ISRO takes Mars Orbiter spacecraft’s orbit beyond 1,00,000 km

The Indian Space Research  Organisation (ISRO) today performed a supplementary orbit raising manoeuvre on the Mars Orbiter spacecraft, successfully raising its orbit from 78,276 km to 1,18,642 km.

The supplementary orbit raising manoeuvre on Mars Orbiter spacecraft started at 5:03:50 hrs (IST) today and lasted 303.8 seconds, ISRO said, adding, the spacecraft's apogee (farthest point from earth) has been successfully raised from 78,276 km to 1,18,642 km.

The supplementary manoeuvre, which was completed by 5.10 am, added a velocity of 124.9 m/s to the spacecraft, ISRO said.

ISRO decided to conduct a supplementary orbit raising manoeuvre on Tuesday after a glitch during the fourth orbit raising operation yesterday.

ISRO said the planned supplementary manoeuvre at 5 AM achieved the targeted apogee of 1,00,000 km, adding, ''Everything is under control''.

The fourth firing of the propulsion system of the Mars spacecraft on Monday morning was among the six exercises planned by the ISRO, aimed at achieving an apogee of 1.92 lakh by the fifth move, scheduled for 16 November.

The craft must leave the Earth orbit on 30 November /1 December if it has to meet Mars as planned for mid-September next year.

The fourth and fifth operations would be performed on 11 and 16 November, when the perigee and apogee of the spacecraft's orbit will be raised to 1,00,000 km and 1,92,000 km, respectively.

The successful completion of these operations will put the mission on the "crucial event" of the trans-Mars trajectory around 12.42 am on 1 December.

The PSLV-C25, in its twenty-fifth flight, successfully launched the 1,350-kg Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, in Andhra Pradesh at 2:38 pm on 5 November.

ISRO first raised the Mars Orbiter spacecraft's orbit on Thursday, followed by a second orbit-raising manoeuvre on Friday, raising the apogee of the spacecraft to 40,186 km. The orbit was since raised from 40,186 km to 71,636 km on Saturday.

Today's is a supplementary manoeuvre after the fourth attempt to raise the spacecraft's orbit to over 1,00,000 km on Monday failed.

In the fourth orbit-raising operation, conducted early on Monday morning, ISRO could only raise the spacecraft's apogee (farthest point to Earth) from 71,623 km to 78,276 km against the planned apogee of 1,00,000 km.