Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Wednesday unveiled its Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) spacecraft, which is scheduled to be launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota between October 21 and November 19. The `450 crore MOM, as it has been officially named by ISRO, will be the space agency’s first interplanetary mission, and it will be launched by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-XL).
Scientists and engineers at the ISRO Satellite Centre, where the spacecraft has been built, said the MOM is the most challenging space mission ever undertaken by India so far. Apart from the fact that it will take about nine months for the space craft to reach the Red Planet after leaving the Earth’s orbit (if the satellite leaves the earth orbit in November 2013, it will reach Mars in September 2014), the scientists and engineers will have the arduous task to realise related deep space mission planning and communication management at a distance of nearly 400 million km.
India advances a step closer to the Red Planet DNA India
Students from India, Pak create space craft for Earth to Mars DNA India
Notwithstanding the chill in Indo-Pak ties, students from both the countries have come together in designing an innovative crew ship to travel from Earth to Mars and jointly compete with students from other countries at NASA.
Under the Sixteenth Annual International Space Settlement Design Competition, sponsored by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Boeing, school students from Lahore and Delhi have prepared a novel project on future of human civilisation in Mars.
The project on crew ship is to travel from Earth to Mars reflects an innovative idea of people of the Earth going to Mars by this space craft.
“You can go from Earth to Mars by a space craft. You can leave the space craft in the orbit between Earth and Mars and it will cross the orbit of Mars from where people can safely go to Mars,” said Sanaa Nusreid, a student from Lahore Grammar School.
As per the project, 8,800 people, including 2,300 crew members and 6,500 travellers, can go Mars in the space craft.