This Article is From Nov 05, 2013

'It's lift off': 10-point cheatsheet on Mission to Mars

PSLV carrying Mangalyaan, India's satellite to Mars, blasts off from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh

Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh: India's first mission to Mars blasted off this afternoon from the Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh. At 450 crores, the budget is one-sixth of what NASA is spending on a Mars probe to be launched in 13 days.

Here is your 10-point cheat-sheet to this story:

  1. "It's lift off," said commentators on television as the red-and-black rocket launched into a slightly overcast sky on schedule at 2:38pm from the southern spaceport in Sriharikota. (Read) | (First pics)

  2. India has never before attempted inter-planetary travel and more than half of all missions to Mars have ended in failure, including China's in 2011 and Japan's in 2003.

  3. The 350-tonne launch vehicle carrying an unmanned probe was monitored by dozens of scientists in the control room who face their most daunting task since India began its space programme in 1963.

  4. The Mars Orbiter Mission, known as "Mangalyaan", was announced only 15 months ago by the Prime Minister, shortly after China's attempt flopped when it failed to leave Earth's atmosphere.

  5. 44 minutes after the blast-off, the satellite separated from the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle or PSLV, which took the Mangalyaan into an elliptical arc around the Earth. The satellite's thrusters will now begin a series of six small fuel burns, moving it into higher orbit before it slingshots toward the Red Planet. (Live blog)

  6. It has a formidable itinerary: a 300-day, 780-million-kilometre (485 million-mile) journey to orbit Mars and survey its geology and atmosphere. The satellite will enter the Mars orbit in September 2014. (Read)

  7. India is aiming to become only the fourth country or group of countries to reach the Red Planet, after the Soviet Union, United States and Europe.

  8. At its closest point, it will be 365 kilometres (227 miles) from the planet's surface, and at its furthest - 80,000 kilometres (49,700 miles).

  9. 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.

  10. Mangalyaan will also search Mars for methane, a key chemical in life processes on Earth that could also come from geological processes.



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