Elated Isro boss reveals tense moments during Mars mission

AHMEDABAD: On Monday, when director AS Kiran Kumar returned to Space Applications Centre (SAC) from Bangalore's Isro's facility, he had the country's first 16 colour pictures of Mars clicked by the four megapixel Mars Colour Camera (MCC) on board the Mangalyaan. He said, "I feel ecstatic," as he revealed that all five instruments on board were working flawlessly."My team's hard work and dedication at SAC and other Isro centres has borne fruit, there is no joy bigger than this," says Kumar.
Kumar revealed some nail biting moments during the mission when scientists were on the edge while Mangalyaan hurtled towards Mars. "Our calculations were perfect but there are so many unknown forces in space that may have diverted Mangalyaan from its prescribed path. A single microdegree deviation would have meant an error of 600 km. Thankfully with the limited fuel supply, instead of five path-correction manoeuvres, we did just two."
Another moment was during the Mars orbit insertion phase on September 24, when Mangalyaan's velocity had to be reduced to 4.5 km per second to allow Mars' gravitation to take over. "An increase by even 0.1 km per second would have lost Mangalyaan. This was a crucial phase where engines had to fired to manipulate the velocity to that exact number for the orbit insertion," says Kumar. It was also for the first time that Delta Doppler measurement techniques were used to know the exact location of Mangalyaan. Data signals from Mangalyaan being sent back to earth station are at the rate of 20 kilobits per second and take 12.5 minutes.
Under an agreement with NASA, three of its radars installed at earth stations of Goldstone in the US, Madrid in Spain and Canberra in Australia helped Isro locate Mangalyaan. "Nasa's MAVEN and Isro's Mangalyaan will collaborate in the crucial study of the Martian atmosphere and surface."