What holds a spacecraft like the Mars orbiter mission spacecraft together?

A spacecraft is a magnificent piece of equipment. It travels days, weeks, perhaps years to reach its destination, provides shelter to astronauts and expensive machinery, and travels in hostile environment. Ever wondered what holds a spacecraft together? A lot of chemistry, physics and math are at play here. Let us look at the Mars Orbiter Mission - a successful mission when India sent a spacecraft to Mars. Launched by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on 5 November 2013, the Mars Orbiter Mission is a spacecraft that has been orbiting Mars and picking up information about the Red Planet since 24 September 2014.

It took the spacecraft 298 days to enter the Mars orbit. The craft has been named Mangalyaan, which literally means, Mars Craft. ISRO is only the fourth to send such a craft and the first to reach the orbit of Mars on the very first attempt. Read more about it by clicking here. Much of the spacecraft is made of titanium. The thrust chamber is made of Columbium alloy. (An alloy is a mix of different metals). Special welding techniques have been used to keep the parts together. These parts include many different packages like the printer circuit boards, telemetry package, telecommunication page, solar panel, sensors, thermal equipment and the power package.

The parts are held together by about 2,000 titanium screws. The screws are of different types, depending on their place and function. Some of these are screws with hexagonal sockets, some are cheesehead screws and some, countersinking screws. Titanium was used since it is very strong but has low density. The Mars Orbiter Mission which weighs 1,350 kg was made in a record 15 months!

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