India's Mars probe (MOM), Development, launch, and cruise to Mars |
India's Mars probe (MOM), Development, launch, and cruise to Mars |
Aug 31 2009, 08:10 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
according to the Chinese Xinhua press agency an Indian Mars probe may be launched in 2013 or 2015, after Chandrayaan-2
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-08/...nt_11972334.htm |
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Sep 30 2012, 08:08 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 149 Joined: 18-June 08 Member No.: 4216 |
A nice summing up of the current state of india's Mars orbiter project by Emily Lakdawalla:
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakda...aan-update.html For what it's worth, I think that, although the mission development timeframe does seem awfully short, there are also some reasons to be optimistic: 1. There are indications, eg the delivery of the spacecraft structure, that work on the project began long before the formal announcement of the mission. 2. Such a fast schedule is not unheard of. The Mariner 9 mission, the US's first Mars orbiter, was launched in May 1971, 2.5 yr after the formal project start in November 1968. One could argue that, with a Moon orbiter under its belt, India is in a similar stage in its planetary programme. 3. The technical complexity of the mission, although formidable in absolute terms (it is, after all, a mission to Mars) is actually quite modest as planetary missions go. The goal is to attain a highly elliptical orbit around Mars and conduct observations of the planet from this orbit. The one critical maneuvre of the mission (assuming that is is dispatched from Earth without problems) is a well-timed engine burn near closest approach to the planet on the first pass. There is no probe to land, no major orbit changes, rendezvous with either one of the moons or sample return. This is no Phobos-Grunt, more like a Mars Express sans Beagle 2. So, I would say that there is better than a 50-50 chance of it getting to where it wants to go. Of course, in the real world it is impossible to fly, say, 10,000 identical missions to see what the actual probability of success is (that's why we have bayesian statistics, by the way ) but I remain cautiously optimistic about this one. Tolis. |
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Sep 30 2012, 09:43 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2542 Joined: 13-September 05 Member No.: 497 |
2. Such a fast schedule is not unheard of. The Mariner 9 mission, the US's first Mars orbiter, was launched in May 1971, 2.5 yr after the formal project start in November 1968. There's rather a large difference between 2.5 years and 1.3 years, though it's not clear when Mangalyaan actually started. Also, Mariner Mars 1971 was a direct follow-on to the Mariner 6-7 flyby missions with a lot of heritage, see http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4212/ch6.html I wish them the best, but it's just not a lot of time. -------------------- Disclaimer: This post is based on public information only. Any opinions are my own.
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