India is preparing to launch its second spacecraft to Mars, nine years after it made history by successfully sending a rocket into orbit around the Red Planet in its first attempt, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) officials said on October 2.
The Mars Mission-2 orbiter, informally named Mangalyaan-2, will carry four instruments to study aspects of Mars, including interplanetary dust, the Martian atmosphere and environment.
“All four of these devices are at different stages of development,” said an unnamed ISRO official.
The launch of Chandrayaan-3 from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Andhra Pradesh state, southern India on July 14. (Photo: AFP/TTXVN)
Nine years ago, on September 24, India made history by entering Mars' orbit on its first attempt, a feat that no other space agency had achieved until then.
This second mission is expected to carry out the Mars Orbiter Dust Experiment (MODEX), the Radio Occultation (RO) experiment, the Energy Ion Spectrometer (EIS), and the Langmuir and Electric Field Exploration Experiment (LPEX).
Mission documentation states that MODEX will help understand the origin, abundance, distribution, and flow at high altitudes on Mars.
The results could help explain dust flows on Mars, whether there are any (as hypothesized) belts around Mars, and also confirm whether the dust is interplanetary or comes from Phobos or Deimos (two moons of Mars).
Dust studies may help explain RO test results
(Source: vietnamplus)
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