‘Outstanding’ secret behind Mangalyaan’s success

MUMBAI: Here's a secret behind the success of India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) that only two people — and not even the Prime Minister — knew. During every critical manoeuvre of the spacecraft, mission director S Arunan would slip out of the control room and stand in silence. The only other person who knew this routine was then Isro chairman K Radhakrishnan. "Call it superstition, but I believe that it brought us luck," Arunan told TOI.

His absence hardly mattered, for he had already ensured that the spacecraft was pre-fed commands for the manoeuvres. "The telemetry commands to the spacecraft are given several hours before it executes them, and at the real time of MOM carrying out the manoeuvres we are just sitting and watching," he said. "And I didn't want to watch."

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This he diligently followed during the six orbit-raising manoeuvres and three trajectory corrections of MOM. Arunan faced the biggest challenge when PM Narendra Modi visited the mission control room in Bengaluru to witness the spacecraft's injection into the Mars orbit. The PM's security had insisted there would be no movement of people at the centre before Modi arrived and till he left.

Arunan told the chairman that he couldn't break the ritual, and on a special request, he was allowed to remain outside the mission control. But the real cracker came from one of the PM's commandoes who asked why the project director was standing outside. Arunan told him he wanted some fresh air. The commando smirked, and said, "Sir, I've seen many such people; I move with politicians."

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Indian scientists are often frowned at for their personal beliefs—which often don't interfere with scientific excellence—but not many know space scientists in the US and Russia have their share of quirks as well. The Americans munch on peanuts during rocket launches. And the Russian cosmonauts pee on the right rear wheel of their transfer bus.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulating scientists behind Mangalyaan's successful entry into the Martian orbit, on September 24, 2014, at Isro's Telemetry Tracking and Command Network, in Bangalore. (TOI file photo)

The US peanut tradition has its origin in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's failure with the Ranger missions in the 1960s. After six failures, when a launch was successful, someone in the mission control said it was because a scientist was having peanuts.

The Russians also place coins on the rail track as the train that carries the rocket booster approaches the cosmodrome, for lucky charms. Russian cosmonauts are supposed to have a haircut on their space flight day. "We all have our rituals, and we create values associated with them," wired.com quoted space historian Roger Launius in 2012.

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