Mangalyaan, India's first probe to Mars, launched

Very brief official announcement. Official name: "Mars Orbiter Mission Spacecraft". But local media has been calling it "Mangalyaan".

On to its nearly a year long journey - scheduled to go in orbit around Mars on 24 September 2014. Is currently in orbit around earth; will actually leave earth's orbit on 30 November 2013.

Incidentally, today is Tuesday - Mangalwaar in Hindi, literally "Mars day".

In addition to half a dozen Indian communications facilities - on land & on ships in the South Pacific, the "American NASA/JPL is providing communications and navigation support".

Cost: Rs 450 cr. US $72m at current exchange rate. It would really have been about $100m but for the free fall of rupee during the last couple of months.

Other perspectives on cost:

1. "Rs 12 per km, equivalent to Auto fare"! It's actually Rs 450 cr/780m km = Rs 5.77/km; that would be may be half the rickshaw fare in Bombay. That's ignoring the cost of the spaceship, just transport would be cheaper.
2. "Gravity movie cost 600 Cr and Mangalyaan ... is 450 Cr."
3. "in $ terms,entire ISRO #MarsMission cost less than the Commonwealth Games 2010 opening ceremony"
4. "2G Scam : Rs.176,000 crores | Mangalyaan Rs. 450 crores".

Here are some official pictures of the spacecraft wrapped in golden colored film.

ISRO has posted a beautiful annotated schematic image of the planned spacecraft trajectory - from launch to capture by Mars.

It's a significantly cut down version of the original planned craft, with a lot of instruments dumped. Because the big-lift rocket is still in the works.

There is a sobering history of Mars launches, however. Both US & USSR had a lot of failures before reaching there, Japan & China have both tried & failed so far. And average international success rate so far has been less than 50%. "No other space agency has been fully successful with first attempts at similar programs." I'll wish ISRO all the best, but wait a year before celebrating - till it actually enters the Mars orbit.

There was a story in Indian Express about the project time till launch: 15 months when the NASA & ESA norm is 2-2.5 times as much. I wonder if politics played a role in compressing the project time: with elections due next year, Congress gets to claim the credit for launch?

"Mars Orbiter Mission carries five scientific payloads to observe Martian surface, atmosphere and exosphere extending up to 80,000 km for a detailed understanding of the evolution of that planet, especially the related geologic and the possible biogenic processes on that interesting planet. These payloads consist of a camera, two spectrometers, a radiometer and a photometer. ... MCC [Mars Color Camera] will also be used for probing the two satellites of Mars-Phobos & Deimos."

And can the jokes be far behind:

1. 'Meanwhile an astrologer on Mars: "Aapke bete par dharti ki dasha chal rahi hai."'
2. "Rajnikant lit a Diwali rocket yesterday. Today they're started calling it #Mangalyaan".
3. "The Biggest Rocket this Diwali Season".
4. A very funny illustration of the exterior of the rocket. Caution: Jokes are very Indian & might easily escape others.

Related: Fiction set on Mars, Phobos, Deimos.

Real science: First terrans to blast off for Mars later this year!!!

Microbes, not humans. Intend to do a round trip - travel to Mars system but not land there, then return safely back to earth!

Leonard David's "Earth Life Headed for Mars Moon" at SPACE.com on Russia's "Phobos-Grunt" Mars mission - due October 2009 launch, & scheduled to arrive at Mars in August 2010. Ship will eventually return back to earth! Among the multiple payloads are 3 mentioned in the article:

1. A landing on Phobos to pick up local samples, & to return them to earth.
2. Deploy 'a Chinese sub-satellite -Yinghuo-1 meaning "Firefly-1" - that will gauge the Martian past in terms of how surface water on the red planet did a disappearing act.'
3. Test if living things can travel from earth to Mars, & return back alive. Small microbes will be passengers - specifics yet to be concluded, but '"a natural soil colony of microbes" will be included.'

There is much discussion in the article on possibility of "contaminating" Mars with earth life, & a single argument on why such contamination is a bad idea ("thus confusing future searches for life on Mars").

PS: I have an Arthur Clarke story of cross-planet bacterial contamination horror lined up for posting; should appear during the coming week.

Related: Stories set on Mars; on Phobos.

[via Futurismic]

* Arthur Clarke's "The Sands of Mars" (novel)

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* Arthur Clarke's "Hide-and-Seek" (short story)

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