18.7.14

India plans another Mars mission

India is planning a “follow-on“ mission to the Red Planet between 2017 and 2020 having a lot of scientific content, chairman of Isro K Radhakrishnan said. Radhakrishnan said that the final decision will depend upon the success of the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) orbit insertion on September 24, 2014. The Isro chief announced this at the TIFR while addressing a large gathering of scientists and students from Kirti and Jai Hind Colleges. Pointing out that the current mission was mainly to demonstrate Isro's capability to execute the nail-biting orbit insertion, he described the second one as a scientific mission. Regarding the current Mars Orbiter Mission, he said that 79% of the journey was completed.
The Isro chief explained that for the September 24 orbit insertion, the challenges include the liquid apogee motor restarting after 300 days.“If we are successful in the first attempt we will be the first country in the world to accomplish it and also the first Asian country to achieve it,“ he said.

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