ISRO Reveals Mangalyaan-2 Plans; Aims To Be The Third Country To Land Spacecraft On Moon (image-science.nasa.gov)

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is ready to launch its next mission after successfully completing Mangalyaan. 

The space agency before launching the mission, has revealed how it plans to land its mission on the Red Planet. The United States and China are the only two countries that were able to achieve this milestone. India aims to be the third country to land the spacecraft on another planet. 

The big plans were revealed during a presentation on National Technology Day at the Space Application Centre. The Indian space agency has revealed that for their attempt at the second Mars mission, they will feature a rover and helicopter combination the same as NASA’s Perseverance rover. The sky agency would develop a supersonic parachute and a sky-crane for deploying the rover on the Red Planet. 

This is not the first time the sky crane has been used to deploy the rover. NASA has earlier used the crane to land its highly precise and successful Perseverance rover on Mars. 

This system enables the safe and precise landing of the rover, avoiding the need for airbags or ramps. It also ensures that the Cranes land upright even on challenging terrain. 

The Indian engineers apart from the sky cranes are also working on the design and development of a fully functioning helicopter to fly in the thin Martian air. But the rotorcraft is now at the conceptual stage. 

In order to profile the Martian atmosphere, aerial vehicles will be designed that are capable of flying up to 100 meters in the thin Martian air. The UAV will carry the Martian Boundary Layer Explorer which has a suite of payloads for aerial exploration of Mars. 

Ahead of the mission launch, the space agency has decided to deploy a relay communication satellite to ensure proper communication. 

The mission will be launched aboard the heavy-lift Launch Vehicle Mark-III (LVM3) to Mars.