ISRO GSLV III Unmanned crew module - Launch in December 2014

India will launch an unmanned crew module in December onboard a heavy rocket to test its re-entry into the atmosphere for the country's future maiden human space flight, the space agency chief said Thursday.

"We will send an unmanned crew module on the experimental GSLV-Mark III rocket in December and test its re-entry into the earth's atmosphere for a human space flight plan in future," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K. Radhakrishnan told reporters here on the margins of an engineers conclave.

Weighing 3.6 tonnes, the crew module will be put into space orbit 100-120 km away in a satellite and brought back to earth for checking its re-entry characteristics when carrying two Indian astronauts in the proposed human space flight.

"Though the actual human space flight will be in an orbit around earth at a height of 270 km for a week, the experimental flight with the crew module in a spacecraft will go up to 100-120 km above earth to test its heat shield survive very high temperatures (about 1, 500 degrees Celsius) during the re-entry into the atmosphere," Radhakrishnan noted.

The crew module will have a parachute that will open up after re-entry into the atmosphere and fall into sea for retrieval.

"The parachute will open up for soft landing of the spacecraft carrying the crew module in the Bay of Bengal, about 450 km away from Andamans (islands), and will be retrieved by a boat," Radhakrishnan said.

The previous UPA government had sanctioned Rs.145 crore to ISRO for developing a crew module that will fly two Indian astronauts into space, space suits, life support systems and related technologies for the human space flight programme.

The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III (GSLV) heavy rocket will, however, have a passive cryogenic stage - liquid nitrogen at super cooled temperature and gaseous nitrogen instead of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.

The space agency is integrating the rocket with the crew module at its Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh, about 90 km northeast of Chennai.

ISRO’s Mars Orbiter: Olympus Mons, Tharsis Bulge and Valles Marineris trio of volcanoes

Olympus Mons, Tharsis Bulge trio of volcanoes, and Valles Marineris from ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission. 

Note the clouds and south polar ice cap. 

Credit: ISRO

India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) has delivered another sweet treat – a stunning view of our Solar System's largest volcano and the largest canyon.

Just days ago, MOM captured a new global image of the Red Planet dominated by Olympus Mons and Valles Marineris, which is the largest known volcano and the largest known canyon in the Solar System, respectively.

Situated right in between lies a vast volcanic plateau holding a trio of huge volcanoes comprising the Tharsis Bulge: Arsia Mons, Pavonis Mons, and Ascraeus Mons. All three are shield volcanoes.

To give an idea of its enormity, Olympus Mons stands about three times taller than Mount Everest and is about the size of Arizona.

Olympus Mons is located in Mars' western hemisphere and measures 624 kilometers (374 miles) in diameter, 25 km (16 mi) high, and is rimmed by a 6 km (4 mi) high scarp.

Valles Marineris is often called the "Grand Canyon of Mars." It spans about as wide as the entire United States.

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), India's space agency which designed and developed the orbiter released the image on Oct. 17, barely two days ahead of the planet's and spacecrafts' extremely close encounter with comet Siding Spring.

Olympus Mons from Mars orbit compared to the state of Arizona. 

Credit: NASA

By the way, a relieved ISRO tweeted MOM's survival of her close shave with the once-in-a-lifetime cometary passage with gusto, soon after the swingby:
"Phew! Experience of a lifetime. Watched the #MarsComet #SidingSpring whizzing past the planet. I'm in my orbit, safe and sound."

The new global image was taken by the tri-color camera as MOM swooped around the Red Planet in a highly elliptical orbit whose nearest point to Mars (periapsis) is at 421.7 km and farthest point (apoapsis) at 76,993.6 km, according to ISRO.

To date ISRO has released four global images of the Red Planet, including a 3-D view.

Olympus Mons, the Tharsis Bulge, and Valles Marineris are near the equator.

Valles Marineris stretches over 4,000 km (2,500 mi) across the Red Planet, is as much as 600 km wide, and measures as much as 7 kilometers (4 mi) deep.

Global Mosaic of Mars Centered on Valles Marineris from NASA’s Viking 1 orbiter. 

Credit: NASA

Here's a comparison view of the region taken by NASA's Viking 1 orbiter in the 1970s.

MOM is India's first deep space voyager to explore beyond the confines of her home planet's influence and successfully arrived at the Red Planet only one month ago after the "history creating" orbital insertion maneuver on Sept. 23/24 following a ten month journey.

