India became the first Asian country to reach the red planet and the first country to get it done alone at first attempt. Scientists and Indian space agency technicians celebrate the success of the mission Manjunath KIRAN / AFP
"Today made up story," said the Indian Prime Minister (and also Minister of space), Narendra Modi, amid the applause of hundreds of scientists and technicians who were in the mission coolmath control room in Bangalore, when it came the announcement of the success of the probe operation, officially called MOM (Mars Orbiter Mission), reported agencies.
Earlier, the main driver of Mangalyaan (whose name in Hindi means spacecraft Mars) and six small auxiliary thrusters had been connected from the earth in order to turn around and do slow the probe, allowing you to enter smoothly an orbit with a minimum altitude will be about 500 kilometers above the Martian soil.
The probe, developed in record time of three years, is the cheapest mission ever for a trip like this: 55 million euros. By comparison, the Maven probe US space agency NASA, which came into Martian orbit on Monday, cost ten times more (about EUR 545 million). Modi had already indicated, moreover, that the Indian project had even been cheaper coolmath than the Hollywood movie Gravity, which cost 78 million euros.
The Mangalyaan, weighing less than 1.5 tonnes, was launched on November 5, 2013 by a small rocket (also Indian manufacturing) and traveled 670 million kilometers over 300 days of travel.
It is recalled that, as the power of the rocket that carried into space (the Indian Vehicle Polar Satellite Launch) was not enough to pull the probes to Earth's coolmath gravity, the ISRO engineers decided to make it round and round around Earth for a month, so as to enable them to acquire the necessary speed to depart for Mars.
At that time, the mission suffered a mishap when his engine could not put the planned altitude so she can escape the pull of the Earth. The incident was resolved at the second coolmath attempt - and since then, the trip went without incident.
Another delicate operation was that consisted ware many months, "wake up" again the engine of Mangalyaan hours before coolmath starting the probe insertion maneuver in its Martian orbit, a test to verify that everything was in place.
The Mangalyaan coolmath has an estimated life time in six months - after which will run out of fuel - and takes on board various coolmath sensors to measure coolmath the presence of methane in the atmosphere, looking for signs of primitive life on the red planet.
"Engineering Achievement" The Indian space agency joins so the US, Russia and Europe, the ones that so far had managed to successfully send a probe to Mars. At the same time, India is the first country to have achieved the feat alone at first attempt: so far, this "medal" was held only by the ESA European agency, which brings together a group of countries. Both the US and Russia failed the inaugural flight of the respective devices. And the Asian scale, India overtakes Japan, but especially China, coolmath whose missions to Mars so far failed.
The space agency NASA, who supported the Indian agency in terms of telecommunications during the mission, already congratulated ISRO: "It was an amazing feat of engineering and we warmly welcome to India in its entry into the family of nations study (...) Red Planet ", said in a statement Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator.
However, Mangalyaan not only received coolmath praise from the beginning of the project. In particular, his scientific interest was questioned by some experts. And indeed, those responsible themselves recognized that scientific quality is not the most important aspect coolmath of the mission, but rather the question of demonstrating the technology and to enhance the reputation of your country.
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