Chennai: Indian space agency officials are gearing up for a manoeuvre to raise the orbit of the Mars Orbiter today, said a top official.
He added once the mission is successful, global space agencies might look at joining hands with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for inter-planetary and other space missions.
“Early tomorrow (Thursday), we will carry out the orbit-raising activities on Mars Orbiter. We will take the Mars Orbiter to over 28,000 km,” ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan said over phone from Bangalore yesterday.
ISRO officials said that Radhakrishnan often told them that launching the Mars Orbiter is only 15 percent work done. The balance 85 percent involves taking the Orbiter safely and injecting it in the Mars orbit.
“If the Mars Orbiter Mission succeeds, that is, if the Orbiter is injected in Mars orbit, then there is a possibility of space-faring nations partnering India for inter-planetary and other space missions,” Radhakrishnan added.
He said India’s spend of Rs450 crore on its Mars mission is the lowest as compared to the expenditure incurred by other nations on a similar venture.
Meanwhile, the mood is upbeat amongst the ISRO family members as the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), the Indian rocket, injected the Mars Orbiter Tuesday at a near-precise orbit.
“Going by the comments we hear from officials in space agencies of other countries and the media, the world seems to have been stunned at our Mars mission,” a senior ISRO official said.
“Early tomorrow (Thursday) at 1.17am the on-board motors of Mars Orbiter will be fired for around 200 seconds to raise its orbit by around 4,120km to 28,785km,” S Arunan, project director, Mars Orbiter Mission, said. “Today (Wednesday) morning, we carried out the rehearsal for the orbit-raising activities without switching on the motor,” he added.
According to him, around 40 kg of the on-board fuel is expected to be burnt in the first orbit-raising manoeuvre. “We will do six orbit-raising activities and the final and most important one will be the sixth one to push the Mars Orbiter towards the red planet,” Arunan said. IANS