The $73 million MOM mission is expected to last at least six months.

ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission captures spectacular portrait of the Red Planet and swirling dust storms with the on-board Mars Color Camera from an altitude of 74,500 km on Sept. 28, 2014. 

Credit: ISRO

MOM's success follows closely on the heels of NASA's MAVEN orbiter which also successfully achieved orbit barely two days earlier on Sept. 21 and could last 10 years or more.

With MOM's arrival, India became the newest member of an elite club of only four entities that have launched probes that successfully investigated Mars, following the Soviet Union, the United States, and the European Space Agency (ESA).

ISRO Launch India's Third Navigation Satellite IRNSS 1C

The IRNSS constellation with the daily lemniscate projection of the 4 GSO spacecraft onto Earth 

Credit: ISRO

India's third navigation satellite IRNSS 1C was launched on October 16 from Sriharikota spaceport in coastal Andhra Pradesh, space agency ISRO announced.

"Congrats to the scientists at ISRO for the successful launch of navigation satellite IRNSS 1C. It is a matter of immense pride and joy," the Prime Minister said in a statement.

"The 1,425kg navigation satellite (IRNSS-1C) launched October 16 at 1.32am IST onboard a polar rocket (PSLV-C26) from Satish Dhawan space centre at Sriharikota," said an Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) statement. Sriharikota is about 100km northeast of Chennai.

The satellite, which was scheduled for launch Oct 10 but the launch put off by a week due to a glitch in the telemetry system, is part of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) that will have a constellation of seven satellites to provide accurate positioning service for terrestrial, aerial and maritime navigation in 1,500 km area in the Indian peninsula.

The second navigation satellite (IRNSS-1B) was launched April 4 this year from the spaceport.

The Indian system will be similar to the US Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia's Glonass and Europe's Galileo constellation of navigation satellites.

India Seeking Outside Collaboration on High-throughput Satellite

“We are looking for international cooperation in this area,” ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan said. 

Credit: Photo courtesy of Indian government

The Indian government wants a high-throughput satellite generating at least 100 gigabits-per-second in orbit within five years and is seeking international partners in its development, ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan said.

If pursued, the project would mark a rare opportunity for foreign suppliers to crack India’s mainly closed satellite telecommunications market, which in any case has shown signs of opening in the past year.

“We are looking for international cooperation in this area,” ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan said in an address to the 65th International Astronautical Congress in Toronto (IAC 2014).

ISRO, with collaboration from domestic companies, builds its own satellites and operates them for its own account, and then acts as India’s telecommunications regulator with respect to pricing and market access by non-Indian satellite fleet operators.

International collaboration on Satellite Communications Systems is a normal part of the Space Industry and provides the most cost effective solution for countries.

Rapid technological advancements and the provision of advanced communications would be readily supported and used to great advantage by India's technologically astute corporations.

For India, the question will be whether to adopt a satellite broadband model such as in the United States, where Hughes Network Systems and ViaSat Inc. own their own satellites, build consumer broadband terminals and sell the service; or to purchase competing technologies.

Maryland-based Hughes Communications, owned by EchoStar Corp., Colorado, has long targeted India as a market ripe for consumer broadband.

The Hughes Comms' SPACEWAY 3 satellite, built by Boeing Satellite Systems International, Inc., was successfully launched on August 14, 2007 by Arianespace and is in its permanent geosynchronous orbital slot of 95° West longitude. 

Credit: Hughes Comms

Hughes has recently purchased Ka-band capacity on a satellite being built for fleet operator Eutelsat of Paris for a consumer broadband project in Brazil.

ISRO's MOM and ESA's Rosetta: Global 3-D Mars image

Mars 3-D anaglyph (color) taken by ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft during Mars flyby on 24 February 2007 from a distance of about 240,000 km. 

Image resolution is about 5 km. 

Credit: MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS /UPD /LAM / IAA/ RSSD/ INTA/ UPM/ DASP/ IDA

Here's another breathtakingly glorious view from India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), her first global 3-D portrait of her new home careening around the Red Planet.

MOM is India's first deep space voyager to explore beyond the confines of her home planet's influence and just successfully arrived at the Red Planet after the "history creating" orbital insertion maneuver on Sept. 23/24 following a ten month journey.

This newly released 3-D view from MOM expands upon the initial 2-D global color view of Mars released by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), India's space agency.

