MOM has Successfully Entered the Orbit of Mars

Verdict : 

Historic Event for India

Possible time of origin : 24.09.2014
Circulation platforms : All

Circulation geography : Global

Original Message Version (compiled) Under Analysis:

India created history on September 24, 2014 becoming the first country to successfully get a spacecraft into the Martian orbit on its first attempt. It is dubbed as Mars orbiter mission (MOM) or Mangalayaan. Before India, various countries have launched Mars missions, but out of the 51 attempts, only 21 were successful. ISRO (India) now joins the elite Mars orbiter club that comprises the NASA (USA), Soviet Union and the ESA (Europe). India's Mangalayaan is the cheapest Mars orbiter mission so far. It cost about a tenth of NASA's Mars mission Maven that entered the Martian orbit on September 22, 2014. Indian prime minister Mr. Narendra Modi applauded Indian scientists and had said, "Hollywood movie Gravity costs more than our space mission." The orbiter was launched on November 5, 2013 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, India and  after a 300 day flight, has covered a distance of 680 million km to reach the Red Planet's orbit. It'll go around Mars on an elliptical orbit with the closest point around 420 km and the farthest around 80,000 km. MOM will employ five equipment that collectively weight 15 kg to do scientific studies, most importantly it'll check for the presence of methane that can indicate just what kind of life existed on Mars, if at all.

Analysis by Merofact Awareness Team: 

As a matter of fact we are Indian and we got another reason to be proud of our country. Its a real pleasure to share this news to you. We congratulate ISRO team from the bottom of our heart. Whatever we compiled in the message above from various resources describes the magnitude of the real achievement from the scientists at ISRO. The spacecraft entered the Mars orbit at 07:18 IST  ( finalized by 07:42 IST ) on September 24, 2014. We strongly suggest all our readers to visit the ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission page on Facebook and like. 

According to Wikipedia total cost of the Mars orbiter mission is around US $74 million out of which the satellite itself costs about US $25 million. On the other hand according to IMDB the movie Gravity had a budget of US $100 million. Mangalayaan have five scientific instrument payloads, namely; Lyman Alpha Photometer, Methane Sensor for Mars, Mars Exopheric Neutral Composition Analyzer, Mars Color Camera and Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer. MOM was launched with PSLV ( Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle ) which is capable of launching 1600 kg satellites in 620 km sun-synchronous polar orbit and 1050 kg satellite in geo-synchronous transfer orbit. According to ISRO website so far PSLV has repeatedly proved its reliability and versatility by launching 70 satellites or spacecrafts, out of which 30 are Indian and 40 are foreign satellites, into a variety of orbits so far. 

All these put India, who deals in the satellite launching market under the name of Antrix Corporation Limited, into the forefront of the multi-billion dollar  global space market. As of the cost effectiveness, we want to share an intriguing calculation; the vehicle has traveled 680 million km for US $74 million, i.e. US $0.11 / km or Rs.6.6 / km, in our experience an average rikshaw puller charges more in India.