Bangalore: An Indian spacecraft will enter Mars on September 24 for scientific exploration of the red planet after a 300-day voyage through inter-planetary space, a space agency official said yesterday.
“After cruising through 666-million km across the solar orbit, for over nine months, our spacecraft will be inserted into the Martian orbit on September 24 at 7.30am, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientific secretary V Koteswara Rao said here at a preview of the mission’s tryst with the celestial object.
The orbit insertion will take place when the spacecraft will be 423km from the Martian surface and 215 million km away (radio distance) from the earth.
The ambitious Rs450-crore ($70m) Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) was launched on November 5, 2013 on board a polar rocket from the spaceport Sriharikota off the Bay of Bengal, about 80km north-east of Chennai.
“India will be the first country in the world to insert a spacecraft into the Martian orbit in its maiden attempt if the operation succeeds and also the first Asian country to reach the red planet’s sphere,” Rao said.
The state-run ISRO will be the fourth space agency after National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the US, Russian Federal Space Agency and European Space Agency to have undertaken a mission to Mars. Nasa’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Orbiter will enter the red planet’s orbit on September 22.
In the run-up to the D-day, the mission scientists will do course (trajectory) correction on September 22. As of yesterday, the 475kg (dry mass) spacecraft is 13 million km away from Mars, having cruised 98 percent (201 million km) of the radio distance from the earth and 653 million km of the sun’s 666 million km orbit.
“The course correction has been postponed to September 22 to conserve the precious liquid fuel weighing (852kg) and ensure the orbital insertion takes place when the spacecraft is closer to Mars for smooth transition from the sun’s orbit,” Rao said.
During the Orbiter’s long journey, mid-course correction was carried twice — December 11 and June 11 — but skipped in April and August as it was cruising in the solar orbit as intended.
The spacecraft, with five scientific instruments, will be placed in an elliptical orbit, with the nearest distance from the Martian surface being 423km and the furthest 80,000km, to rotate around it in a duration equivalent to 3.2 earth days. IANS