The 3-D image was generated from multiple pictures acquired by MOM's on-board Mars Colour Camera on Sept 28, 2014, from the very high altitude of approximately 74,500 kilometers as the spacecraft orbits Mars.

The images were taken by the tri-colour camera as MOM swooped around the Red Planet in a highly elliptical orbit whose nearest point to Mars (periapsis) is at 421.7 km and farthest point (apoapsis) at 76,993.6 km, according to ISRO.

Therefore, the 3-D Red Planet portrait was captured nearly at apoapsis, and being three dimensional, it gives a stereo sense of the huge dust storm swirling over a large swath of the planet's Northern Hemisphere set against the blackness of space.

Below right is the southern polar ice cap. To see the 3-D effect, whip out your handy pair of left-eye red, right-eye blue colour anaglyph glasses.

Mars 3-D anaglyph (black & white) taken by ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft during Mars flyby on 24 February 2007 from a distance of about 240,000 km. Image resolution is about 5 km. 

Credit: MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS /UPD /LAM / IAA/ RSSD/ INTA/ UPM/ DASP/ IDA

It's also worth noting that another of humanity's ground breaking probes currently making news, ESA's comet hunting Rosetta probe, likewise snapped a glorious 3-D view of Mars way back in 2007, during the brief, but critical, gravity assist slingshot maneuver that flung Rosetta along her vast 10 year path through interplanetary space.

So by way of comparison let's take a trip down memory lane and be sure to look back at Rosetta's global 3-D Martian views (below) taken by the high resolution OSIRIS camera on 24 February 2007 at 19:28 CET from a distance of about 240,000 kilometers.

India's Mangalyaan spacecraft shows active dust storms on Mars

This spectacular view of Mars from India's Mangalyaan spacecraft shows active dust storms in the Red Planet's northern hemisphere. 

This photo was released on Sept. 29, 2014, less than a week after the Indian Mars orbiter arrived at the planet. 

Credit: Indian Space Research Organisation

India's first spacecraft to visit Mars has beamed home its greatest photo of the Red Planet yet, a view that reveals the planet from pole to pole.

The new photo of Mars from India's Mangalyaan probe was unveiled today (Sept. 29) by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

It shows Mars as a red globe in space, with the planet's southern ice cap clearly visible, while a huge dust storm blankets part of the northern region.

"Something's brewing here!" ISRO officials wrote in a Twitter post for the Mars orbiter.

ISRO Mangalyaan spacecraft

The Mangalyaan spacecraft used its Mars Colour Camera to capture the amazing photo from a distance of 46,292 miles (74,500 kilometers) above the Red Planet on Sunday (Sept. 28), according to an ISRO photo description.

It is the third and best view of Mars from Mangalyaan since the spacecraft arrived in orbit around the planet last week.

The Mars Colour Camera is one of five different instruments riding aboard Mangalyaan to study Mars from orbit.

Mangalyaan (the name is Sanskrit for "Mars Craft") is the centerpiece of India's $74 million Mars Orbiter Mission, which launched toward the Red Planet in November 2013 and arrived in orbit on Sept. 24 of this year.

ISRO MoM: MOM eyes the limb of Mars

ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission captures the limb of Mars with the Mars Colour Camera from an altitude of 8449 km soon after achieving orbit on Sept. 23/24, 2014 . 

Credit: ISRO

India's maiden interplanetary voyager, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) has transmitted a breathtaking new image eyeing the limb of Mars and its atmosphere against the blackness of space.

The beautiful Martian image is only MOM's second since successfully braking into orbit during the 'history creating' insertion maneuver days ago on Sept. 23/24.

The MOM orbiter was designed and developed by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO),

India's space agency, which released the image on Sept 25, about a day after MOM arrived.

The limb image was taken using MOM's Mars Colour Camera (MCC) from an altitude of 8449 kilometers and shows more of an 'Orange Planet' rather than a 'Red Planet.'

"A shot of Martian atmosphere. I'm getting better at it. No pressure," tweeted ISRO at MOM's newly established twitter account after entering orbit.

The image has a spatial resolution of 439 meters and is centered around Lat: 20.01N and Lon:31.54E.

MOM's goal is to study Mars atmosphere , surface environments, morphology, and mineralogy with a 15 kg (33 lb) suite of five indigenously built science instruments.

It will also sniff for methane, a potential marker for biological activity.

