Tuesday, 23 September 2014

Live: Delighted Twitter starts seeing aliens as Mangalyaan orbits Mars - Firstpost

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10.53 am: And Twitter celebrates in its own Twitter style


After all the live updates, retweets and celebrations, Twitter is doing what it does best. Which is generate some good old fashioned Internet humour.


Check out some of these awesome tweets:






9.30 am: Mangalyaan starts Mars orbit, India succeeds where China, Japan fail


Mangalyaan has started its orbit, as it tweeted to us a short while ago:



This is simply massive for India. It is the first nation in the world to successfully launch a Mars mission on its first try, and the first ever Asian nation to successfully launch a mission to the red planet. Check out our interactive timeline of other successful Mars missions here: The Rs 450-crore Mangalyaan aims to study Mars' surface and mineral composition, and scan its atmosphere for methane, a chemical strongly tied to life on Earth. Check out the payloads of the Mars craft here:


9.00 am: Namaste Mangalyaan! Among the tweets to Isro and Mangalyaan is the Mars Curiosity Rover. The orbiter and the rover are now having a Twitter conversation:




8.42 am: And the wishes start pouring in


What great news to wake up to, India. The wishes have started pouring in. Nasa is among the well wishers, tweeting "We congratulate @ISRO for its Mars arrival! @MarsOrbiter joins the missions studying the Red Planet. #JourneyToMars" There's actually a lot of Isro-Nasa love happening on Twitter.




Other well wishers include the President of India Pranab Mukherjee who tweeted, "Hearty congratulations & best wishes to ISRO Team on Mangalyaan's success; nation proud of this historic acheivement" and of course Prime Minister Modi, who we heard speaking a little while ago, is also among the well wishers on Twitter. For a complete list of who said what, click here


8.30 am: Modi says Isro scientist's achievements greatest ever


For a cricket worshipping nation, the Prime Minister has just put this entire mission into perspective. "The entire nation celebrates when the cricket team wins a tournament. This achievement by Isro is greater than any of those achievements!" Some applause and laughter, but who will disagree today? The Prime Minister ends his speech to massive applause by the assembled scientists, some of whom have not slept in days, from what we hear. But with this kind of adrenalin rush, who needs sleep?



PM Modi is now being personally introduced to the Isro team behind the success of the mission.


8.22 am: PM Modi lauds the scientists of Isro


"Your achievements have honoured our forefathers and inspired our future generations", says Prime Minister Modi as a beaming Isro chairman, K Radhakrishnan stands next to him. "Our space programme has been an example of achievement which inspires the rest of us. Through your brilliance and hard work you have made it a habit of achieving the impossible.


"Our space programme has been an example of achievement which inspires the rest of us" High and richly deserved praise.


And we see some emotion from the scientists at Isro too. The camera pans to one red eyed scientist who is wiping away her tears.


8.09 am: Today Earth has met Mars, says delighted Prime Minister Modi


Prime Minister Narendra Modi is clearly delighted. "Today Earth has met Mars" he said, before congratulating all the scientists at Isro and every single Indian over the success of the mission.


"Travelling an incredible distance of over 650 million kilometres, we have gone beyond the borders of enterprise and human imagination. We have successfully navigated our spacecraft on a route known to very few. We have dared, to reach out, into the unknown", he continues.


The PM sounds a little bit like the narrative of a Star Trek show. Will he soon say, "Space... the final frontier?" Who can blame him though? What an absolutely exciting time for India and Mangalyaan!


And it is significant that he is using English on such an internationally significant occasion. India now takes its place among a very elite group of nations who have actually managed to send missions to Mars, and the first Asian nation to do so.



And some humour from the PM too: "The day the mission was named MoM, I knew it would succeed because a mother never disappoints!"


8.00 am: Success! Mangalyaan successfully enters Mars orbit


Massive celebrations at the Isro mission control room. Mangalyaan is now in Mars orbit. Prime Minister Modi all decked out in a red shirt as befits the occasion, also bursts out clapping.


Hugs, hand shaking all around. It's hard not to feel a little emotional. ISRO_Modi-2

ISRO_Modi-2


This means India is the first country to ever conduct a successful mission to Mars on the first attempt, and the first ever Asian country to do so.


And of course, the Mangalyaan has its own Twitter feed. Check out its first tweet here:



7.51 am: Is Mangalyaan a success? A nerve wracking 12 minutes to find out!



Occulation, if you are wondering is an event that occurs when one object is hidden by another object that passes between it and the observer.


This means that Mangalyaan should now come out from behind Mars. And why 12 minutes? Because that's how far away Mangalyaan is! That's how long it takes for the signal to reach us from deep space.


Telemetry, for those interested, is the wireless transmission and reception of measured quantities for the purpose of remotely monitoring environmental conditions or equipment parameters. The term is also used in reference to the signals containing such data.


7.42 am: We are 98 percent there, says Isro deputy director


Isro deputy director Madan Lal has said that Mangalyaan is 98 percent there. So we can relax a little, but it's still too soon to celebrate!


