Mangalyaan,India’s spacecraft to Mars today Wednesday April 09,2014 completed half the distance of its epic
voyage to the Red Planet. At 9.50 a.m. on Wednesday, the Mars Orbiter
sailed past 34 crore km while the entire distance it has to cover on its
curved path is 68 crore km. In other words, it has covered half the
“road distance” in deep space towards its destination.
“This is a major milestone after our Mars spacecraft got out of the
sphere of the influence of the Earth on December 4, 2013,” said K.
Radhakrishnan, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). “The
spacecraft is on course towards Mars and is in good health,” he said.
On November 5, 2013, ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C25)
put the Mars orbiter into its earth-orbit. On December 1, Mission
Controllers fired the spacecraft’s propulsion system called 440 Newton
engine, the spacecraft was bolted out its earth-orbit and put into a
Sun-centric orbit. On December 4, it got out of the sphere of influence
(SOI) of the Earth and was truly on its way to Mars.
ISRO has been continuously monitoring the Mars spacecraft using its Deep
Space Network station at Byalalu village, near Bangalore, which is
complemented by that of NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA.
Periodic
tests are being done on the autonomy built into the orbiter, which
(autonomy) enables it to take its own decisions for managing
emergencies.
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