NASA, ISRO may jointly launch Mars probes for Space exploration

Bengaluru: With the NASA aiming to set up an office in Bengaluru, details of this collaboration would be finalized during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States later this month. The joint effort could help identify factors that played a role in changing the Martian climate over the years as both MAVEN (Mars Atmospheric and Volatile Evolution) of NASA, scheduled to enter its orbit on September 22, and the Indian orbiter to Mars (D-day being September 24) have instruments to study the atmosphere of the Red Planet, sources said.

One possibility would be MAVEN and the Mars orbiter circling the Red Planet together, just as Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spun around the Moon along with Chandrayaan-I while scouting for water ice on lunar surface days before the Indian probe was lost in outer space. These probes would complement details picked up from the Martian surface by “Curiosity” which has been exploring the Red Planet since August 2012. They would also record the effect of comet Siding Spring on Mars in October 2014.  

Sources said the two organisations would also explore the possibility of collaborating to launch probes to Mars in 2016, 2018 or 2020 when the Red Planet would be closer to Earth.
NASA’s ground stations have tracked the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) soon after its launch and would continue to monitor it during the crucial operations on September 22 and 24. Ending years of distrust and denial of technology, NASA had recently agreed to collaborate with ISRO for manufacturing an all-weather satellite to support disaster management and understand climate change.