Now we have a tense few minutes to find out whether or not the entire burn has been successful and whether Mangalyaan will slow down to the perfect speed, allowing it to be captured by the Mars gravitational orbit.


Isro says the Burn must have ended by now. Mangalyaan should now start turning towards earth. We won't know any of this for a while, because the craft is behind Mars. This means the craft is pretty much on its own, because it will have no contact with earth for the next half an hour or so.



Meanwhile as you wait, here's a fun fact:



7.30 am: Burn start confirmed. All engines of Mangalyaan going strong


This is the first critical step for Mangalyaan. Isro has tweeted saying that all engines of the Mars Orbiter are going strong. We see images of Isro scientists celebrating at Isro control room.


Screenshot from Doordarshan

Screenshot from Doordarshan



Now Mangalyaan will be behind Mars for the next 28 minutes, which means that we will not know for a while whether the craft has successfully entered the gravitational orbit of the red planet. Lots of nervous energy everywhere. Good luck Mangalyaan! Fingers are all crossed.


7.19 am: Burn has started. This is the moment of truth


This is the tricky part of the Mars mission. Mangalyaan is now behind the red planet, which means that it will be out of communication with earth for 28 minutes. If all goes well, by around 8 or 8.30 am we will get to know whether the mission is a success or not.



Isro tweets, "Burn must have started. All engines must have started firing by now. Skip a few heartbeats and stand by for confirmation".


7.12 am: Isro says that Mangalyaan's forward rotation has started


So we have our first piece of confirmation. The forward rotation of Mangalyaan has started. This is the first of several steps that Isro and Mangalyaan must take to ensure that it is successfully placed in the gravitational orbit of Mars.


The next step is the big one. When Mangalyaan enters the Mars eclipse. That is when burn starts, or when the main engine is fired for 28 minutes.



6.56 am: PM Modi enters Isro control room to cheer Mangalyaan on


Prime Minister Modi has entered the Isro control room to watch the scientists as they begin their tricky work of ensuring that the Mars orbiter enters the gravitational pull of the red planet. Some of these scientist have been awake all night, busy working out calculations to ensure that nothing goes wrong at the last minute.



Isro has tweeted, saying "Forward Rotation must have begun,it is required to align the direction of firing for effective braking. Confirmation reaches after 12.5 mins". Why such a big lag? That's how far away Mangalyaan is!


If successful, India will be the first Asian country to successfully carry out a Mars mission.


The first Chinese mission to Mars, the Yinghuo-1 failed in 2011 alongside the Russian Phobos-Grunt mission with which it was launched. Japan's first Mars orbiter, Nozomi launched in 1998, but was lost after it ran out of fuel.


What are the successful Mars mission? Check them out here:


6.45 am: Fingers crossed! Can Isro successfully insert Mangalyaan into the Mars orbit?


Mangalyaan has travelled ten months and millions of kilometres and it boils down to these precious few minutes. Has Isro done enough to ensure that the orbiter is successfully placed inside the gravitational orbit of Mars?


We certainly hope so!


Isro scientists are quietly confident after they successfully 'woke up' the main liquid engine of the Mars craft that had been dormant for almost 300 days. This means that the engine should work, when it will be fired for 24 minutes along with all eight thrusters, so that it can be injected into a safe orbit around Mars.


According to The Hindu :


On Wednesday, the orbiter’s propulsion system, called 440 Newton engine or the Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM), will erupt into life at 7.17 a.m. after remaining dormant for 300 days during the spacecraft’s journey to the Red Planet.


Simultaneously, eight 22 Newton thrusters on the spacecraft will pounce into life. The LAM and the eight thrusters will fire together for 24 minutes to perform the MOM’s most crucial manoeuvre called Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) to lower India’s spacecraft into the Martian orbit, with a peri-apsis of 423 km and an apo-apsis of 80,000 km. The manoeuvre will end at 7.41 a.m. Around 8.15 a.m., the world will know whether India is home and dry.


“Both the hardware and software simulation has been well-established for the MOI. We do not expect any new concern to crop up for the MOM success,” said Mr. Arunan.


It's a very tricky operation, as explained by this BBC article:


If it does not slow down sufficiently, it will miss being caught by the gravity of Mars and the mission could be lost in outer space; but if the rocket engine fires more than required it could slow Mangalyaan so much that it could go crashing down on to the red soil of Mars.


Here is a breakdown of what exactly will happen today:


Image courtesy Isro Twitter feed

Image courtesy Isro Twitter feed



You can watch a video on the Isro site here too.


A lot is at stake for Mangalyaan, and the odds stacked against it are quite high. Only 21 of the 51 missions to Mars so far have been successful. No country has managed a successful Mars mission on its first try, and no Asian country has managed the feat either. And if successful, it will also be the cheapest mission to Mars yet undertaken by any nation.


Here is a cost comparison:


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