BENGALURU: The scientist said that the Mangalyaan project all started with a core team comprising four engineers N.S. Hegde, Ananth Krishnan, Gomathi and Srinivas Murthy all from ISAC submitting a report to the top brass at Isro headquarters in Bengaluru that it would be possible to launch an orbiter to Mars.
This report led to setting up of a study team in August 2010 and its report was ready by June 2011.
A project report was handed in the same year, followed by a formal announcement by the then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on August 15, 2012.
“The key challenges were communication because of the distance between earth and Mars, and the design of a system to provide additional power for the communication link. We pulled it off because of the experience gained with Chandrayaan-I,” the scientist added.
