India vies to become fourth nation to reach Mars
NEW DELHI (AP) — India
is aiming to join the world's deep-space pioneers with a journey to Mars that
it hopes will showcase its technological ability to explore the solar system
while seeking solutions for everyday problems on Earth.
With a Tuesday launch planned
for Mangalyaan, which means "Mars craft" in Hindi, India will attempt
to become only the fourth country or group of countries to reach the Red
Planet, after the Soviet Union, United States and Europe.
"We have a lot to
understand about the universe, the solar system where we live in, and it has
been humankind's quest from the beginning," said K. Radhakrishnan,
chairman of the Indian Space and Research Organization.
India sees its Martian mission
primarily as a "technology demonstration," Radhakrishnan said.
"We want to use the first opportunity to put a spacecraft and orbit it
around Mars and, once it is there safely, then conduct a few meaningful
experiments and energize the scientific community."
Radhakrishnan admits the aim is
high. This is India's first Mars mission, and no country has been fully
successful on its first try. More than half the world's attempts to reach Mars
— 23 out of 40 missions — have failed, including missions by Japan in 1999 and
China in 2011.
If India can pull it off, it will
demonstrate a highly capable space program that belongs within an elite club of
governments exploring the universe.
Mangalyaan is scheduled to
blast off Tuesday from the Indian space center on the southeastern island of
Shriharikota, the start of a 300-day, 485 million-mile journey to orbit Mars
and survey its geology and atmosphere.
Five solar-powered instruments
aboard Mangalyaan will gather data to help determine how Martian weather
systems work and what happened to the water that is believed to have once
existed on Mars in large quantities. It also will search Mars for methane, a
key chemical in life processes on Earth that could also come from geological
processes. None of the instruments will send back enough data to answer these
questions definitively, but experts say the data are key to better
understanding how planets develop geologically, what conditions might make life
possible and where else in the universe it might exist.
Some of the data will
complement research expected to be conducted with a probe NASA will launch
later this month, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, nicknamed
MAVEN.
"We're pulling for
India," said Bruce Jakosky, project leader for the U.S. spacecraft.
"The more players we have in space exploration the better."
Radhakrishnan said that
although sending a spacecraft to Mars would bring India immense prestige,
"we are doing this for ourselves. The main thrust of space science in
India has always been people-centric, to benefit the common man and society."
India, as well known for its
endemic poverty and hunger as for its technological prowess, has used research
in space and elsewhere to help solve problems at home, from gauging water
levels in underground aquifers to predicting cataclysmic storms and floods.
India's $1 billion-a-year space
program has helped develop satellite, communication and remote
sensing technologies that are being used to measure coastal soil erosion,
assess the extent of remote flooding and manage forest cover for wildlife
sanctuaries. They are giving fishermen real-time data on where to find fish and
helping to predict natural disasters such as a cyclone that barreled into
India's eastern coast last month. Early warning information allowed Indian
officials to evacuate nearly a million people from the massive storm's path.
Indian scientists also have led
at least 30 research missions to Antarctica, despite being nearly 7,500 miles
from the icy continent. They are working to expand mineral mining in the deep
sea, designating that as a priority area for scientific research. And in
2008-09 the Indian Space and Research Organization successfully launched a
lunar orbiter, Chandrayaan-1, which discovered evidence of water on the Moon.
Its advances have helped raise
the international profile of the world's largest democracy of 1.2 billion
people. India is lobbying for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, a
move it says would better reflect new realities in a fast-changing world
needing more technological solutions.
Mangalyaan was developed from
technology tested during the recent lunar orbiter mission. An evolved version
of India's domestically developed Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, with extended
rockets, will take Mangalyaan into an elliptical arc around the Earth.
The satellite's thrusters will
then begin a series of six small fuel burns, moving it into higher orbit before
it slingshots toward the Red Planet.
The 1,350-kilogram
orbiter is expected to reach its designated orbit Sept. 24, 2014, and
will be joined above Mars by MAVEN.
"I know I'm an absolute
wreck with ours coming up in two weeks," Jakosky said. "... There are
10,000 things that need to go right in order for it to succeed, and it can take
only one thing going wrong for it to fail."
Mangalyaan is expected to have
at least six months to investigate the planet's landscape and atmosphere. At
its closest point it will be 227 miles from the planet's surface, and at its
furthest — 49,700 miles.
India's space enthusiasts say
the $73 million Martian mission will be a step toward understanding the natural
world, inspiring children to go into research science and advancing science and
technology in ways that help common people cope with a changing environment.
Learning more about alien weather systems, for example, might reveal more about
our own. Finding evidence for life on other planets might help scientists
discover new life forms in places on Earth previously thought inhospitable.
"To visit another planet
is a fantastic thing, the biggest thing," said space scientist Yash Pal, a
former chairman of the country's University Grants Commission who was not
involved in developing the Mars mission. "If you can afford airplanes and
war machines you can certainly spend something to fulfill the dreams of young
people."
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