The second orbit raising manoeuvre of India’s Mars Orbiter spacecraft was performed in the early hours today, three days after its successful launch by PSLV C-25 into orbit around the Earth.

The manoeuvre, starting at 2.18 AM, raised the spacecraft’s apogee (farthest point from Earth) from 28,814 km to 40,186 km, with a burn time of 570.6 seconds, ISRO said.

The first orbit raising manoeuvre was performed at 1.17 a.m yesterday, part of a series of five such operations scheduled for the Mars mission.

The third orbit raising operations would be made on Saturday to raise the mission apogee to 71,650 km, while the fourth and fifth would be on November 11 and 16 to raise the apogee to 1,00,000 km and 1,92,000 km respectively.

After successful completion of these operations, the mission is expected to take on the “crucial event” of the trans-Mars injection around 12.42 a.m on December 1.

ISRO’s PSLV C-25 successfully injected the 1,350-kg Mangalyaan Orbiter (Mars craft) into orbit around Earth some 44 minutes after a textbook launch at 2.38 p.m from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota on Tuesday, marking the successful completion of the first stage of the Rs 450-crore mission.

Satellite tracking system website www.n2yo.com said the MOM spacecraft had crossed the International Date Line and was flying over the South Pacific Ocean as at 10.30 a.m (IST).

The ‘International Designator’ or NSSDC ID of India’s Mars mission is 2013-060A.

The International Designator is the international naming convention for satellites, comprising the launch year, a three-digit incrementing launch number of that year and upto a three letter code representing the sequential identifier of a piece in a launch.

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