Bangalore: The countdown has begun for India's Mars Orbiter Mission popularly known as Mangalyaan to enter the Martian orbit on September 24. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully test-fired the Mars Orbiter Mission's main engine on Monday, which was in the sleep mode for 10 months.
Mangalyaan is primarily a technological mission and it has been configured to carry out observation of physical features of Mars and carry out limited study of the Martian atmosphere.
A team of 14 ISRO scientists is credited as being the brain behind this mission. If successful, ISRO will be among a league of three other agencies that have achieved success on missions to Mars.
1. K Radhakrishnan: He is the Chairman of ISRO and Secretary in department of space. He was responsible for leading the mission and overall activities of ISRO. He said, "It has been a new and complex mission. The journey has begun, the challenging phase is going to come."
2. M Annadurai: He is the Programme Director of Mars Orbiter Mission. He joined ISRO in 1982 and is leading many Remote Sensing and Science missions. He was responsible for budget management, direction for spacecraft configuration, schedule and resources. He was the project director of Chandrayaan-1 and now Chandrayaan- 2, the Indian missions to Moon.
As it is India's first true inter-planetary mission, the challenge for him was to ensure enough autonomy for the spacecraft to take decisions on its own and negotiate a nearly 50 per cent difference in climatic conditions between Earth and Mars.
3. S Ramakrishnan: He is the Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and Member Launch Authorisation Board. He joined ISRO in August 1972 and played a key role in the development of PSLV and was responsible for development of liquid propulsion stages and their interfacing with vehicle and launch operations.
He is responsible for realising the rocket (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) that ferried the Mars orbiter. He said, "From here to go to Mars we are going to use only a fraction of what we did in getting to the (Earth) orbit."
The challenge for him was the launch of the rocket. He said the launch window was only five minutes. The 28 minutes coasting time of the rocket before the ignition of the fourth engine was also long. The overall launch duration of around 45 minutes was nearly double that of the normal PSLV launches.
4. SK Shivakumar: He holds the position of the Director of ISRO Satellite Centre. He joined ISRO in 1976 and since then he has made several contributions to planning and operations of Indian satellite missions. He was the project director for India's first indigenous Deep Space Network antenna. He was responsible for developing satellite technology and implementing satellite systems for scientific, technological and application missions. He said, "Our baby is up in the space. It was almost like a caesarean."
5. P Kunhikrishnan: The project director of PSLV programme and was appointed as mission director for the ninth time. He joined ISRO in 1986 and was the mission director of eight successful PSLV Missions. He is the mission director of PSLV-C25/Mars Orbiter Mission, scheduled to be launched on November 5.
He was responsible for seeing the rocket completes its mission successfully and that the satellite is correctly injected in the designated orbit.
The challenge for him was that the orbital characteristic of the Mars Mission is different from regular PSLV missions. The total duration of the launch was 44 minutes. This required prudent thermal management and protecting the systems and equipment from low temperatures in the space.
6. Chandradathan: He is the Director of Liquid Propulsion system. He joined ISRO in 1972. Initially, he worked for the SLV-3 Project during its design phase and later was involved in the development of solid propellant formulations for SLV-3 and over three decades, made rich contribution to the realisation of solid motors for sounding rockets, SLV-3, ASLV and PSLV.
7. AS Kiran Kumar: The Director of Satellite Application Centre joined ISRO in 1975. He has contributed to the design and development of Electro-Optical Imaging Sensors for Airborne, LEO and GEO platform based imaging sensors starting from Bhaskara TV payload to the latest TMC adHySI payloads for Chandrayaan-1 missions.
He was responsible for designing and building three of the orbiter payloads - Mars Colour Camera, Methane Sensor and Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer. The challenge before him was miniaturising the components as the satellite does not provide much space.
He said, "We have been successful in completing the first step in the long mission."
8. MYS Prasad: He is the Director of Satish Dhawan Space Centre and Chairman of the Launch Authorisation Board. From 1975 to 1994, he worked in the launch vehicle development programmes of ISRO. He was part of the project Ttam of SLV-3, the first indigenously developed launch vehicle of India. He was director of the Master Control Facility of ISRO from 1998 to 2005.
He was responsible for range safety and schedules, overall in-charge at rocket port.
As the launch was during northeast monsoon season the challenge was to enhance weather forecasting capability to 10 days and simultaneously carrying out preparatory work for Mars Mission while dismantling the GSLV rocket after the mission was aborted earlier this year.
9. S Arunan: The Project Director of Mars Orbiter Mission and was responsible for leading a team to build the spacecraft.
The challenge for him was to build a new communication system, making of the spacecraft which was largely autonomous to take decisions, making the orbiter engine which would restart after 300 days, designing of solar power cells and developing new navigation software.
10. B Jayakumar: He is the Associate Project Director of PSLV project. He is responsible for the rocket systems, testing till the final lift-off.
11. MS Pannirselvam: The Chief General Manager of range operation director at Sriharikota Rocket port was responsible for maintaining launch schedules without any slippages.
12. S Arunan: Project Director of Mars Orbiter Mission at Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
13. V Kesava Raju: The Mission Director of Mars Orbiter Mission
14. ISRO scientific secretary V Koteswara Rao.
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