Everything You Need To Know About
Mangalyaan 2
Following the success of its first Mars Orbiter
Mission (MoM-1), the Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO) is now preparing to launch
India’s second interplanetary mission (Mom-2) to
explore the red planet.
Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State in the
Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) that is responsible
for the Department of Space, said in a written reply
to a question in Rajya Sabha the configuration,
objectives and scientific experiments of MoM-2 are
yet to be formulated.
“A call for proposals through an Announcement of
Opportunity (AO) has been made within India to
seek proposal for scientific experiments for Mars
Orbiters Mission-2,” Singh said. He said MoM-1
has completed 25 months in orbit and is presently
functioning satisfactorily.
The AO document displayed on ISRO’s website
states clearly that the organisation has planned to
have the next orbiter mission around Mars and
seeks proposals from interested scientists within
India for experiments on board an orbiter mission
around Mars. It outlines that the payload capability
of the proposed satellite is likely to be 100-kg and
100W and states that the apoarion of the orbit is
expected to be around 5,000-km.
Possible Objectives
Among the most important tasks of the new
mission will be to conduct experiments to confirm
the presence of methane, which the AO document
says is ‘yet to be confirmed unambiguously.’ One
of the objectives could be to conduct new
measurements to quantify the loss of atmospheric
water and carbon dioxide.
INDIA’S SECOND
MARS MISSION
In it’s AO document, ISRO states that the new
Mars missions provide an opportunity to explore
planetary evolutionary processes, how and whether
life arose elsewhere in the solar system, and the
interplay between geological and possible
biological history. Therefore, the new mission is
expressed to address questions related to these
fields.
MoM-2, ISRO has said, will possibly be fitted with
a lander and a rover in addition to the orbiter.
While the lander, it says, will focus on ‘in situ
surface/subsurface probing’, the orbiters will study
of the Martian surface and subsurface and serve as
the communication link to Earth.
The French Connection
Media reports that have emerged in recent times
suggest that India and France are exploring the
possibility of working together on ISRO’s second
MoM.
Among the 14 agreements that India and France
signed during French President Francois
Hollande’s two-day visit as the chief guest for
Republic Day celebrations was a letter of intent on
Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES)
participating in ISRO's next Mars mission,
expected around 2020. CNES is France’s national
space organization under the supervision of the
French Ministries of Defence and Research
"After India's Mars orbiter, the next step has to be a
lander. A lander on Mars is not easy, but it will be
interesting to undertake," NDTV had quoted the
president of CNES Jean-Yves Le Gall as saying in
January 2016.
refer :: swarajyamag.com
His statement not only suggests that the negotiations on France’s role in the mission had already reached an
advanced stage when the letter was signed, but also points towards the fact that the two agencies are planning to
take a giant step forward, though it is only the next logical step. Till date, the United States is the only country to have
successfully landed a mission on the red planet.
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