"The view is nice up here," ISRO tweeted.

Namira Salim, Pakistan explorer commends ISRO on Mars Orbiter success

Namira Salim, a Pakistani explorer expected to become her country's first person in space congratulated India on Thursday on reaching Mars on its maiden attempt.

India won the Asian space race to the Red Planet on Wednesday when its unmanned Mangalyaan successfully entered the Red Planet's orbit after a 10-month journey on a budget of just $74 million.

Despite having a space program since 1961 Pakistan has not yet launched a satellite into orbit.

But Namira Salim, the first Pakistani explorer to reach both poles said India's achievement had made the region proud.

"The success of the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), Mangalyaan, is a giant leap for South Asia," said Salim, who has booked a ticket on UK hedonist Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic space project planned for 2015.

"I commend the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and all its scientists and researchers for not only achieving this astronomical feat, but also for achieving it in the most cost-effective manner."

Pakistan has not yet officially congratulated India. The neighbours have fought three wars, two of them over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Relations between the two countries have taken a turn for the worse after Pakistan's top envoy met Kashmiri separatist leaders in August, with India responding by calling off talks between the countries' foreign secretaries.

ISRO MoM: First images of Mars transmitted - Update

One of the first images taken by the ISRO Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft, released on September 25, 2014, shows the surface of Mars seen from a height of 7,300m.

Credit: ISRO

India's spacecraft has beamed back its first photos of Mars, showing its crater-marked surface, as the country glowed with pride Thursday after winning Asia's race to the Red Planet.

ISRO Scientists present a print of MoM's first image of Mars to India's PM Narendra Modi.

Credit: ISRO, Hindustan Times

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) uploaded one of the photos onto its Facebook page, showing an orange surface and dark holes, taken from a height of 7.3 kilometres (4.5 miles).

ISRO also posted the photo on Twitter, with the caption "The view is nice up here."

A senior ISRO official told reporters several photos have been successfully received, while a spokesman for the government agency said the spacecraft was working well.

India became the first Asian country to reach Mars on Wednesday when its unmanned Mangalyaan spacecraft entered the orbit after a 10-month journey on a shoestring budget.

The mission, which is designed to search for evidence of life on the planet, is a huge source of national pride for India as it competes with Asian rivals for success in space.

India's first Mars orbiter Mangalyaan captured this photo of the Martian atmosphere just after arriving at Mars on Sept. 24, 2014 Indian Standard Time. 

The Indian Space Research Organisation released the image on Sept. 25.

Credit: Indian Space Research Organisation

India beat rival neighbour China, whose first attempt flopped in 2011 despite the Asian superpower pouring billions of dollars into its programme.

At just $74 million, India's mission cost is less than the estimated $100 million budget of the sci-fi blockbuster "Gravity".

It also represents just a fraction of the cost of NASA's $671 million MAVEN spacecraft, which successfully began orbiting the fourth planet from the sun on Sunday.

The true test of success will come from the quality, value and extent of the scientific data collected by both spacecraft and their ability to advance our understanding of Mars and our Solar System.

An Indian Space Research Organisation official uses a scale model of the Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft to explain how parts of the orbiter works, at the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network in Bangalore on September 15, 2014

Credit: ISRO

India now joins an elite club of the United States, Russia and Europe who can boast of reaching Mars.

More than half of all missions to the planet have ended in failure.

This photo of Earth was the first photo from India's Mars Orbiter Mission and captured on Nov. 19, 2013. It shows India and the surrounding region from Earth orbit.

Credit: ISRO

The mission's success received front-page coverage in Indian newspapers on Thursday, with the Hindustan Times declaring "MARTIAN RACE WON" and the Times of India saying "India enters super exclusive Mars club."

Indians, from government ministers to office workers and cricketers poured onto Twitter to show their national pride, while school students celebrated by eating traditional Indian sweets.

ISRO: India's Mars Orbiter successfully inserted into orbit around MARS

TV Screens show Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeting Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientists and other officials after the success of Mars Orbiter Mission at their Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network complex in Bangalore, India, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2014. 

India triumphed in its first interplanetary mission, placing a satellite into orbit around Mars on Wednesday morning and catapulting the country into an elite club of deep-space explorers. 

Credit: AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi

India triumphed in its first interplanetary mission, placing a satellite into orbit around Mars on Wednesday morning and catapulting the country into an elite club of deep-space explorers.

