ISRO's Mars Lander Mission will use a rover hunt for signs of life on Red Planet

Illustration of a rover on Mars. (Image Credit: Bing Image Creator).

New Delhi: ISRO is returning to the Red Planet after the Mars Orbiter Mission or Mangalyaan, which has been orbiting Mars since 2014. The Mars Lander Mission (MLM or Mangalyaan 2) will be the first ISRO mission to attempt to land on the Red Planet. ISRO will be launching a Mars Relay Orbiter to support operations of the rover on the surface. This relay orbiter will be launched by a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), ISRO's workhorse rocket.

The operations on the surface will be conducted by a rover, which will be launched by the Launch Vehicle Mark 3 (LVM-3), the largest and mightiest rocket in ISRO's fleet. A supersonic parachute will be used to shed velocity before the landing attempt, with a sky crane used for the deployment of the rover. This technology is similar to the approach by which NASA lowered its two biggest rovers on Mars, Curiosity and Opportunity, using retrothrusters to precisely lower the rover.

Payloads on board the Mars Lander Mission

There are a number of proposed payloads for the rover. These include a ground penetrating radar for investigating the subsurface of mars, spectrometers for mineral mapping, a microscopic colour imager for examining the surface morphology and soil characteristics, as well as stereo cameras for providing the geological context, and navigation.

A dust analyser will be used to characterise the dust, with instruments for radio budget monitoring. ISRO may also carry an in-situ resource utilisation instrument, which may either process the regolith, or even use it for additive manufacturing. The relay orbiter will be equipped with infrared cameras to observe the dynamics of the Martian atmosphere at a global scale.

One of the most interesting proposed payloads is a Raman spectrometer, which produces a structural fingerprint of molecules, and is named after physicist CV Raman who advanced the technique. A laser beam is used to investigate samples, and this instrument can be used to identify bio-signatures, or molecules associated with life forms.

Landing on Mars is easier than landing on the Moon

Director of ISRO's Space Applications Centre, Nilesh Desai, during a talk on National Technology Day said, "Landing on Mars is easier than landing on Moon, because there is a thin atmosphere there, so you can use parachutes and other technologies. But, going there for nine months and then landing, that is the biggest challenge. This is going to be a very challenging mission."

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