India's Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan) tracking

[mishra]

Just a flash back of the humble beginings....

:omg: Are they for real?

[The-Ramones]

http://youtu.be/Q7Hia5q7Zt4

[The Outsider]

With the number of posts on this page talking about Modi' date=' that might not be true for long.[/quote'] I agree. I've spent the majority of my life among scientists and the vast majority of them (specially the ones doing serious science) detest politicians.I don't even want to respond to posts justifying his high profile presence there. He is an attention ***** with a net zero in positive contributions to the mission. Let him and his looney brigade bask in the glory.

[EnterTheVoid]

With the number of posts on this page talking about Modi' date=' that might not be true for long.[/quote'] I think doing dharnas and protests and pissing people off with false promises is the way to get things done. Ala Kejriwal style.

[coffee_rules]

Thread hijacked by Bhakts and Kambhakts.

[FischerTal]

Thread hijacked by Bhakts and Kambhakts.

:cantstop:

[cowboysfan]

Thread hijacked by Bhakts and Kambhakts.

no kidding,disappointed in some senior posters too.

[Number]

Watched all of modi's speech last night. Apparently some of his advisors told him 'sir, do you really have to go? These missions have a low success rate, it will become embarrassing for you if things dont go according to plan..' and apparently modi told them if things fail then it is my primary duty to be there to console the scientists I like this man. I hate his past, but i like him

Good. :two_thumbs_up: I was no fan either till 2009-10, in fact had a neg. image of him. But things changed quite unexpectedly in the next 2-3 years. I remember you being one of the biggest critics on this forum. Its a sensible thing to do to change the perception, rather than sticking to your king size ego and only to keep finding faults out of prejudice.

[diga]

no kidding' date='disappointed in some senior posters too.[/quote'] why cant the mods delete those posts & impose an infraction?

[Yoda-esque]

why cant the mods delete those posts & impose an infraction?

No guts

[hhunaeh]

ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission: Mylswamy Annadurai & other people who played a key role

BANGALORE: It is ironical that the man who successfully led the country's mission to Mars is considered to be under the negative influence of the Red Planet under Indian astrology. As a manglik, Mylswamy Annadurai — the mission director of Isro's Mangalyaan spacecraft — had to find a life partner who also had the same impact from the planet. It was truly a match made in the heavens. Annadurai considers his wife Vasanthi one of his biggest fans. She collects even small snippets of news about her husband appearing in the media. The 56 -year-old scientist from Kodhawady, a small vil lage near Coimbatore, had never stepped out of his district until he finished his Masters. He obtained a Bachelors in Engineering degree from Government College of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India and completed his Masters Degree in Engineering from PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore. Annadurai joined Isro in 1982 at the age of 24 and had had previously been in-charge of India's satellite launches. Before this, he successfully completed India's maiden moon mission Chandrayaan-1 as well as the Insat satellite launches. His wife Vasanthi said Annadurai has always been fascinated with the moon. She recalled as a young scientist during early days of marriage he would lie on the rooftop of the house and gaze at the moon for hours. Vasanthi would warn him that he could catch cold, would pay no heed. Annadurai's close friends say that he believes himself to be fortunate that he gets paid for doing something that he really loves. In fact, he writes regular weekly columns in Tamil periodicals to explain rocket science in simple language to inspire the youth. Also, during holidays, Annadurai loves to tour across the country, meeting and interacting with the students to spread awareness on science and technology. Annadurai begins his day by reading at least a couple of pages from the Bhagavad Gita. When his mind is preoccupied, he reads an entire chapter. "For the past 34 years, it is my practice to start the day reading two pages of the Gita," said Annadurai at an earlier event. Annadurai would have most likely read entire chapters of the Gita on Monday and Tuesday when India's Mars mission reached a crucial phase. Key People K Radhakrishnan: Chairman of Isro, and Secretary, Department of Space. Responsible for leading the mission and co-ordinating all Isro activities. S Ramakrishnan: Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and Member of the Launch Authorisation Board. He played an integral in developing the PSLV that ferried Mangalyaan. P Kunhikrishnan: Project director of the PSLV programme. His responsibility included ensuring the successful completion of mission by the rocket, and the satellite was projected into space. SK Shivakumar: Director, Isro Satellite Centre. He was also part of the team that developed the telemetry system for Chandrayaan-I, India's first lunar exploration mission.

[hhunaeh]

India's Mars mission: Picture that spoke 1,000 words

When the crowded command control room of India's Mars mission exploded into applause after it successfully put a satellite into orbit around the Red Planet, photographer Manjunath Kiran of the AFP news agency clicked this remarkable image of scientists congratulating each other. Wednesday's picture arrived with a rather anodyne caption saying "staff from the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) celebrate after the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft (Mom) successfully entered the Mars orbit". But in reality, the picture was about much more than that - a bunch of smiling Indian women resplendent in gorgeous saris greeting each other as their male colleagues look on admiringly at mission control in Bangalore. "The women were leading the applause when the good news arrived. They were celebrating more than men. Who said men are from Mars and women are from Venus?" says senior science journalist Pallava Bagla, who was present in the control room. The picture - which brightened up my manic morning writing up the Mars mission story - went viral and became the event's image of the day. People in their thousands tweeted that they loved it. One said "when was the last time you saw women scientists celebrate a space mission?"; another that the women showed "we don't need to wear labcoats". Others said the scientists in saris had "redefined mission control" and called them "true role models". The chatter even veered into the contentious Indian debate about tradition and modernity. Look at our rocket scientists, said one tweet, when women working in call centres think that wearing jeans "makes them modern and scientific". Somebody wondered why "no matter how much women succeed/achieve, the focus ultimately is on what they are wearing?" That, another respondent tweeted, is "because we have newspapers telling us that smart career women don't wear saris only western business suits!". Although we do not know for sure whether all the women in this picture are engineers or scientists, they all probably work with India's space agency. Some 20% of Isro's 14,246 employees are women and their numbers are growing. Nandini Harinath, 44, a physicist and a mother of two, was the deputy operations director of the Mars mission - in other words, she was the person "operating" the spacecraft between Earth and Mars. "It's easier to bring up children than to control the Mars orbiter," she told the NDTV news channel. Minal Sampath and her team built three instruments for the spacecraft and she wants to become "the first woman director of a space centre". A woman leads one of the agency's main strategic programmes. Another female engineer was in charge of wheeling out the 15-storey-high 320,000kg (320 tonne) Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV) from the vehicle assembly building to the launch pad. Tessy Thomas, a scientist from India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), is thought to be one of the very few women working on strategic nuclear ballistic missiles in the world. Three women led a team which launched a communication satellite three years ago. What next? Will a woman head India's space agency one day? (All seven chairmen of Isro so far have been men.) And, as Pallava Bagla writes, Isro reckons that the first astronaut from India "could well be a woman". When that happens, Indian women will be over the moon.

[hhunaeh]

