India succesfully launched an unmanned autonomous vehicle to Mars two years ago. It entered the Mars orbit in the first try and became a groundbreaking achievement for scientists at NASA.
Ritu Karidhal, Deputy Operations Director of the mission, spoke at a TEDx Talks Gateway about her experience during the entire mission and it is quite inspiring.
Here are the major takeaways from her talk.
1. Their main accomplishment was not only to find out about life on Mars and how it can affect life on Earth, but also inspire the youth.
The next generation of space explorers are the key to improving and contributing to the growth of their nation, and hence Mission Mars was launched.
2. They had just 18 months to complete the entire project, and to get the launch timing right.
While they built their models by borrowing designs from other Mars missions, their software on-board was a completely new one. It was automated and self-sustaining. That was a challenge.
3. The two challenges they faced was fuel consumption and time of launch.
For minimum fuel consumption to be possible, the Mars Orbiter had to be launched at such a time when the orbits of both Earth and Mars are closest. That time comes once in 26 months. This means that the project was one of high risks.
4. To inject the vehicle into Mars Orbit was an operation which required 99.9% accuracy.
Many missions were said to fail in this phase. Ritu Karidhal gave an example of hitting a golf ball from Mumbai to a hole in Los Angeles. The requirement is that the ball should land straight into the hole WHILE the hole was moving.
5. The MOM mission succesfully entered the Mars Orbit in its first attempt.
India created many records of sorts as they were succesful in placing the Mangalyaan into the Mars Orbit. Despite of many difficulties and near failure, they succeeded and created history, and are now at par with the likes of the US and Russia.
This was a very inspiring and terrific story of success against the odds for ISRO and the team of scientists on the Mangalyaan mission.
They have all made us proud!
You can watch the entire video here.