India's Date with Mars: Mangalyaan

Curiosity might be in for a little discomfort and jealousy as Mangalyaan, India's Mars probe, will try to woo the 'hot' red planet in this coming October-November. It is nothing as complicated or even as robust as the Curiosity of course, it is a basically a technology demonstration project which will see a satellite being placed into Mars's orbit. But when it comes to probing Mars, which is full of mysteries and possibilities, every achievement is a big achievement. Bringing you some information about this mission, happy reading!  

PSLV 

What is Mangalyaan? 

The Mangalyaan mission,  which will translate to "Mars Craft mission" in English, is a planned Mars orbiter to be launched in November 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).The mission is a "technology demonstrator" project aiming to develop the technologies required for design, planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission. The Mangalyaan Mars probe will lift off using a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket and will be India's first mission to Mars.  If successful, ISRO would become the fourth space agency to reach Mars, after ROSCOSMOS, NASA, and ESA

How will it reach Mars? 

The launch will place Mangalyaan first into Earth orbit, then six engine firings will raise that orbit to one with an apogee of 215,000 km and a perigee of 600 km. A final firing will send Mangalyaan onto an interplanetary trajectory. The craft will finally reach the Mars Orbit in September 2014 and would allow the spacecraft to enter a highly elliptical orbit of 500 km x 80,000 km around Mars. The spacecraft's dry mass is planned to be 500 kg, and it will carry 850 kg of propellant and oxidizer. The main engine uses the bipropellant combination monomethylhydrazine and dinitrogen tetroxide for orbit insertion and other maneuvers.

What is it supposed to do after reaching there? 

Well I could sure tell you some over the top things like it will use Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyzer to study the atmosphere etc but then that feels boring even to me while writing this, so let me explain it in non-nerd language. It will carry with it five major probing components. One of these will help in recording the temperature variations on and near the surface of Mars, then it has a sensor will will study the composition of its atmosphere, a third sensor to study the radiations taking place off the surface, some device to map the surface, and finally my favourite of them all, a fancy color camera to click some good pictures and relay them back to Earth. 

Some quick facts about the mission:

• The launch mass of the spacecraft will be 1350 kilo grams. 
• The probe will be powered by solar energy, with its panels producing 750W of power while orbiting Mars.
• The journey from Earth to Mars will take about 300 days.