Tirunelveli to Mars
Sep 24th, 2014 a milestone of our India’s space research organization, our spacecraft Mars orbiter (MOM) entered the Mars Orbit.
Some may think United States NASA has did this already in 1965 & is it really a achievement to do this now ? For them, Yes, this is our great & unique achievement.
The biggest achievement of ISRO is making the spacecraft with self-thinking brain. Mars orbiter can think & act on its own.
Our Satellite has travelled 680 million kms for about 300 days. Driving in proper route in space is interesting, as we know in space every thing around will look same. To stay on correct path, MOM used the star-gazer to look at positions of six to 10 stars for every microsecond and compare them with its preloaded patterns. Distant stars will be preferred as they are relatively stationary. By continuously matching the patterns, MOM determined its position & direction on its own. Even by travelling at a speed of more than 82,000 kmph, it never lost the direction.
While in travel, MOM automatically controls its temperature, position its antenna constantly towards earth for communication and its solar panels towards the sun to generate power. All these are done without any major input from earth. Scientists call it autonomy.
To enter Mars orbit, our scientists from ISRO in Bangalore stored commands in MOM’s brain 10 days in advance and Mars orbiter executed it perfectly.
This is just a start for future flying satellites. “Like migratory birds, satellites with autonomy can orbit Earth, look at the same things from different angles or look at different things and correlate data,“ says T.K.Alex Indian Space Commission member. ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan says this project is 80% technology demonstration. Our ISRO has demonstrated the technology of autonomy in style to the universe.
Another information to feel us proud is, the Project Director of this mission is Mr.Subbiah Arunan, from Tirunelveli. It again proves our soil, water & air are filled with talent molecules. We are born in this land to achieve some thing. If we have the confident, we will & can travel to any height!!
Mr. Subbiah Arunan, Project Director of MOM. He likes MGR & James Bond movies !!
Mars Orbiter Spacecraft captures its first image of Mars. Taken from a height of 7300 km; with 376 m spatial resolution
First image of the Earth by Mars Color Camera(MCC) of Mars orbiter spacecraft taken on Nov 19,2013 at 13:50 hrs (IST) from 67975 km altitude.
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