Scientists broke into wild cheers as the orbiter's engines completed 24 minutes of burn time to maneuver the spacecraft into its designated place around the red planet.

"We have gone beyond the boundaries of human enterprise and innovation," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, standing alongside scientists with the Indian Space and Research Organisation (ISRO) at the command center in the southern tech hub of Bangalore.

"We have navigated our craft through a route known to very few," Modi said, congratulating the scientists and "all my fellow Indians on this historic occasion."

Scientists described the final stages of the Mars Orbiter Mission, affectionately nicknamed MOM, as flawless.

The success marks a milestone for the space program in demonstrating that it can conduct complex missions and act as a global launch pad for commercial, navigational and research satellites.

It's also a major feat for the developing country of 1.2 billion people, most of whom are poor.

At the same time, India has a robust scientific and technical educational system that has produced millions of software programmers, engineers and doctors, propelling many into the middle class.

Getting a spaceship successfully into orbit around Mars is no easy task. More than half the world's previous attempts, 23 out of 41 missions, have failed, including the Beagle-2 from the UK and Nozomi by Japan in 1999.

Indian Space Research Organization scientists and other officials cheer as they celebrate the success of Mars Orbiter Mission at their Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network complex in Bangalore, India, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2014. 

Credit: AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi

The United States had its first success with a 1964 flyby by a spacecraft called Mariner 4, returning 21 images of the surface of the planet.

The former Soviet Union MARS-3 reached the planet in 1971, and the European Space Agency Mars Express in 2003, still operating successfully around Mars.

The U.S. space agency NASA congratulated India in a Twitter message welcoming MOM to studying the red planet.

On Sunday, NASA achieved its own success in placing its Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission (Maven), in position.

The U.S. has two more satellites circling the planet at the moment, as well as two rovers rolling across the rocky Martian surface.

The ESA's Mars Express, launched over a decade ago, is still operating as well.

India was particularly proud that MOM was developed with homegrown technology and for a bargain price of about $75 million, a cost that Modi quipped was lower than many Hollywood film budgets.

By comparison, NASA's much larger Maven mission cost nearly 10 times as much at $671 million.

The real test of these missions will come when the scientific data is gathered and returned for examination.

In this Sept. 11, 2013, file photo, Indian engineers work on the Mars orbiter spacecraft at the satellite center of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in Bangalore, India.

Credit: AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi, File

Indian scientists "designed the trajectory aspects and the interplanetary aspects," said Vipparthi Adimurthy of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, who headed the team that crafted the first feasibility studies on whether India could reach Mars.

Dr Adimurthy

"Today not only has a dream come true, but we have created history for India, for ISRO, and for the world," he said.

The 1,350-kilogram (nearly 3,000-pound) orbiter will now circle the planet for at least six months, with five solar-powered instruments gathering scientific data that may shed light on Martian weather systems as well as what happened to the water that is believed to have existed once on Mars in large quantities.

The 15 kgs payloads on the Mars Orbiter Mission include:

Lyman Alpha Photometer (LAP), an absorption cell photometer that measures relative abundance of deuterium and hydrogen from Lyman-alpha emission in the Martian upper atmosphere.

Methane Sensor for Mars (MSM), designed to measure methane in the Martian atmosphere with PPB accuracy and map its sources.

Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA), a quadruple mass spectrometer capable of analysing the neutral composition in the range of 1 to 300 amu with unit mass resolution.

Mars Colour Camera (MCC), a tri-colour camera that gives images and information about the surface features and composition of Martian surface.

Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (TIS) to measure the thermal emissions and, because it is not using visible light, this instrument can be operated both during th day and night.

Temperature and emissivity are two basic physical parameters estimated from thermal emission measurement.

ISRO MOM: India's spacecraft 'on target' to reach Mars

India's Mars Orbiter Spacecraft took off from Sriharikota in November 2013 

Credit: ISRO

An Indian spacecraft is on course to reach Mars, an official said Monday, following a 666-million-kilometre voyage that could see New Delhi's low-cost space programme win Asia's race to the Red Planet.

The 350-tonne rocket carrying an unmanned probe is set to enter Mars's orbit next week after 10 months in space.

It is India's first mission to the planet to search for evidence of life.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) official Koteswara Rao said the rocket has travelled almost 666 million kilometres (413 million miles) since its launch from the southern spaceport of Sriharikota last November.

