Tough to ascertain India’s preparedness, says NASA expert

A senior NASA scientist of the Indian origin feels it is difficult speak on the preparedness of India's ISRO on its Mars Mission scheduled for November 2013 because all the vital information on the mission is not available yet, reports Vanita Srivastava,

A senior NASA scientist of the Indian origin feels it is difficult speak on the preparedness of India's ISRO on its Mars Mission scheduled for November 2013 because all the vital information on the mission is not available yet.

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"Yes, there would be a launch but it is difficult to conclude anything at this stage because of the lack of information," Dr Kumar Krishen said.

A scientist of Indian origin, Krishen has been working at NASA, Houston, USA, for more than 37 years. As a senior scientist, he plays a pivotal role in transfer of technology from NASA to US companies.

During his private visit to India, he gave his opinion on space exploration and technology.

The Mars Orbiter Mission is targeted for launch in November 2013 to study the surface and atmosphere of the planet.

According to sources, ISRO is integrating subsystems on the Mars Orbiter Structure that was given to it by the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd a few months ago.

ISRO will build the spacecraft on this structure with subsystems and payloads. Till March 2013, the focus will be on integration of subsystems and after that the payloads on which the scientific experiments are done will get integrated, an ISRO official said.

On human space missions, Krishen said that international collaboration and partnerships among different nations was essential.

"This partnership will help ISRO in training Indian manpower, developing instruments, extra vehicular activity astronaut suits, and infrastructure to get the latest technology for successful missions."

Maintaining that private sector participation must be bolstered in human missions to space, he said by involving the private sector, the technology becomes available to the commercial sector.