Bengaluru: “Everything is fine. MOM is now 222 million km away from earth,” remarked scientists monitoring the orbiter at ISTRAC ahead of its entry into the sphere of influence of Mars and testing of the motor onboard at 2.30 pm on Monday.
Besides turning on the motor for four seconds to make sure that it works on Wednesday, the fourth trajectory correction will also be carried out by Indian space scientists on Monday. The commands for these manoeuvres were beamed to the onboard computer on September 14 and 15 and verified twice-over on September 16.
Read: Mars Orbiter Mission won’t be single for long
The 440 Newton Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) engine now in idle mode on the Mars Orbiter Mission since 300 days will be fired for about four seconds which, if successful, will boost the confidence level of Isro about the success of insertion of the spacecraft into the Martian orbit.
“We are all set for the fourth trajectory correction manoeuvre and test fire of the main liquid engine. Commands have already been loaded into the spacecraft for this event and has also been verified,” a top ranking Isro official said.
He said the event is crucial as the engine stored in the orbit for about 300 days without operation will be restarted for testing. “This test firing of the LAM engine is like a trial, which is going to be fired for a longer duration on September 24 for Mars Orbit Insertion,” he said.
The engine will be test fired for 3.968 seconds with fuel consumption of about 0.567 kg and with a decremental velocity of 2.142 metres/second. On a 666 million km journey, the spacecraft escaped the earth gravity pull on December 1,2013.
