ISRO in active mode for Mars mission

BANGALORE: India has
completed a signifi cant
amount of work on next
year’s planned Mars mission
for which scientifi c
payloads have been shortlisted,
with formal government
approval for the ambitious
venture expected
soon.
Bangalore-headquartered
ISRO is planning to undertake
the mission to the planet
Mars during November
2013. The project report for
Indian Mars orbiter mission
has been submitted for approval
of Government. The
mission envisages launching
an orbiter around Mars
using Polar Satellite Launch
Vehicle (PSLV-XL). The
orbiter will be placed in an
orbit of 500 x 80,000 km
around Mars and will have a
provision for carrying nearly
25 kg of scientifi c payloads
on-board.
“The tentative scientifi c
objective for the Mars mission
will be to focus on life,
climate, geology, origin,
evolution and sustainability
of life on the planet,” according
to an offi cial ISRO
report. Scientifi c payloads
have been short-listed by
the ISRO?s Advisory Committee
for Space Sciences
(ADCOS) review committee.
Baseline, solar array and
refl ector confi guration of the
satellite have been fi nalised.
Frequency fi ling for communication
subsystem is under
progress, the space agency
said in its just uploaded
2011-12 annual report.
Meanwhile, ISRO has
signed a MoU with Indian
Institute of Astrophysics
for development and delivery
of solar coronagraph
payload for its ADITYA-1
project, while mechanical
confi guration of the satellite
is in progress. This project
will be the fi rst Indian space
based solar coronagraph,
which will be available for
solar coronal observation to
all the Indian researchers in
the fi eld of Solar Astronomy.
ADITYA-1 is the fi rst
space based Solar Coronagraph
intended to study the
outermost region of the sun
called Corona. ADITYA-1
in the visible and near IR
bands will study the Coronal
Mass Ejection (CME)
such as the coronal magnetic
fi eld structures and evolution
of coronal magnetic
fi eld and consequently the
crucial physical parameters
for space weather.
The major scientifi c objective
of the ADITYA-1 is
to achieve a fundamental
understanding of the physical
processes that heat the
solar corona (base to the extended),
accelerate the solar
wind and produce CMEs.
ISRO said preliminary design
of the optical systems
of ADITYA-1 has been
fi nalised and design document
generated; “Trade-off
studies on the selection of detector system have been
completed and the list of
subsystem packages along
with power and mass budget
generated,” it said. ISRO
has also planned SENSE,
a twin satellite mission to
probe the electromagnetic
environment of the Earth’s
near space region. It is proposed
to launch two small
satellites in a low earth orbit
of around 500 km, for space
weather related studies.
SENSE is part of ISRO’s
Small Satellites Programme,
recommended by ISRO’s
ADCOS. SENSE aims to
unravel the roles played by
major large-scale drivers in
determining the state of the
Ionosphere-Thermosphere
system and the weather of
the near space environment
at low latitudes. ISRO
said engineering models of
the electric and magnetic
fi eld probes chosen for the
SENSE mission have already
been tested and their
frequency responses studied.