INDIA'S MAANGALYAN !!

Mars missions: More failures than successes

The Mars fascination which began in 1960 has had more failures than successes since the first attempt at romancing the red planet.

India's Mars Rover Mission (MOM) named 'Mangalyaan' is the 42nd mission aimed at understanding Mars. Out of the 41 missions so far, 25 have been declared failures and only 16 have been a success. Even the latest Phobos-Grunt/Yinghuo-1 launched by Russia/China was a failure as it got stranded in the earth's orbit.

While the launch of the MOM was indeed a matter of pride for scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), perhaps there is a deeper meaning behind C N R Rao, chairman of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, words. He said, 'Isro perhaps would have done well to invest more time in doing some more homework before rushing in with the launch.'

Close on the heels of 'Mangalyaan' being sent into space by India, the United States (US) is also gearing up for the MAVEN mission to be launched on November 18, 2013. The mission is intended to be a step towards 'unravelling the planetary puzzle about Mars'. The US is also gearing up for the Mars Rover 2020 mission to understand 'Martian atmosphere'.

But there's more to the whole story than just understanding the mysteries of the planet. With US President Obama himself excited about the red planet, the US also plans to take the first humans to land on Martian soil.

The intention of all Mars-related experiments is eventually to see if man can land on Mars and in the very first attempt at trying to understand the planet, the Korabl 4 mission of Russia (then USSR) failed as the spacecraft did not reach even reach the earth's orbit in 1960. The second experiment also in the same year failed in a similar manner. The third mission which was also a flyby mission like the earlier two in 1962 also failed. In the third attempt, the spacecraft broke apart. In the Mars 1 mission of 1962 again, the radio failed. All these attempts, including others were by Russia. Only in 1964 the Mariner 4 (flyby) of the US met with success as it returned 21 images. This was the second attempt by the US.

In 1971, Mariner 9 of the US returned 7,329 images. The Viking 2 of the US in 1975 was a success as it returned 16,000 images and extensive atmospheric data and soil experiments. In 1998 'Mars climate' of the US was a failure as it was declared 'lost on arrival'. Even the Mars Polar Lander in 1999 of the US was a failure as it was 'lost on arrival'.

Since 2001, eight missions were taken up out of which two were failures, including the 2011 mission of Russia/China.

Meanwhile, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) launched by India on November 5 has vacated the most tracked position in real time satellite tracking. The position has been taken over by GOCE launched by the European space Agency (ESA) launched on March 17, 2009.

Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) described as a slender, winged ion-driven satellite was launched to glide through the upper atmosphere for measuring the Earth's gravity field with unprecedented precision. This data will help understand tectonic activity.

COURTESY : Times of India