Mangalyaan, India's Mars Orbiter, has successfully commenced its journey to Mars
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Re: Mangalyaan, India's Mars Orbiter, has successfully commenced its journey to Mars
#2So does this mean we just sit back & watch for 10 months? Or can something go wrong after this as well?
Re: Mangalyaan, India's Mars Orbiter, has successfully commenced its journey to Mars
#3So does this mean we just sit back & watch for 10 months? Or can something go wrong after this as well?
A lot can go wrong in the meantime: electrical or communication systems could fail, orbital insertion burns could fail (either due to messed up timing, communication, propulsion, or any number of other things), etc etc.
But that said, barring any huge design flaws, if you make it out of atmo you're probably going to be just fine. (Usually. Probably.) So it's mainly just a waiting game now.
Re: Mangalyaan, India's Mars Orbiter, has successfully commenced its journey to Mars
#4So does this mean we just sit back & watch for 10 months? Or can something go wrong after this as well?
Main risk factor of this whole program was the injection into earth orbit with correct orientation. The journey to Mars should be relatively risk-free. There still will be minor corrections en-route to Mars by firing engines. Mainly, now we sit back and wait for it to be captured by Mars gravity, the next major step where failure can occur.
Re: Mangalyaan, India's Mars Orbiter, has successfully commenced its journey to Mars
#5So does this mean we just sit back & watch for 10 months? Or can something go wrong after this as well?
A lot can go wrong in the meantime: electrical or communication systems could fail, orbital insertion burns could fail (either due to messed up timing, communication, propulsion, or any number of other things), etc etc. But that said, barring any huge design flaws, if you make it out of atmo you're probably going to be just fine. (Usually. Probably.) So it's mainly just a waiting game now.
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Re: Mangalyaan, India's Mars Orbiter, has successfully commenced its journey to Mars
#6Nice that they are spending Indian taxpayer money on science! (I am biased towards robotic missions vs. getting ppl into orbit at all costs)
Re: Mangalyaan, India's Mars Orbiter, has successfully commenced its journey to Mars
#7Had no idea this was even underway.
Re: Mangalyaan, India's Mars Orbiter, has successfully commenced its journey to Mars
#8So does this mean we just sit back & watch for 10 months? Or can something go wrong after this as well?
Here's a summary of Mars missions and their success/failure: http://mars.nasa.gov/programmissions/missions/log/
Lots can go wrong on the Mars side. E.g. Mars Polar Lander - smashed into Mars. Beagle 2 - last heard from just before landing. Mars Climate Orbiter - failed to land because of confusion between pounds and Newtons. Deep Space 2 - no communication after landing. Mars Observer - communication lost 3 days from Mars, probably due to fuel leak.
See "Mars Curse": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mars#Probing_dif....
Re: Mangalyaan, India's Mars Orbiter, has successfully commenced its journey to Mars
#9So does this mean we just sit back & watch for 10 months? Or can something go wrong after this as well?
Here's a summary of Mars missions and their success/failure: http://mars.nasa.gov/programmissions/missions/log/ Lots can go wrong on the Mars side. E.g. Mars Polar Lander - smashed into Mars. Beagle 2 - last heard from just before landing. Mars Climate Orbiter - failed to land because of confusion between pounds and Newtons. Deep Space 2 - no communication after landing. Mars Observer - communication lost 3 days from…
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Re: Mangalyaan, India's Mars Orbiter, has successfully commenced its journey to Mars
#10Images of the spacecraft and facilities here: http://www.isro.gov.in/pslv-c25/Imagegallery/satellite.aspx.