Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is all set to put the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) closer to the Red Planet on September 24. “Come September 24, ISRO is well poised to insert the satellite into Martian orbit. If successful, ISRO will be the first agency to succeed on debut,” said V Koteswara Rao, Scientific Secretary of ISRO. The MOM has so far covered about 98 per cent of the total distance of 653 million kilometres. The mission is now waiting for the Mars Orbit Insertion command to move it closer to the red planet from the current solar orbit. It is currently entering the “Sphere of Influence”, or entering the gravity of the planet.
On September 24, when ISRO manoeuvres the orbit insertion, it will gradually move the spacecraft into a hyperbolic trajectory with which it escapes from the earth’s SOI and arrives at the Mars Sphere of Influence.
Martian territory“When the spacecraft reaches the nearest point of Mars (Peri-apsis), it is manoeuvred into an elliptical orbit around Mars by firing the liquid engine. The spacecraft then moves around Mars in an orbit with Peri-apsis of 423 km and Apo-apsis of about 80,000 km,” Rao explained.
Talking about objective of the MOM exercise, Rao said through this, ISRO is able to demonstrate capabilities in deep space communication, navigation, mission planning and management.
“So far, we have excelled in design and realisation of a Mars orbiter with a capability to survive and perform Earth-bound manoeuvres, cruise phase of 300 days,” he said and added, “what is now left is the Mars orbit insertion/capture and on-orbit phase around Mars. So far mission is facing communication delay. One-way communication delay is around 718 seconds,” he explained. The mission with a budget of ₹450 crore is the most economical in the inter-planetary space missions. ISRO is one of the four agencies globally which has conducted a mission to the red planet.
Learning from failuresRao said ISRO has been able to reach this phase after learning from earlier failed missions of international agencies.
“If you see the history of missions, they have failed at various stages. Some have failed during the launch itself, which we have passed. Some of them have failed during the Trans Mars injection, which we have crossed. Some of them were lost on the way. Therefore, lot of learning has gone into the tracking and determination of orbit into the heliocentric path,” Rao said. According to him, the total radio distance is 224 million kilometres and the distance covered by MOM is 215 million kilometres. Rao further said that when calculated in heliocentric path, it is 666 million kilometres, while the distance covered by our MOM is 653 million kilometres.