"India will be the first country in the world to insert a spacecraft into the Martian orbit in a maiden attempt if the operation succeeds," ISRO scientific secretary V. Koteswara Rao told reporters.

"And also the first Asian country to reach the Red Planet's sphere," Rao said.

Rao said the rocket's engines will be "woken up" to allow for a "course correction" on Sunday before its arrival on September 24.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)

ISRO scientists will also slow down the craft now travelling at 22.2 kilometres per second to 2.14 metres per second to allow for a smoother entry into the planet's orbit.

The cost of the project, at 4.5 billion rupees ($70 million), is a fraction of the $671 million NASA spacecraft that also launched last year and is expected to arrive within days of the Indian craft.

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

Only the United States, Russia and the European Space Agency have been successful.

The Mars Orbiter Mission was revealed only 15 months ago by the previous prime minister.

The timing and place of the announcement, in an Independence Day speech, led to speculation India was seeking to make a point to China, despite denials from ISRO.

The gold-coloured probe, the size of a small car, will aim to detect methane in the Martian atmosphere, which could provide evidence of some sort of life form on the fourth planet from the sun.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has hailed the country's low-cost technology, saying a domestically-made rocket that launched four foreign satellites into orbit in June had cost less to make than the Hollywood film "Gravity".

But the programme has also faced critics who say a country that struggles to feed its people adequately should not be splurging on space travel.

Mars Probes MAVEN and MOM Arrive at Red Planet This Month

An artist's interpretation of NASA's MAVEN mission, with Mars in the background. 

The probe is scheduled to start orbiting Mars on Sept. 21.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

The planet Mars is about to have some company. Two new spacecraft, one from the United States and the other from India, are closing in on the Red Planet and poised to begin orbiting Mars by the end of this month.

The U.S.-built probe, NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft, is expected to enter orbit around Mars on Sept. 21.

Just days later, on Sept. 24, India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) orbiter is due to make its own Mars arrival when it enters orbit. Both MOM and MAVEN launched to space in 2013.

MAVEN is the first mission devoted to probing the Martian atmosphere, particularly to understand how it has changed during the planet's history.

An artist's view of India's first Mars probe, the heart of the Mars Orbiter Mission, in orbit around the Red Planet. 

India's first Mars orbiter will arrive at its target on Sept. 24, 2014.

Credit: India Space Research Organisation

Before that happens, however, the spacecraft must burn its engines to go into orbit around the planet, and pass a commissioning phase while taking a few precautions for a "low-risk" situation where a comet will pass fairly close to Mars.

"We've been developing MAVEN for about 11 years, and it comes down to a 33-minute rocket burn on Sept. 21," MAVEN principal investigator Bruce Jakosky, of the University of Colorado, Boulder, told Space.com.

The spacecraft can change tracks as late as 6 hours before entering orbit, but right now, it is so close to the correct path that a planned orbital maneuver on Sept. 12 won't be needed, Jakosky said.

Comet Siding Spring will pass near Mars on Oct. 19, and around that time, MAVEN will take a break from its commissioning to do observations of the comet and the planet's upper atmosphere.

Although not much dust is predicted to result from the event, as a precaution, controllers will turn off nonessential instruments and move the solar panels edge-on to the dust.

The spacecraft will also be behind Mars for 20 minutes during the comet's closest approach.

NASA and ISRO Mars-Bound Probes Nearing the Red Planet

This illustration shows the MAVEN spacecraft in orbit around Mars, imagined with Earth in the background.

Credit: NASA/Goddard

Two Mars-bound spacecraft are both in excellent health ahead of their September arrivals in orbit around the Red Planet, managers for both missions report.

Indian Space Research Organization (MOM) is more than 80 percent of the way to Mars and performing well, according to a Facebook update posted July 21 by the Indian Space Research Organization, MOM is expected to enter orbit on Sept. 14.

The second craft, NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN), is also performing well.

MAVEN is scheduled to embark on its final approach to the Red Planet on Sept. 21, one week after MOM's arrival, principal investigator Bruce Jakosky said.

After months of checkouts and tests, the spacecraft will now be left quiet until close to the big day.

"We have eight science instruments, and they've all been turned off now," Jakosky, who is also the associate science director at the University of Colorado's laboratory for atmospheric and space physics, told Space.com. "We're trying to settle things down to focus on orbit insertion."

Both MOM and NASA's MAVEN probes launched toward Mars in November 2013.



