ISRO Mars Orbiter slings into solar orbit in September 2014

ISRO Mars Orbiter slings into solar orbit in September 2014

ISRO's Mars Orbiter mission on Sunday ventured out of Earth's sphere of influence for the first time in an attempt to reach the red planet's orbit. The critical man oeuvre to place the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft in the Mars Transfer Trajectory was successfully carried out almost an hour past midnight. Trajectory began at 00:49 hours, the spacecraft's 440 Newton liquid engine was fired for about 22 minutes providing a velocity increment of 648 metres/second to the spacecraft. "Following the completion of this manoeuvre, the Ha rth orbiting phase of the spacecraft ended. The spacecraft is now on a course lo encounter Mars after a journey of about 10 months around the Sun." the Bangalore-headquartered Indian Space Research Organization said in a statement. Transition from the Earth's final orbit before ils expected arrival in the orbit of the Red planet in September 2014. ISRO had performed five orbit-raising manoeuvres on its Mars Orbiter. raising the apogee (farthest point from Earth) of the spacecraft to over 1.92 lakh km, before it performed the "mother of all slingshots."

The spacecraft is being continuously monitored from the Spacecraft Control Centre at ISRO Telemetry.