Journey of Mangalyaan

Mars has been a planet of mystery since time immemorial. Majority of human race believed the fact that Mars is a planet where life exists, other than our own beautiful Earth. Many even believed that living beings of Mars, visited earth often in spaceships named ‘flying saucers’, and they lived in a world of technology much advanced than the technology in earth. Whether the above said things are true or not, is yet to be revealed by the passage of time. But for now, the talk of Mars is in progress these days, as India launches its first Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) named Mangalyaan to the mysterious planet of all times, Mars.

It is a matter of pride and excitement for the people of India to live in a country which has tried its level best to study more about the planet Mars and its other features. The launch of Mars Orbiter Mission from First Launch Pad at Sathish Dhawan Space centre (SHAR), Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh with the help of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket took place on the 5^th of November 2013 (Tuesday) at 2.38 IST. This is India’s first attempt to conduct a research on any other planet in the solar system. The total budget of the whole project is around RS 450 Crore. The main aim of Mangalyaan is to find the traces of life in the red planet.

44 minutes after the launch, Mangalyaan will remain in the Earth’s orbit until the 1^st of December. From then, it will take around 300 days for Mangalyaan to reach the 400 million km far orbit of the Red Planet While in the earth’s orbit; it will increase its orbit and reach mars. The spacecraft will be travelling to Mars by increasing its orbit to earth and will not be travelling directly to the planet. MOM will be reaching the orbit of Mars on the 24^th of September, 2014.

The budget of this project is Rs 450 crore, and compared to the Mars projects conducted by other major countries, this is considered as the lowest budget. It is a known fact that almost half of the Mars projects conduct all round the world has resulted in failure. This includes the projects started by Japan in the year 2003 and China in the year 2011. The countries that have succeeded in reaching the Mars orbit successfully are the United States of America, Europe and Russia.

If India has succeeded in its mission to Mars, ISRO will become the fourth space agency that reaches the Red planet, after the other major space agencies like NASA, ESA and Soviet Space Program. And this would definitely be a turning point to the country’s development in science and technology.

Though the main aim of MOM is to study in detail the atmosphere of Mars and the traces of life in the planet, this could be a great achievement that India has achieved in the field of Space research. According to Mr. K Radhakrishnan, the chairman of the ISRO, the 25^th flight of PSLV has been a totally new as well as complex mission, and the mission to shift MOM from earth’s orbit to that of the orbit of Mars is a real challenging one, since the project is planned with least energy.  Scientists are waiting patiently and anxiously to see the final results of the project, since the success of this project could bring out to the world a lot of secrets that circle around the Red Planet-Mars.

• About the Author

About Seema Shyam Stelzer

If you ask me whether writing is my passion, then I will fail to answer this question. Never in my life did I think that one day I will become a writer by profession. Yes, I did participate for writing competitions during my college days, and yes I did win a few too. But I did not plan to become a professional writer. It is true that whatever you receive is planned by the Almighty beforehand. And I believe Almighty had his own plans in turning my life towards a field I was totally unaware of. I came to the world of creative and content writing by chance. There was a period in my life when I felt I had something important waiting for me, when I quit my job for the sake of my family. As a mother of two, I had certain responsibilities towards my family and wanted to be available for them all the time and this was the time when I thought of using my writing skills some way or the other to earn a small income. Fortunately for me, I got the chance to work under some of the wonderful personalities of the field, who guided me the right way. These are the people who taught me how to become dedicated towards a particular work even when no one is there to watch you.