Collision avoidance
With the MAVEN mission, NASA scientists are hoping to learn more about the history of Mars' upper atmosphere. For the past few months, controllers have done "operational readiness" tests, such as a mission-control-like simulation of the craft's approach to the Red Planet.

These drills can help controllers get ready for any emergencies that might crop up.

One important feature of the spacecraft is its ability to maneuver six hours or 24 hours before entering orbit if controllers find out the vessel is on the wrong path, Jakosky said.

This was a "lesson learned" from the 1998 Mars Climate Orbiter, which was destroyed in the planet's atmosphere because controllers could not correct a navigation error until too late.

"The key thing about the orbit insertion burn is we have one shot at it, and it has to go right. If it doesn't go right, we just go right on past Mars and never get to go back," Jakosky said.

Meanwhile, the science team has been making sure MAVEN's hardware is ready to collect the data. One instrument has already gathered information on solar activity.

India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) spacecraft represents the country's first Mars-bound probe.

Credit: Indian Space Research Organisation

In India, MOM spacecraft controllers have been priming the probe for its arrival at the Red Planet.

On Thursday (Aug. 7), flight controllers tested the MOM probe's antenna that will serve as its primary communications link to Earth.

"MOM successfully completed the characterization of its Medium Gain Antenna, which will be used for communicating with Earth during the critical Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI)," ISRO officials wrote in a MOM update on Facebook yesterday. "Only 14 percent of the journey remains in its heliocentric arc towards Mars Orbit Insertion."

Indian ISRO PLSV rocket launches 5 satellites: Three minute delay to avoid space debris

The Monday morning blast off of an Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) PSLV rocket carrying five foreign satellites was delayed by three minutes to avoid a collision with space debris, the space agency said.

Despite the necessary delay, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle's (PSLV) carrying the five foreign satellites blasted off from the Indian Space Research Organization’s launch pad at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh in southern India at 09:52 a.m. local time.

With this launch, India has successfully put into orbit five foreign satellites from four different countries.

The rocket's main payload was the 714-kg French EADS Astrium Earth Observation satellite SPOT-7.

The other satellites are:

• 14-kg AISAT-1 of Germany (already transmitting signals from orbit); 
• NLS7.1 (CAN-X4) and NLS7.2 (CAN-X5) from Canada's University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies' Space Flight Laboratory each weighing 15 kg (CanX-4 and CanX-5 form a dual nanosatellite formation flying a demonstration mission); and 
• 7-kg, 1U Cubesat VELOX-1 of Singapore.

The five satellites were launched under commercial arrangements that Antrix Corporation has entered into with the respective foreign agencies.

Mars Mission 'Risk': Astronauts may suffer Vision Damage

A manned mission to Mars could feasibly launch sometime in the 2030s, according to a panel of experts.

Credit: ESA

Mars may possess a stark and austere beauty, but a manned Red Planet mission will likely not be easy on the eyes.

Recently, scientists have begun realizing that spaceflight can cause serious and perhaps permanent vision problems in astronauts.

NASA researchers are working hard to understand the issue, which could present a major hurdle to mounting manned missions to Mars and other faraway destinations.

"This is one that we don't yet have a good handle on, and it can be a showstopper," Mark Shelhamer, chief scientist for the NASA Human Research Program at Johnson Space Center in Houston, said last week during a presentation with the agency's Future In-Space Operations (FISO) working group.



The human body suffers in the microgravity environment of space. For example, without effective countermeasures — i.e., vigorous weight-bearing exercise — astronauts' muscles atrophy and their bones shed calcium, becoming more and more brittle over time.

Spaceflight can also affect the eyes. Researchers have known this for decades, but they're just now beginning to appreciate the gravity of the situation.

"Over the last 40 years there have been reports of visual acuity impairments associated with spaceflight through testing and anecdotal reports," a 2012 NASA report about spaceflight-related vision problems states.

"Until recently, these changes were thought to be transient, but a comparison of pre- and postflight ocular measures have identified a potential risk of permanent visual changes as a result of microgravity exposure."

Solar System: Sun, Earth and Mars Align

Mars takes the celestial stage Tuesday night (April 8) when it lines up with the Earth and our Sun, in a kind of cosmic preview to the Red Planet's closest approach to Earth during a total lunar eclipse later this month.

The alignment between Mars, the Earth and the sun is called "opposition" because Mars and the sun are opposite to each other in our sky.

