Mission Mangal: ISRO employee reviews Akshay Kumar's space drama, says film 'spoilt by Bollywood-style narrative'

Amid the money-minting spree of Mission Mangal, an employee at Indian Space Research Organisation has reviewed the Akshay Kumar and Vidya Balan-starrer on Quora. Sowmya J, an Avionics Quality Assurance Engineer at Indian Space and Reasarch Organisation (ISRO), says while the film, touted as India's first space movie, captures the struggles faced by women at the organisation, it is replete with technical errors. Based on India's first Mars mission, Mission Mangal has already surpassed the Rs 100 crore mark within five days of its release.

Character posters of Mission Mangal

Sowmya praises the animation and sound effects of the rocket launch and satellite scenes in Mission Mangal. She appreciates the makers for delving into the strenuous work culture at ISRO. However, the Mangalyaan mission team member has enlisted a number of logical fallacies with the film.

She notes that while the film shows in one sequence that the LAM engine fails to fire during of orbit-raising maneuvers, it never delves deep into analysing the reason for the failure. She adds that ISRO never proceeds without thoroughly analysing the reasons for earlier failure.

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"The Mangalyaan carrying rocket which they called as “PSLV", isn't the structure of PSLV. PSLV is 4STO vehicle, with only solid and liquid stages. But whatever rocket they showed, seemed to have a cryo stage and with 3STO configuration. I felt it was a blatant error," she goes onto write.

Sowmya also questions how Vidya Balan's Tara Shinde is able to fly back and forth from Bangalore to Shriharikota in the same. "Before every launch there are so many planned activities and tests that have to be executed prior to going on automatic launch sequence mode. You can't just abort the launch, pack off home and then come back and launch the vehicle by just turning on a few switches. Even launch abort is a huge procedure in itself, taking hours to undo things including venting out all the propellants. And how did Vidya Balan manage to fly back and forth between Bangalore and Shriharikota in the same day?," she writes on Quora.

"Mars has got prograde orbit just as Earth. Mangalyaan was launched in a prograde orbit with Mars. But what they showed in the animation seemed like retrograde orbit," Sowmya adds.

Among the non-technical errors, Sowmya questions how Taapsee Pannu's Kritika Aggarwal rejoins office nearly a month after she left, without anyone noticing. In the film, she is on a leave because her husband (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub), a soldier, is injured at the border. "And she just joins back and her reporting officer Tara welcomes with hip-shaking dance. Wow! Wish my boss ever did that!!," she jokes.

Sowmya says that while the film had a lot of potential, the Jagan Shakti directorial failed to stick the landing because of its "Bollywood-style narrative."

In the end, she jokes that they have enough on their plates, and "do not clean, mop and paint" their offices. She was referring to the song 'Om Mangalam' in the film, in which the team of scientists clean and decorate their office.

Read the entire review here.