CHENNAI: When ISRO chairman Madhavan Nair spoke about India’s mission to Mars on Wednesday, it was a validation of not just India’s space dreams, but its capabilities too.
So far, only the US, Russia and the European Space Agency (ESA) have been successful in Mars missions. While both NASA’s Pathfinder and ESA’s Mars Express continue to make new and intriguing findings, indicative of life on the red planet, success has come only after long periods of struggle for all these countries..The then USSR was able to get its spacecraft to orbit Mars in 1971, after ten years of efforts and as many failures. NASA had launched the Mars Global Surveyor in 1996, but its earlier failures are not as publicised as Russia’s.
So is India rushing in where others tread cautiously? Not really. Indian space science has grown by leaps and bounds.ISRO has registered 10 consecutive successes of its PSLV, and a successful launch of a Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) in 2004.
The successful launch of the PSLV-C3, and the return of the Space Recovery Experiment (SRE) capsule in January this year, demonstrated ISRO’s skills in re-entry technology, which is vital for reusable launch vehicles and manned space missions.
India’s first unmanned mission to the moon, the Rs-386 crore Chandrayaan, is expected to happen in March 2008, and the manned mission in 2014. Mars is indeed a tougher prospect, but Nair puts it simply, “Our GSLV can carry about 500 kg to Mars. If the Centre clears the project, we can lift off in 2012.”
