Not enough scientific solutions yet for ISRO's Mars mission

Kolkata, July 4 (PTI) Indian Space Research Organisation
(ISRO) is not getting enough scientific solutions for its Mars
mission which it proposes to launch in 2013, its chairman G
Madhavan Nair said Saturday.

"Not enough scientific solutions are coming through,"
Nair told newsmen when asked about status of the Mars mission
programme.

Describing the Mars mission as a "tremendous challenge",
he said it would require new scientific and technological
solutions including placing a spacecraft in low altitude orbit
around the planet and development of sensitive instruments to
monitor radiation, electric and magnetic fields and energetic
particles in the Martian field.

He said the ISRO's manned mission to space was expected
to be launched in 2015 and it would take another five to six
years before a manned lunar mission could be launched.

In reply to a question, he said the biggest impediment to
the Chandrayan-II project was managing the impact of putting
the lander and the moon rover on the lunar surface.

Stating that the ISRO had earned a revenue of Rs 1,000
crore during 2008-09, he said about 15 to 20 per cent of it
came from hiring out Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles (PSLVs)
to launch foreign satellites.

Earlier, delivering the M P Birla Memorial Lecture after
receiving the M P Birla Memorial Award, Nair said that besides
the Chandrayan-II and the manned missions in space and the
moon, ISRO was looking at remote sensing of comets and
asteroids.

"Remote sensing of the asteroids and comets will help
understand their evolution, the early solar system processes,
meteorite asteroid connections and the physical and chemical
properties of asteroid and cometary material," he said.

Stating that ISRO was considering near-earth asteroid
Vesta as a primary target option for its remote sensing
mission, he said the payloads for the project would include
standard remote sensing instruments for imaging, mineralogy,
besides surface and sub-surface chemistry.

"Studies of energetic particles, radiation and fields in
interplanetary space need to be an integral part of this long
duration mission." He said the technology to be developed
mainly includes Orbiters around low-gravity objects and
miniaturisation of remote sensing instruments.

After his speech, Nair was presented with a replica of
the Chandrayan-I. PTI SBR