India Plans Mars Mission by 2015

September 1, 2009 (LPAC)—Addressing the inaugural session of the 8th International Conference on Low Cost Planetary Missions, G. Madhavan Nair, chairman of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) at Panaji, Goa, said India plans to launch the country's mission to Mars some time between 2013 and 2015. "The mission is at a conceptual stage and will be taken up after Chandrayaan-2," he added. "Mars is very much on our agenda... It will be a challenge for us and we will chalk out a program soon."

Chandrayaan-2, is the second unmanned lunar exploration mission proposed by the ISRO. The mission includes a lunar orbiter as well as a Lander/Rover. ISRO plans to land a motorized rover on the Moon likely in 2012, as a part of its second Chandrayaan mission. The wheeled rover will move on the lunar surface, to pick up soil or rock samples for on site chemical analysis. The data will be sent to Earth through Chandrayaan-2, which will be in lunar orbit. Chandrayaan-1 landed on Moon last November, and, after sending signals for about 10 months, it has just lost contact with the command center.

India plans to power some parts of the Chandrayaan-2—its next unmanned mission to the Moon—with nuclear energy and the feasibility studies are being carried out by Indian Space Research Organization and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. "We are thinking of powering some parts of Chandrayaan-2 with nuclear power and it will power the spacecraft when it revolves around the dark side of the moon," ISRO Chairman Madhavan Nair told media on Aug. 13, before accepting the degree of Doctorate of Science conferred on him at the 47th Convocation of Indian Institute of Technology, in Mumbai (IIT-B).

The ISRO chief said the mission to Mars would be the most important Indian exploration as "it is a planet with atmosphere, lots of minerals and even preliminary indications of water presence." ISRO has already begun preparation for sending a spacecraft to Mars. New Delhi has sanctioned the seed money to carry out various studies on experiments to be conducted, en route in the mission and other details necessary to scale the new frontier. Nair had said recently that the mission studies had already been completed and that space scientists were trying to collect scientific proposals and scientific objectives.