First Time Ever Two Civilian Ships To Help India's Mars Spacecraft

BANGALORE: For the first time in the history of India's space flights, two civilian ships will play a supporting role in India's forthcoming flight to Mars designated as the Mars Orbiter Mission.

The launch is slated for lift-off between October 21 and November 19 from Sriharikota.

On Wednesday, the 1,350 kg Mars Orbiter spacecraft with the five payloads was unveiled to the media for the first time at Isro's Satellite Centre. It was in the process of being fine-tuned and the clean room was the scene of hectic activity with scientists clad in their white robes attending to the orbiter.

The orbiter is set to be moved to Sriharikota on September 27. Speaking to TOI on Wednesday, B S Chandrasekhar, director of Isro Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network ( Istrac), said that Shipping Corporation of India's 'Yamuna' and 'Nalanda' ships will be positioned in the South Pacific Ocean. "They are now fully equipped and will depart for the South Pacific Ocean from Visakhapatnam on September 15 and will support the mission during the launch phase,'' he said.

He said that in a previous flight—the space capsule recovery experiment mission — a naval ship was used. "This is the first time we are using a civilian ship for a major interplanetary mission,'' he added.

Chandrasekhar said that the current plans project that the 70-metre antenna of Nasa's deep space network at Canberra in Australia will acquire the first signal of the crucial Mars orbiter insertion in September 2014 after a nearly 300-day flight.

A liquid apogee motor will play a major role in the orbit insertion. "This motor has a major part in orbital manoeuvres and has to restart for the insertion after a 300-day flight,'' an Isro official said.

SK Shivakumar, director of Isro Satellite Centre, said progress in the Indian Mars programme has been satisfactory. "We were able to achieve because we were able to regroup ourselves,'' he said.

Mylswamy Annadurai, programme director, said the mission will mark a quantum jump in technology. It posed a major challenge because globally the success rate of Mars missions was not even 30%, he said. Lessons learnt from the Chandrayaan mission have been embedded into the Mars mission. "The powering system of the spacecraft has been changed,'' he said.

S Arunan, project director, said that the mission had incorporated a number of redundant systems to ensure a successful Mars capture of the spacecraft. "The on-board autonomy called for the development of 68 new software modules,'' he said, adding that they have concentrated on those areas where foreign Mars missions had failed.

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- Unknown Updated at: Thursday, September 12, 2013