IS MANGALYAAN A WORTHWHILE MISSION?
On
5th November '13, India celebrated its Diwali by successfully launching the PSLV rocket C25 carrying the Mars Orbit Mission(MOM).
MOM which is labelled as Mangalyaan is surely huge a leap for ISRO(if successful) for becoming a future Space Power. If it achieves success, ISRO would join the Elite club of Roscosmos, NASA and ESA for successfully executing a Martian mission. If ISRO continues its success by also executing the Venus mission( May 2015) and ADITYA-1 for sun(2015-16) then who knows even future Bollywood Sci-fi movies will also feature ISRO dealing with Aliens speaking HINDI.
If this mission is successful and if MOM reaches Mars on 25th September, 2014, THEN India would be the first Asian country to do this after failed attempts by JAPAN(1998) and CHINA(2011).
Japan's craft suffered lack of fuel and the spacecraft was lost in space which under the circumstances as obvious. China's craft (Yinghuo-1,wierd names!!) was supposed to be destroyed by a fuel fire and it was also misplaced in space.
This yaan carries five scientific instruments for scientific experiment to indirectly also display India's scientific abilities in scientific field by scientific people (LOL).
THE LAUNCH SEQUENCE
The craft contains five scientific instruments for study of the MartianThe launch, on 5 November 2013, placed the Mars Orbiter Mission into Earth orbit. Six orbit raising operations will be conducted on November 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 16, by using the craft's on-board propulsion system, which is a derivative of the system used on India's communications satellites. These manoeuvres will raise the orbit to one with an apogee of 23,000 km (14,000 mi) and perigee of 238 km (148 mi),where it will remain for about 25 days. A final firing on 30 November 2013 will send MOM onto an interplanetary trajectory. Mars orbit insertion is planned for 21 September 2014,and would allow the spacecraft to enter a highly elliptical orbit with a period of 76.72 hours around Mars.ABOUT THE SPACECRAFT
The spacecraft's dry mass is 500 kilograms (1,100 lb), and it carries 850 kilograms (1,870 lb) of fuel and oxidiser. The main engine uses the bipropellant combination monomethylhydrazine an
dinitrogen tetroxide for orbit insertion and other manoeuvres. The probe is expected to arrive in Mars orbit in September 2014 approximately at the same time as NASA's MAVEN orbiter.
So the above was just some gyan regarding MOM, but that is not the focus for this article.
The primary objective of the Mars Orbiter Mission according to ISRO is to showcase India's rocket launch systems, spacecraft-building and operations capabilities. The objective include:
- Design and realisation of a Mars orbiter with a capability to perform Earth bound manoeuvres, cruise phase of 300 days, Mars orbit insertion / capture, and on-orbit phase around Mars.
- Deep space communication(really?), navigation, mission planning and management.
- Incorporate autonomous features to handle contingency situations.
I don't recognise these objectives as the primary reasons for these missions. There was a report released by NASA by its first successful orbiter that there is a certain amount of ice formed at the south-pole of Mars, so water is present on Mars!! Also it is believed that these fast-track project of 15 months to build this MO may have been stimulated by:
Some Sound waves emitted by Mars raising suspicions about LIFE over there. Yes, I believe that life can be present over there. Even some of the photographs sent by the "CURIOSITY" rover of NASA show similar light spots mainly believed to be UFO's. NDTV India broadcasted one show on which one scientist said that though not presently but life may have lived there in though not an intelligent one.
When I was in 8th grade, the first lesson in my science book was "L-1 OUR UNIVERSE". In that lesson there was a statement saying that there is a possibility that bacteria are present in space.
So what I feel is that if bacteria can live in space without any atmosphere, biosphere and stable temperature then they can easily live on Mars.
This photo is an imaginary Mars some hundred or
thousand years ago.
Also, as we know that bacteria need the least possible condition to survive then they can be present on any planet, asteroid, meteor and even SUN!!!
Even now some believed after 45 years that NASA sent Neil Armstrong to Lunar surface to examine a crashed spacecraft of an Alien life-form!!!! The tragedy is that no-one would believe it after watching Michael Bay's awful Transformers 3.
So these were my conclusions on what can be the reason of ISRO's hurried announcement, rapid production ad immediate execution.
So, is this project worthwhile??
Now let us ponder on these facts
- 0.35% of GDP used for space research and enhancement.
- 8% of this money spent in Mangalyaan.
- INR 4.5 billion is the total cost
- Mangalyaan costs each citizen of India approximately INR 3.6.
- If a person earns INR 27/day, he/she is on the poverty line.
Why do I consider this project worthwhile?
- It is important to show the world that India is more like spectrometer on Mars' circle like orbit and not like cows on the circle like CHOWK.
- It is even more important to convey NASA, CNSA, ESA and ROSCOSMOS that ISRO has the ability and will become a SPACE super power.
- The attempts of NASA and ESA to increase their tie-ups with ISRO as it can achieve big goals with least cost possible. INDIANS!
- I can state to any FIRANGI that my country will soon be no less then yours probably more in SPACE science.
- From 5 to 7 are the points given in the primary objectives of ISRO above.
The only reason why this can't be worthwhile is that, if it fails to reach the orbit, then INR 4.5 billion rupees would be squandered and all this buzz would terminate for nothing. It would be extremely tragic for the ISRO scientists to start from a scratch.
All I can say is that ISRO has successfully launched Magalyaan and if it performs its total duty of 20 months, then "ISRO ka sub kuchh MANGAL MANGAL hua".
