India Envisions Robotic Mars Voyage

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced this week that it has the technical capability to undertake a crewless mission to Mars and has begun asking scientists to suggest experiments. Speaking on Monday at the inauguration of the International Conference on Low Cost Planetary Missions being held in Goa, India, G. Madhavan Nair, chair of ISRO, said, "we have thrown our call for proposals to different scientific communities; depending on the type of experiments they propose, we will be able to plan the Mars mission." In a draft planning document, Vision 2025, ISRO describes big dreams that include a crewless mission to Mars before 2015. The government has not yet endorsed the proposal.