Pujo Patrika - Aikatan

the Soviet in those times was an
adventure.
O v e r t i m e , m a n y
communication satellites, earth
o b s e r v a t i o n s a t e l l i t e s ,
interplanetary missions and
space exploration missions have
been taken. Most of them saw
success. The Chandrayaan 1
mission in the year 2008, for
e x a m p l e w a s I n d i a’s fi r s t
i n t e r p l a n e t a r y m i s s i o n . I t
consisted of an orbiter and a
Moon Impact Probe. After
launch, the earth observation
satellites and communication
satellites are parked in correct
orbits with appropriate attitude
and inclination, the rocket and
satellite mounted thrusters do
this job. However, once in orbit,
mission control is fairly simple
(No, not DIY simple!). When it
comes to interplanetary missions
this orbit needs to be raised until
the spacecraft is pushed into a
transfer orbit which takes the
spacecraft to the vicinity of the
other planetary body (in this case
t h e m o o n ) . F i n a l l y , t h i s
approximately 22km/s fast
spacecraft is decelerated to 1/5 th
or 1/6 th of its speed so that the
gravity of the destination planet
can capture it in its orbit. This,
final operation called the ‘Orbit
Insertion’ is a risky business. With
the confidence gathered from
Chandrayaan-1 and some help
from NASA the “Mars Orbiter
Mission” a.k.a “Mangalyaan” was
pursued. The next hurdle in
space exploration is “softlanding”,
Chandrayaan-2 was
aiming at that. It’s time that ISRO
goes back to the drawing boards
and prepares for Chandrayaan-3,
a mission planned for 2024, in
collaboration with the Japanese
space agency JAXA. However,
for now the Sun seems to be
closer! ‘Aditya-L1’, a mission to
study the Sun, will be launched
by 2021. This spacecraft will be
placed a Langrangian point, a
point between earth and Sun
where all the gravitational forces
balance each other, thus keeping
the spacecraft stable. After
another tryst with the Mars
(Mangalyaan-2), ISRO plans to
launch a similar mission to Venus.
The Shukrayaan-1, now in its
nascent stage, will be planned
similar to the Mangalyaan. Of
course the next big mission is the
Gaganyaan, where will send a
astronaut to space, on our own.
M a n g a l y a a n a n d
Chandrayaan helped to get ISRO
in focus, we see a lot of young
e n g i n e e r s a n d s c i e n t i s t s
following ISRO, aspiring to join
some facility, we experience a
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