Crucial test for India’s Mars mission

INDIA’S first mission to Mars will attempt to put a spacecraft in orbit around the red planet next week, in a crucial test of a low-cost project carrying the country’s hopes of joining the leaders of a global space race.

Scientists and engineers monitor Indias Mars Orbiter Mission. Picture: AFP/Getty Images

A successful outcome for the $74 million (£45m) mission would strengthen prime minister Narendra Modi’s resolve to build new space launch facilities capable of handling heavier satellites, in order to make India a stronger player in the space technology market.

Launched last November, the Mars Orbiter Mission, called Mangalyaan, aims to study the planet’s surface and mineral composition, and scan its atmosphere for methane, a chemical strongly tied to life on Earth.

If the spacecraft does manage to enter orbit around Mars on 24 September, India will become the first country to have succeeded on its first try.

European, US and Russian probes have managed to orbit or land on the planet, but only after several attempts.

“Confidence is high,” Koteswara Rao, scientific secretary at the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), said.

“All the operations done so far are successful and all the para­meters measured are normal.”

Isro has already uploaded commands to help the spacecraft automatically enter orbit on Wednesday.

Two days before that, scientists will run a four-second test of a main engine that has been idle for about 300 days, and make a small course correction, Mr Rao said.

Experts say it will be challenging to get the correct trajectory and cut the craft’s speed from its current rate of 13.7 miles per ­second to allow it to enter orbit. Receiving the faint signals it emits could also be challenging.

“It’s like hitting a one-rupee coin about a 100km away, and that is tough,” said Mayank N Vahia, a scientist in the department of astronomy and astrophysics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.

ISRO has prepared a contingency plan by which, if the main engine fails to restart, eight small fuel-powered thrusters will be used to put the spacecraft into orbit around Mars.

Although facing strong competition from neighbour China, India aspires to be a low-cost supplier of space technology to the $300bn industry and has so far launched 40 foreign satellites. But China still has an edge as it can put heavier satellites into orbit with its bigger launchers.

In June, Mr Modi hailed the Mars mission’s low cost, saying it was less than the budget of the Hollywood space movie Gravity.

Mangalyaan cost roughly one- tenth of Nasa’s Mars mission Maven that will attempt to enter orbit around the planet three days earlier on 21 September.

A successful Mars mission would boost the global standing of India’s state-run space agency.

“It increases the prestige and reliability of India as a space-faring nation whose rockets and payloads are reliable enough for other countries to use,” said Mr Vahia.

India’s space programme has often drawn criticism as Asia’s third-largest economy still ranks poorly on basic social indicators of poverty and hunger.