India has placed its first Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) into position, preparing the vehicle to study the surface and atmosphere of the Red Planet.
Mangalyaan, the popular name for the spacecraft, arrived in orbit on Sept. 24, after a journey of 422 million miles, taking 300 days to complete.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the nation's official agency for extraterrestrial study, designed and manages the mission.
The Mangalyaan mission cost the government of India $74 million dollars, just 11 percent of the cost of the newest American probe to Mars called Maven. This price is just three-quarters of the amount of money spent filming the 2013 space adventure movie Gravity.
Engines on board the Mangalyaan spacecraft were fired to slow the craft enough to fall into orbit around the planet. These included the main Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM), which delivers just 100 pounds of force, in addition to eight smaller engines. The maneuver occurred while the vehicle was behind Mars, as seen from Earth. Until the orbiter came out from behind the Red Planet, mission planners were uncertain if the insertion had been a success. A test firing of the main engine on Sept. 22 was successful, showing mission planners the motor was still viable after its long flight.
"The Spacecraft is now circling Mars in an orbit whose nearest point to Mars (periapsis) is at [262 miles] and farthest point (apoapsis) at [47,800 miles]," ISRO officials stated in a press release announcing the successful orbital insertion.
India has now become only the fourth government organization to send a spacecraft to Mars. Vehicles have historically arrived at the Red Planet from the United States, Russia, and the European Union. The country also became the first Asian nation to reach Mars, beating out China.
Methane, one of the critical ingredients for life on Earth, will be a target for study by the Indian spacecraft.
Mangalyaan is equipped with a suite of five scientific instruments to investigate the Red Planet. These include the Lyman-Alpha Photometer (LAP), which will study the atmosphere of Mars for chemical signs of water lost to space, as well as a methane sensor. The atmosphere will also be examined by the Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA). The Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (TIS) will measure emissions of heat from the surface, while the Mars Colour Camera (MCC) takes photographs.
The popular name Mangalyaan is derived from the Sanskrit words Mangal, meaning Mars, and Yana, which translates as "craft."
Mars missions have a track record of failure throughout the history of robotic exploration of the planet. The U.S. and the Soviet Union each failed in their first journeys to the Red Planet. The Yinghuo-1 spacecraft from China failed in 2011, and the Nozomi vehicle from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency ran out of fuel on its way to the planet.
