Mars in sight, ISRO grooms Gen Next for planets beyond

Bengaluru: Top Indian space scientists are grooming Gen Next engineers in a clear indication that scientific exploration of other planets are on the cards even as some of their colleagues intently monitor the probe to Mars before steering it into an orbit around the Red Planet on September 24.

On Wednesday, about 500 young engineers will get a glimpse of opportunities and challenges in future during an interactive session with senior scientists involved in the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM)—Mr. S.K Shivakumar, director, ISRO’s Satellite Centre (ISAC), Bengaluru, Dr. Mylswamy Annadurai, programme director, MOM, Dr. Subbaiah Arunan, project director, MOM, Dr. V. Keshavraju, mission director of post-launch operations, and others.

The venue: ISAC, where the orbiter was assembled ahead of its launch on November 5, 2013. Besides a detailed presentation on MOM by their seniors, these engineers will also get to know about complex technologies involved in manufacture of satellites and launch vehicles.

“It is our Chairman (Dr. K. Radhakrishnan)’s idea that we groom young engineers on how to take the space programme forward,” Dr. Annadurai told Deccan Chronicle. He said similar technical sessions would follow in other centres of ISRO across the country as each of these facilities focus on specific elements of the space programme.

Dr. Annadurai said on completion of the two-day operation to upload about 1000 commands onto the probe to Mars so that it glides into the designated orbit around the Red Planet on September 24, about 20 engineers are watching the orbiter 24x7 from the Mission Control Centre at ISRO’s Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) facility in Bengaluru as it zooms through space at 22.2 km per second.

“We are anxious to see that the orbiter enters the right orbit, but there is no anxiety about the operation because each command has been verified twice, once by the computers and another time by individual engineers. From September 22 (when the onboard motor would be tested for four seconds) to September 24,  one hundred engineers will work round the clock at the Mission Control Centre to ensure that all systems onboard the probe are working and post the data to the mission controller,” he added.

He said the motor which would be turned on to reduce the speed of the orbiter during the crucial operation on September 24 was similar to the one used on Chandrayaan-I. The challenge, however, would be communication as each signal would take 12. 5 minutes to reach the orbiter from the ground station and vice versa. Besides, the orbiter would spin to the other side of Mars four minutes after commencement of the operation, so no signals would emanate for 16 excruciating minutes. “These big time gaps are the big issue,” he added.