Opposition and the date of closest encounter are slightly different because Earth and Mars are not in perfectly circular orbits.

Oppositions between Earth and Mars happen about every 26 months because the planets are relatively close to one another.

NASA and other agencies often take advantage of these close approaches to send spacecraft that way.

A recent example is NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution probe (MAVEN), which launched in November 2013 and will arrive this September.

India's space agency, ISRO's first Mars orbiter will also arrive at the Red Planet in September after its own launch last year.

The opposition of Mars comes just seven days ahead of the planet's closest approach to Earth on the night of April 14.

The Red Planet and Earth are converging ever closer to their cosmic encounter at a rate of about 186 miles (300 kilometers) a minute, according to a NASA skywatching advisory.

On April 14, Mars and Earth will be only 57 million miles (92 million kilometers) apart. This is a bit more than half the distance between Earth and the sun, which is about 93 million miles (150 million km).

By coincidence, Mars' closest approach to Earth occurs on the same night as a total lunar eclipse.

Weather permitting, observers could see a blood-red appear to glide just south of ruddy Mars as it passes through Earth's shadow in the late-night sky.

This should make the planet easy to spot in the constellation Virgo while the moon, just a few degrees south, is in total eclipse as seen from North America.

The total lunar eclipse starts at 2 a.m. EDT (0600 GMT) on April 15. The moon will spend 78 minutes in total starting around 3 a.m.

The moon will turn a Martian-looking red during the eclipse due to light from the sun shining through the Earth's atmosphere.

ISRO: India Launches Its 2nd Navigation Satellite

A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) launched India's second navigation satellite from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on April 4, 2014.

Credit: ISRO

India launched its second navigation spacecraft aboard a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) on Friday to continue building an independent space-based system to provide positioning services over Indian territory.

The 144-foot-tall launcher lifted off at 1144 GMT (7:44 a.m. EDT) from the Satish Dhawan Space Center, India's primary space launch site on the country's eastern coastline about 50 miles north of Chennai.

The launch occurred at 5:14 p.m. local time in India.

Propelled by a solid-fueled first stage and six strap-on motors, the PSLV raced into the sky from the Indian launch base, flying east while shedding all six boosters and the first stage in the first two minutes of the flight.

The rocket's second stage Vikas engine ignited for two-and-a-half minutes to push the launcher into space, then the PSLV's third and fourth stages accelerated the mission's payload to orbital velocity.

The upper stage released the Indian navigation satellite about 20 minutes after liftoff, prompting cheers and congratulatory handshakes in the launch control center.

Preliminary data showed the rocket placed the spacecraft in an orbit with a high point of 12,807 miles, a low point of 176 miles and an inclination of 19.2 degrees. The parameters are close to prelaunch predictions.

The launch marked the 26th PSLV mission since 1993 and the launcher's 22nd successful flight in a row.

NASA's Mini-SAR instrument: Water on Earth and Moon Have Common Origin

NASA's Mini-SAR instrument, which flew aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, found more than 40 small craters with water ice. 

The craters range in size from 1 to 9 miles (2 to 15 km) in diameter. 

Although the total amount of ice depends on its thickness in each crater, it's estimated there could be at least 600 million metric tons of water ice. 

The red circles denote fresh craters; the green circle mark anomalous craters. 

Credit: NASA

The traces of water in ancient moon rocks may share a common source with water on Earth, scientists say.

If confirmed, the potential moon-Earth water link would add more support to the theory that the moon's material came from the proto-Earth, and that water in this material survived the aftermath of the giant impact thought to have formed Earth's large natural satellite, researchers explained earlier this month at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LRSC) in Houston.

Until now, most studies of moon rocks have focused on assessing the water contents of the younger basalts and volcanic glasses, which are partially melted substances of the lunar mantle.

Researchers have access to the lunar rocks thanks to NASA's six Apollo moon landing missions and the three Russian robotic sample-return missions.

The Apollo missions returned to Earth with a huge load of 842 pounds (382 kilograms) of lunar rock and soil samples.

Backscatter electron image of a lunar melt inclusion from Apollo 17 sample 74220, enclosed within an olivine crystal. 

The inclusion is 30 μm in diameter. 

Skeletal crystals within the melt inclusion are a fine mixture of olivine and ilmenite. 

Dark area in the upper-left is an ion microprobe sputter crater. 

Credit: John Armstrong /Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington