ISRO in active mode for Mars mission

India has completed a significant amount of work on next year's planned Mars mission for which scientific payloads have been short-listed, with formal government approval for the ambitious venture expected soon.

Bangalore-headquartered ISRO is planning to undertake the mission to the planet Mars during November 2013. The project report for Indian Mars orbiter mission has been submitted for approval of Government.

The mission envisages launching an orbiter around Mars using Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-XL). The orbiter will be placed in an orbit of 500 x 80,000 km around Mars and will have a provision for carrying nearly 25 kg of scientific payloads on-board.

"The tentative scientific objective for the Mars mission will be to focus on life, climate, geology, origin, evolution and sustainability of life on the planet," according to an official ISRO report.

Scientific payloads have been short-listed by the ISRO's Advisory Committee for Space Sciences (ADCOS) review committee. Baseline, solar array and reflector configuration of the satellite have been finalised. Frequency filing for communication subsystem is under progress, the space agency said in its just uploaded 2011-12 annual report.

Meanwhile, ISRO has signed a MoU with Indian Institute of Astrophysics for development and delivery of solar coronagraph payload for its ADITYA-1 project, while mechanical configuration of the satellite is in progress.

This project will be the first Indian space based solar coronagraph, which will be available for solar coronal observation to all the Indian researchers in the field of Solar Astronomy.