India is all set to create history when her maiden Mars mission – Mangalyaan or MOM (Mars Orbiter Mission) will successfully be injected into the Martian orbit today.
Scientists of NASA, who have been monitoring the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) at the behest of their Indian counterparts, posted a message on ISRO’s Facebook: “Good luck MOM! From your JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) family!”
This tricky manoeuvre ensures a reduction in speed of the Orbiter so that it comes under gravity of Mars. Sources said in case the motor develops a snag, eight thrusters onboard would be switched on to reduce the speed of the orbiter and ensure its
Sources in ISRO said Mangalyaan was 4,60,000 km away from Mars on Tuesday and would be about 515 km from the Red Planet when time-tagged commands activate the motor onboard for 24.23 minutes.
Space scientists spent the morning huddled in a meeting on checks and counter checks to be carried out on Mangalyaan on Wednesday and later rushed home to catch forty winks before returning to the Spacecraft Control Centre at ISRO’s Telemetry,
Today’s commands are to prompt the orbiter to beam data to ground stations in India, the United States, Australia and Spain. About 1000 commands for the crucial operation on Wednesday were fed to the Orbiter last week.
Dr S K Shivakumar, Director, ISRO's Satellite Centre (ISAC), Bengaluru, where the orbiter was assembled, summed up the mood of his colleagues on the eve of the big leap forward: “Our confidence levels are quite high. We do not need to worry about
Some “baby commands” were all that were beamed to Mangalyaan by Indian space scientists on Tuesday as they stood on the threshold of a historic moment when the Orbiter glides into an orbit around Mars in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi
The scheduled insertion will be conducted by the Spacecraft Control Centre at the agency’s Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) based in Peenya, Bengaluru with support from Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antennae at Byalalu.
Launched on the 5th of November 2013 onboard PSLV-C25 from Satish Dhawan Space Center, SHAR, Sriharikota in costal Andhra Pradesh, the spacecraft is scheduled to enter the red planet’s orbit today, on the 24th of September.