Actor Madhavan slammed for claiming ISRO used Hindu calendar for Mars mission
26 June, 2022 | Pravina Srivastava
According to Madhavan, Indian rockets lack the three engines: solid, liquid, and cryogenic that Western rockets use to launch themselves into the Martian orbit
With “Rocketry: The Nambi Effect,” actor R. Madhavan will make his directorial debut. However, he is now under criticism for claiming that the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) exploited the Hindu calendar to safely launch a rocket to Mars for the Mangalyaan project.
The remark was made by Madhavan at a promotion for his new movie in Tamil, and it was translated by musician T M Krishna.
According to Madhavan, Indian rockets lack the three engines: solid, liquid, and cryogenic that Western rockets use to launch themselves into the Martian orbit. India adopted the data from the “Panchangam” (Hindu calendar) since they lacked other resources.
The ‘Panchangam’ features a celestial chart with all the details on different planets, their gravitational pull, the deflection of the sun’s flares, etc.
He said, “The rocket was fired and it travelled around the earth, moon, and Jupiter’s moon before ricocheting into Mars’ orbit. Everything was calculated exactly thousands of years ago, therefore the launch was calculated using this information in the calendar.
Later T M Krishna shared Madhavan’s translated message on Twitter captioning it as “Disappointed that @isro has not made this crucial information available on their website. Time to think about a Mars Panchangam, too!”
India’s first space mission was the Mangalyan mission by ISRO. According to K Sivan of ISRO, the Mangalyan mission was initially only intended to last six months. In 2014, India became the first nation to successfully enter Martian orbit.