Mars Orbiter Mission was launched last year in November.
By Dileep Thekkethil
BANGALORE: Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has announced that all the commands required for the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) to perform orbit insertion have been successfully uploaded and is expected to reach the orbit of the red planet on September 24.
When MOM enters the Martian orbit, ISRO ground station will once again give command to ignite the 440 Newton liquid engine, which is on a sleep-mode for more than 10 months after it was used in the final orbit raising maneuver. In case of a re-ignition failure, ISRO will go for the plan B, that is to burn eight small thrusters of 22 Newton engine used for course correction.
Mars Orbiter Mission or Mangalyaan was launched by ISRO on November 5, 2013 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, using India’s PSLV launcher. Mangalyaan spent almost one month orbiting the earth during which scientists raised its altitude seven times before the mission moved to a heliocentric trajectory toward Mars.
Uploading of commands, required for Mars Orbit Insertion, has just begun. Will take almost 13hrs. #MarsOrbiterMission pic.twitter.com/Hj1RwGHPow
— ISRO (@isro) September 14, 2014
The main objective of India’s mars mission is to exhibit the capabilities of the PSLV launcher, and the operation and planning capabilities of ISRO to realize a Mars mission in the cheapest and time bound manner.
On Saturday ISRO said “MOM keeps sending us vital information about the health of its various modules and measurements from sensors. This is called Telemetry signal. Today’s telemetry confirms that MOM is in the pink of health,”
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ISRO also confirmed that the Mangalyaan has completed 95% of its long journey and is just four million kilometers away from the Martian Orbit. The total cost of India’s Mars Orbiter Mission is Rs.450-crore.
Mangalyaan uses 2.2 m High Gain Antenna to send signals back to earth. As it has to cover a distance of 225 million kilometers, the signals take an average 20 minutes delay to reach the ground station of ISRO in Bangalore.
If the Mangalyaan reaches the Martian Orbit on September 24 as scheduled, India will become the first Asian country to successfully complete the maiden Mars mission.