Mars mission may get govt nod today
NEW DELHI: India is all set to launch its ambitious mission to Mars in October-November next year as the Union Cabinet is likely to clear the project on Thursday seen as the first step towards exploring the Red planet.
The mission envisages launching an orbiter spacecraft of 1,350 kg mass around Mars using advanced version of highly proven four-stage Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-XL) during October-November, 2013.
The orbiter spacecraft will be placed in an elliptical orbit of 500 x 80,000 km around Mars by September, 2014, after a voyage of 300 days from Earth's orbit and will have a provision to carry nearly 25 kg of scientific payloads on-board.
A senior official said, "The mission will be launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh in November 2013." "The project which is estimated to cost around Rs 450 crore will involve huge manpower of around 185 scientists, engineers and technicians," the official said, adding that the mission will establish India's global technological capabilities.
Indian Space Research Organization ( Isro)'s Mars project got a big boost when it received a budgetary allocation of Rs 125 crore for its launch in the current fiscal. Sources said, the mission cleared by the Space Commission last December entails sending a 25 kg payload onboard the satellite that will orbit the red planet to carry out experiments to learn more about the surface and atmosphere of Earth's closest planet in the solar system.
A significant amount of work on the planned Mars Mission has been completed and scientific payloads have been short-listed. The official said the tentative scientific objective for the Mars mission would be to focus on life, climate, geology, origin, evolution and sustainability of life on the planet.