Bengaluru: India’s second probe to Mars that is set to be launched in 2020, will benefit, not just from ISRO’s in house brains trust but the brilliance of Indian scientists across other institutions, who have offered their expertise in the design and manufacture of instruments, said A.S. Kiran Kumar, Chairman, ISRO.
The scientists will work together on experiments planned onboard India's second probe to Mars.
"The response (from scientists outside ISRO) is good. We have committees which are going to look at them (proposals submitted by these scientists) soon," he said, as he threw open the country's first gallery on space technology here on Tuesday.
In the Announcement of Opportunity, ISRO has stated that the new Mars mission provides an opportunity to explore planetary evolutionary processes, how and whether life arose elsewhere in the solar system, and the interplay between geological and possible biological history.
The new mission will address questions related to these fields. The second probe MoM-2 would consist of an orbiter, a lander and a rover.
While the lander, it says, would focus on 'in situ surface/subsurface probing', the orbiters will study the Martian surface and sub-surface and serve as the communication link to Earth. "On ISRO's second lunar mission, the probe's assembly and tests are underway. It is going through various phases. We are targeting the launch for the first quarter of next year," he said. Mr Kumar said beginning next year, the space agency plans to schedule at least one flight of PSLV or GSLV rockets every month, and has sought a substantial increase in budgetary allocation for next two years. Flights of PSLV, which were put on hold following a snag in August this year, would resume in December or January for launch of Cartosat-2 series satellite along with 29 small satellites, including those from the United States and Finland.
Exhibits: The space gallery, with several interactive exhibits of satellites and rockets, focuses on the Indian space programme and how discoveries in science and technology catapulted the nation as a leader in space technology.
