
• B Jayakumar
• Associate project director, PSLV project
• Responsible for the rocket systems, testing till the final lift-off.
• MS Pannirselvam
• Chief general manager, range operation director at Sriharikota Rocket port.
• Responsible for maintaining launch schedules without any slippages