Nature reports on India’s preparations for their first interplanetary exploration:
Mangalyaan, known formally as the Mars Orbiter Mission, or MOM, was launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) last November. With 5 scientific instruments that collectively weigh just 15 kilograms, it is designed to image the planet and probe the composition of the surface and atmosphere, including testing for methane and measuring the ratio of deuterium to hydrogen.
Those are modest goals compared with, say, the much larger NASA orbiter MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution), which is also en route to the red planet. Scheduled to arrive just three days ahead of MOM, it has eight instruments and would be the first spacecraft to examine questions such as how the solar wind has stripped away the Martian atmosphere.
As a result, the anticipation surrounding MOM comes not from the science, but from what a safe arrival would mean for India. “It will be a validation that Indian research and development has come of age,” says Amitabha Ghosh, an Indian-born planetary scientist based in Washington DC. “India is still perceived as a place where work is outsourced, not because of superior science and engineering skills but because of a cost advantage.”