Not engaged in space race with China: ISRO

According to him, the June 2011 feasibility study energised scientific groups to develop instruments for MOM. “We had 33 ideas. Only five instruments were flight-worthy. Others had their own technical issues.

“GSLV or any other vehicle that we had, we could not have put more than these five instruments. So, the presence of GSLV in that respect does not make any difference. GSLV would have put the satellite in a slightly higher apogee. With GSLV, one orbit-raising operation we could have avoided. Nothing more,” he explained.

“These (GSLV and MOM) are two different streams of activity in the organisation,” he said. “GSLV development has, I should say, no conflict with the MOM.”

With MOM, Radhakrishnan said, India is developing technological capability to take a spacecraft to the Martian environment and then put it into an orbit.