US sees India’s Mars mission as an 'exciting opportunity'

New York: India’s ambitious plan to send a spacecraft to Mars later this year has certainly caught America’s eye as India looks to play catch up in the global space race alongside the US, Russia, China and Japan. The unmanned, Indian spacecraft will be launched around November, when the red planet is closest to earth. It will blast off from Sriharikota in a mission expected to cost about $83 million and will take nine months to reach Mars’ orbit. “India’s first Indian Mars Orbiter Mission, slated for October 2013, is an exciting opportunity for US-India collaboration,” Geoffrey Pyatt, principal deputy assistant secretary for South Asia said at a meeting of the US-India Civil Space Joint Working Group. [caption id=“attachment_675150” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Handout picture taken by Mars Express.[/caption] Noting that the US and India are leaders in earth observation, Pyatt suggested that the countries “build on joint activities using US and Indian earth observation satellites to better understand earth systems and provide information to improve economies and lives.” India’s plans to send a mission to mars by the end of the year may have lost some thunder after the successful landing of NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars but it does show big thinking. NASA’s Curiosity landed near the Martian equator in August last year and has been exploring Gale crater, formed by a meteor strike. The most recent findings, based on the analysis of ground-up rock, include conclusive evidence that Mars once had much water, and that it also has sulfur, nitrogen and other elements and minerals that could have supported life. So what, with data from Curiosity and six other rovers that have landed on Mars, can India’s new Mars orbiter add to the mix? Plenty, say US experts who point out that India’s Mars Orbiter mission will be equipped with a methane sensor and look for signs of past life. “The time is now for many players to be doing many things across a much wider range of target goals than in the simple days of the moon race. It is not just playing a game, or showing off at the Olympics or something. It is actually making contributions to the world,” James Oberg, a space consultant in Houston, Texas told Voice of America. “We have seen the technology that India has brought to the space program, very significant technology, and the goals of the program appear to me to be very realistic and very important for India as well as the rest of the world,” Oberg added. India’s space exploration program began in 1962. It pulled off a major coup in the international community with its first lunar mission. Five years ago, India’s Chandrayaan satellite found evidence of water on the moon for the first time. It was hailed as a significant scientific discovery. “The hard work on both sides in transforming our interactions with each other has allowed successes such as including US instruments on India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar mission — a path-finding step to show our two systems how to work together, as well as a fruitful scientific endeavour pointing out the promise of this cooperation,” Pyatt said. India’s space program has managed to get a lot done, despite operating at a proposed budget of $1.34 billion this year (by comparison, NASA’s 2013 budget is $17.7 billion). India’s space program has developed a successful satellite regime focused on improving the life of ordinary Indians. The 3,400-kg GSAT-10 communication satellite, the heaviest ever built by India, was launched recently aboard an Ariane-5 rocket. The GSAT-10 will boost telecommunications, direct-to-home and radio navigation services by adding 30 much-needed transponders to India’s current capacity. India is currently leasing foreign transponders to meet domestic demand. India’s self-reliant space program’s objectives include communication and education via satellite, management of natural resources through remote sensing technology, weather forecasting and development of indigenous satellites and satellite launch vehicles. Though its budget is less than one-tenth that of NASA’s, it is important to note that experts say ISRO has grown into one of the world’s top six space programs since its inception.