Mars Ahoy! ISRO’s tryst with Destiny
On September 24th 2014, ISRO will be one of the handful of organizations that will have deployed a spacecraft beyond the Earth-Moon orbit. That too in its first attempt. Missions to mars are notorious for failing en-route due to a wide variety of reasons. Mangalyaan being integrated the PSLV rocket’s payload enclosure However lately ISRO seems to have taken valuable lessons from its first deep space mission Chandrayaan, as well as failures of other agencies. Mangalyaan is just a technology demonstrator project for ISRO. The mini orbiter is was built on a shoestring budget of $25 million. It will arrive just a day after NASA’s Maven orbiter reaches Mars. ISRO was earlier aiming for a much heavier payload to send to Mars. However delays in building a heavy lift rocket and the limited launch window in 2013 forced ISRO to make up for lost time and send a lightweight 500Kg craft instead. Mangalyaan Science MOM’s primary mission payload is the methane sensors on board, ca