As the Asian Voice reported last week. the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter launched successfully on its mission to Mars on Monday 14 March 2016.
It lifted-off from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, carrying on it an instrument co-developed by academic Dr Manish Patel in the Open University’s Space Science research priority area.
The spacecraft arrives at its destination mid-October.
Dr Patel was present at the European “mission control” in Darmstadt, Germany, along with the rest of the Open University team.
“Watching the launch was a surreal moment” said Dr Patel; “Seeing the end result of over a decade of work slowly lifting off the launch pad amidst the smoke was a terrifying but exhilarating moment. Now the spacecraft has safely left the Earth, it is onwards to Mars.”
Dr Patel is co-Principal Investigator for the NOMAD (Nadir and Occultation for MArs Discovery) instrument on board the probe. He and his team worked specifically on the part of the NOMAD instrument called “UVIS”, a miniature ultraviolet spectrometer whose main objective is to detect and quantify trace gas concentrations but also to study aerosols present in the Martian atmosphere.
“In a couple of weeks, we will receive the first set of data from the spacecraft; after checking that everything is OK with the orbiter, the instruments will be turned on one by one, and we will need to start pouring through the data and checking that everything is ok with NOMAD following the launch,” Dr Patel explains.
“Following the initial ‘health check’ of the instrument, a series of calibration activities will be performed between now and arrival at Mars, in order to make sure that NOMAD is prepared and ready to conduct the science investigations at the right time.”
Backgrounder
Manish’s parents are both Indian. His mother was born and raised in India, and his father in Uganda.
Dr Patel was born in Croydon, Surrey, where he studied his GCSEs and A-levels. He went to the University of Kent, and studied for a Masters Degree in Physics with Space Sciences. He spent a year studying in the US.
“It was difficult to get in, but I had good A-level results in Maths, Physics and Chemistry therefore I was able to secure a place. Studying was difficult, but interesting,” Manish said.
“After that, I went on to do a PhD at The Open University, working on the Beagle 2 mission to Mars where I built one of the science instruments. After that, I began work on the ExoMars instrument that was launched recently. I am now a Senior Lecturer in Planetary Sciences at the Open University, and hold a Joint Appointment at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire.”
Early inspiration
Manish was inspired to take this profession up at an early age.
“When I was young, my father had a keen interest in astronomy. He had a telescope that we used to use together. I guess that’s how I got interested in planetary science.”
So tell us again, what exactly has Dr Patel done?
We asked Manish to explain, in lay terms for the average reader, the significance of what he has just achieved.
“I have helped build an instrument that has been launched on the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter mission. The instrument I am involved with is called NOMAD. It will determine the composition of the atmosphere of Mars, being able to detect minute amounts of gases such as methane which could be clues to the presence of life on Mars. Finding signs of life on Mars has many implications, in science and society in general.”
It isn’t a cakewalk, achieving the kind of objective that Manish Patel and his team have. While space control centres seem glamorous and high tech when we watch them on television, a lot of hard work goes in behind the scenes.
Dr Patel revealed,
“There are many technical challenges to building a space instrument, and we have to solve many problems by working together and finding creative solutions. We have to miniaturise technology in order to make it fit on the spacecraft, and make sure that it works as expected in order to make the measurements we need it to. Finding sufficient funding to work on this type of research is however perhaps the hardest aspect of our work.”
Future Challenges?
“Interpreting the data that will be returned will probably be the hardest part of our work which forms the research that we do. There will be lots of data returned from the spacecraft, and figuring out what it means for the possibility of life on Mars will take many years of painstaking research to unravel.”
