Isro eyes missions to Venus and Mars

BENGALURU: The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), which will soon attempt to launch 104 satellites in space in a single mission, is also attempting to hold a mission to Venus and re-vist Mars.

Buried in the hundreds of pages of the new format electronic budget documents, is the first formal acknowledgement by the government about these two new bold inter-planetary sojourns.

India’s second mission to Mars is tentatively slated to take place in 2021-2022 and as per the existing plans it may well involve putting a robot on the surface of the Red Planet. While India’s first mission to Mars was a purely an Indian mission, the French space agency wants to collaborate in making the Mars rover.

The country’s maiden mission to Venus will in all probability going to be a modest orbiter mission. Michael M Watkins, the director of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said a mission to Venus is very-very worthwhile as so little is understood about that planet and Nasa would definitely be willing to partner in India’s maiden voyage to Venus.

Nasa and Isro have already initiated talks this month on trying to jointly undertake studies on using electrical propulsion for powering this mission.

The Narendra Modi-led government appears to be rather pleased with the space agency with finance minister Arun Jaitley giving the department of space a 23% increase in its budget. Under the space sciences section, the budget mentions provisions “for Mars Orbiter Mission II and Mission to Venus”.

Meanwhile, on February 15 Isro will attempt to launch a full load of 104 satellites using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV),which if successful would be a world record.

No other country has ever tried to hit a century in a single mission. The last world record is held by Russia which in 2014 rocketed 37 satellites in a single launch using a modified intercontinental ballistic missile.

NASA AND ISRO HAVE INITIATED TALKS TO JOINTLY UNDERTAKE STUDIES, RESEARCH FOR POWERING THE MISSION TO VENUS