Mission to Mars

Unfazed by the abrupt end to India’s maiden unmanned moon odyssey Chandrayaan-I, ISRO on Monday said the country’s mission to Mars is planned to be launched sometime between 2013 and 2015, asserting it is very much on the “agenda”. “We have given a call for proposal to different scientific communities. Depending on the type of experiments they propose,we will be able to plan the mission,” G Madhavan Nair, the chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said. The mission is at a conceptual stage and will be taken up after Chandrayaan-2, Nair said. “Mars is very much in our agenda...It will be a challenge for us and we will chalk out a programme soon,” he said. “You cannot plan a mission on Mars just like that. Only once in two years, we get the opportunity,” said Nair, who is in Goa in connection with the eighth international conference on low cost planetary missions. Nair said the odyssey tothe Red planet will be cost-effective like Chandrayaan 1.