India's Mars scientist and other working lives

For two years, Minal Sampath, a systems engineer working on India's mission to Mars, worked flat out in a windowless room, often for 18 hours a day, to be ready for the country's most ambitious space project to date. "We had a great team and there [was] an understanding between us that we [had] to get the work done to meet the deadline," she says. "The launch date [was] fixed and we could not miss it." That day finally came on 5 November last year when the Mars Orbiter Mission took off at 09:08 GMT from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the east coast of India. It also marked the moment that India joined the short list of nations capable of launching such a mission. Only the Soviet Union, Russia, the US, Britain, Europe, Japan and China have done so. Of the 40 missions launched so far, fewer than half have been successful. Team of 500 scientists If the Indian Mars Orbiter reaches the Red Planet, it will join an even shorter list of nations that have pulled off a successful mission. Only the US, Russia and Europe have managed that. For Ms Sampath, working on the Mars project was a dream come true. "I was in [my last year at primary school], when I saw a live launch on TV. At that time it just struck me in my mind how good it would be to work there, and today I am here," she says. She is one of 500 scientists who have laboured on the project, which was announced 15 months earlier by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Ms Sampath and her team built three instruments for the spacecraft that will carry out the main experiments. One, an infrared camera, can detect heat sources, while another can sniff out methane in the atmosphere, an indicator of life (though Nasa's Curiosity has already ruled this out). "I said goodbye to Saturdays and holidays in the two years before the launch. We were working up to 18-hour days sometimes," she says. Ms Sampath is one of the few women working at the Indian equivalent of Nasa. Despite that, she says she has never felt that she is treated any differently. "I forget I am a woman sometimes, working in such an organisation," she says. "Maybe it's because we spend a lot of time working in clean rooms with full suits on, so you can't tell who is male or female," she says, laughing. But as only one in 10 of the scientists is female, Ms Sampath says this is something she wants to change. "I want women to imagine that they can do this." Away from her family The next stress point in her life will be when the spacecraft gets to Mars in September and all the systems reawaken to complete the mission. Inevitably, this will mean she is away from her family. "What the job takes away from me is that when my son is sick, when he needs me, I am in Bangalore repairing some system there," she says. "I am not able to take care of him when he needs me but I am doing something with my payloads there, making connections, checking interfaces and making that all right. "Without them, I wouldn't have been able to make such commitments to my work, five projects, eleven payloads." However, Ms Sampath is adamant that she has not been unfairly treated "It's all about your take on life," she insists, adding that she is "OK" with having her life disrupted by work. "You have to keep dreaming, to keep thinking of what you will achieve. It is only up to you. Only you yourself can tune your life." Message of inspiration With her work firmly supported by the traditional extended Indian family structure, the prospect of much higher wages abroad has no appeal for her. "I want to become the first woman director of a space centre," Ms Sampath says, and she would love to go into space herself, although she says she is likely to leave that to the next generation. "I'm telling [my son] to save up to be a space tourist," she says. And whether India should have spent $73m (£50m) on a Mars mission with so many of its people living in poverty, Ms Sampath is adamant that it is value for money as space exploration sends a vital message of inspiration to every Indian. "It will not feed a single poor person but that poor person can think that 'in my country, look what is here!' It will make your thinking broad." Also, she points out, the cost of India's Mars mission is less than the average Hollywood blockbuster.

[hhunaeh]

:hatsoff: to the ones who deserve real credit for india's mars mission. We should be discussing more about these people. The media should have focused more on them and about the mission itself, instead of doing what they usually do, instead of making comparisons with some stupid Hollywood movie gravity.

[coffee_rules]

Top ISRO scientists all southies ! :vroam:

[hhunaeh]

Top ISRO scientists all southies ! :vroam:

That's because most of the isro centers for whatever reasons are in south india and they are govt jobs with govt salaries so many people until now might not have had an incentive to move their lives just to join it.

[mishra]

Top ISRO scientists all southies ! :vroam:

I guess North Indian thought it less hazardous if Rockets fail and fall in the Ocean or over local population :winky:

[Ram]

Top ISRO scientists all southies ! :vroam:

More specifically, Mallus. The previous 3 ISRO heads (including the current one), are all from the land of the coconut. :dontknow: Is there an hidden Mallu quota in ISRO? :hitler: #NotFair

[seedhi]

:hatsoff: to the ones who deserve real credit for india's mars mission. We should be discussing more about these people. The media should have focused more on them and about the mission itself' date=' instead of doing what they usually do,[b'] instead of making comparisons with some stupid Hollywood movie gravity.

In the article you posted above the ISRO engineer herself makes that comparison:

Also, she points out, the cost of India's Mars mission is less than the average Hollywood blockbuster.

[hhunaeh]

In the article you posted above the ISRO engineer herself makes that comparison:

She also said a lot of other things and that was just one line unlike it being repeated again and again at every opportunity like how the media did it.