Mars Got MOM

Mars mission always become a prestigious project for different space agencies. Some space agencies like NASA, European Space Agency and Russian Federal Space Agency already become success in Mars mission and they are already having their craft in Mars. Scientist and people around the world had got more information about mars with the help of these crafts. 

Indian’s Mars Project

Other country’s space agencies are still working on Mars mission. India’s ISRO was one of them who were trying to send their craft to Mars. Mangalyaan project had written new history in India’s Space research. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had launched the Mangalyaan (MOM) project on 5 November 2013 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, AP and the craft took almost a year to reach Mars Orbit. India’s craft entered Mars orbit on 24 September 2014 and India becomes the first country in the world that is having success in Mars mission in the first attempt. India is the fourth country and ISRO is the fourth agency who is having their craft in Mars and first in Asian countries.    

Mars Orbit mission is also known as Mangalyaan project. The words ‘Mangal’ (Mangala) and ‘Yaan’ were taken from ‘Sanskrit’ and ‘Mangal’ means Mars and ‘Yaan’ means Craft or vehicle in English. Mangalyaan project is India’s first interplanetary mission and it is a 100% successful project now.

Cost of the Project

The project expense was very less compared to other three space agencies. The cost of Mangalyaan is around 450 crores ($73 million). NASA had spent around $671 million for MAVEN project. This project took around 15 months to complete after getting the approval form Indian government in 2012.  

Status of the Craft

Mangalyaan successfully entered Mars’s orbit on 24 - September – 2014 and started functioning as pre-planned. Mangalyaan had sent its first picture to earth on 28-September-2014 and the picture is captured by Mars Colour Camera (MCC). ISRO had verified and published the image to the world. The image was captured from a height of 7300 kilometres with 376 meter spatial resolution. 

The image shows the billions of year old Martian surface with impact craters and possibly heads of dead volcanoes. The dark patch seems to be a mineral rich part or a portion where light has not penetrated when the photo was taken. The streaks with a head in the darkened patch are either large Dust Devil or Martian Sand Storm the blow over the surface of Mars or some artefacts. Experts say these images are excellent but if coordinates were also released by ISRO, the images would be much more meaningful.

First Picture From MCC 

Watch Pictures Captured by MCC - Click

Conclusion

Mangalyaan project had faced many criticisms from different phase. Western media teased the project many times through their media. Recently New York Times had apologised for the controversial cartoon which they had published in the media after the success of Mangalyaan project. After the success of Mangalyaan, ISRO is working on their new project and the space agency is planning to send their craft to Sun to study more about the star.    

Thank You

Ribu Roby @riburoby