Mars Orbiter Spacecraft Makes a Grand Entry into Martian Orbit

Sep 24, 2014 Tushita Science & Technology 0

A usual morning like that of any other day, turned ultra-memorable today as the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Mars Orbiter Spacecraft successfully entered the orbit of Mars after a liquid motor engine fired effectively for a little over 24 minutes to impart a little over the required velocity of 1098 metres per second at 1099 metres per sec.

The whole nation was gripped with a feeling of pride and honour. The Indian Prime Minister appreciated the low cost nature of the project – costing less than the $100 million Hollywood movie Gravity – called on the scientists to continue to push their boundaries.

Some interesting facts:

On an average, (dividing the total cost of the mission by India’s total population) the mission costs the country just Rs. 4 per person.
The $71 million mission is one of the cheapest initiatives undertaken by any nation carrying out space experiments.
Thanks to the mission, ISRO is now listed among the three other space agencies to undertake a successful voyage to the Red Planet.
India is the first country to successfully make it into the orbit of Mars on its first attempt.

NASA, the US space agency has 16 successful Mars mission to its credit and placed its Maven spacecraft in 150 km X 6250 km orbit around Mars exactly two days ago. The Mars Orbiter Spacecraft was ideally to be placed around Mars in an elliptical orbit spanning 423 km X 80,000 km.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended and appraised the successful mission of the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, which was greeted by cheers by scientists at ISRO’s mission operations centre 2 and was followed by the distribution of sweets.

“If our national cricket team wins a tournament the whole country celebrates. What our scientists have done is far greater,’’ Prime Minister Narendra Modi said referring to the success of the mission.The PM also said ISRO had carried out the MOS mission within three years of a feasibility study.

PM also tweeted that he was glad to have witnessed history being created and also congratulated the scientists at ISRO.

Reportedly, The Mars Orbit Insertion manoeuvre on Wednesday went to plan for ISRO with the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft triggering pre-loaded commands on the dot, as prescribed by the pre-determined schedule. The mission control was filled with loud cheers when the liquid engine started firing at 7.17 AM and earth stations were informed in this regard around 7.70 AM. “But the loudest cheers in mission control however emerged at 8.10 AM when first information came in from the spacecraft to indicate that the orbit insertion had gone to plan with the engine imparting the required thrust of 1098 metres/second during its 24 minute burst,” reported a source from ISRO.

The major portion of the maneuver occurred when communication got shut down with MOS and no solar power supplied to the spacecraft with Mars eclipsing the MOS for a period of nearly 20 minutes from 7.34 AM, on Wednesday.The orbiter functioned on its internal battery power till 8 AM before resuming communications and power supply at the end of the eclipse.

The maneuver on Wednesday involved reducing the velocity of the MOS and putting it in synch with the velocity of Mars. “When we reach Mars our spacecraft will have a velocity of 22.57 km/sec whereas Mars velocity is 25.71 so our space craft is slow. But when it is coming under the influence of Mars gravity it gains a velocity of 5.7 km/sec but we don’t want that much velocity to put our spacecraft in the desired orbit. What we require is 4.6 km/sec. So from 5.7 km/second the velocity has to be reduced to 4.6 km/sec so the velocity increment imparted is 1.1 km/sec,’’ the mission director at mission control Dr V Kesava Raju said.

While President of India, Dr. Pranab Mukherjee extended warmth and best wishes to ISRO and all Indian scientist by calling Mangalyaan’s success a ‘historic achievement’, NASA also congratulated the Mars Orbiter via twitter on the occasion by saying welcoming it to the Red Planet.

india mars mission, isro, isro research centre, mars mission, narendra modi

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Tushita

Tushita is a political writer at thenational.net. Her deep rooted interest in politics, passion for writing and craze for travelling define her. Writing since her school days, she aspires to write lifelong and make the world a happier place to live with the power of her pen.