Scientists look at a model of the Mars Orbiter Mission at the tracking centre in Bangalore yesterday.
Agencies/Bangalore
An Indian spacecraft is on course to reach Mars, an official said yesterday, following a 666mn-km voyage that could see New Delhi’s low-cost space programme win Asia’s race to the Red Planet.
The 350-tonne rocket carrying an unmanned probe is set to enter Mars’s orbit next week after 10 months in space.
It is India’s first mission to the planet to search for evidence of life.
Indian Space Research Organisation official V Koteswara Rao said the rocket has travelled almost 666mn km since its launch from the southern spaceport of Sriharikota last November.
“India will be the first country in the world to insert a spacecraft into the Martian orbit in a maiden attempt if the operation succeeds,” Rao told reporters.
“And also the first Asian country to reach the Red Planet’s sphere,” he said.
Rao said the rocket’s engines will be “woken up” to allow for a “course correction” on Sunday before its arrival on September 24.
ISRO scientists will also slow down the craft now travelling at 22.2km per second to 2.14m per second to allow for a smoother entry into the planet’s orbit.
The cost of the project, at Rs4.5bn ($70mn), is a fraction of the $671mn Nasa spacecraft that also launched last year and is expected to arrive within days of the Indian craft.
India has never before attempted inter-planetary travel. More than half of all missions to Mars have ended in failure, including China’s in 2011 and Japan’s in 2003.
Only the US, Russia and the European Space Agency have been successful.
The Mars Orbiter Mission was revealed only 15 months ago by previous prime minister Manmohan Singh.
The timing and place of the announcement - in an Independence Day speech - led to speculation India was seeking to make a point to China, despite denials from ISRO.
The gold-coloured probe, the size of a small car, will aim to detect methane in the Martian atmosphere, which could provide evidence of some sort of life form on the fourth planet from the sun.
As of yesterday, the spacecraft is 13mn km away from Mars, having cruised 98% of the radio distance from the earth and 653mn km of the sun’s 666mn km orbit.
Scientists at the spacecraft’s control centre have started uploading commands since Sunday.
During the spacecraft’s long journey, mid-course correction was carried twice – on December 11 and June 11 - but skipped in April and August as it was cruising in the solar orbit as intended.
“The liquid apogee motor (LAM) or fuel engine at the bottom of the spacecraft will be fired on September 22 for four seconds to enter the Martian sphere of influence and the course correction will consume about 500gm of fuel,” Rao said.
The orbit insertion will take place when the spacecraft is 423km from the Martian surface and 215mn km away from the earth.
The insertion operation will begin at 4.17am by first activating the spacecraft’s three antennas for receiving and transmitting signals between earth and Mars.
At 6.56am, the spacecraft will be rotated towards Mars and five minutes later when sunlight is not falling on the Martian surface causing eclipse, the thrusters beneath the engine will give the Orbiter altitude control.
“The liquid engine will start firing at 7.17am and at 7.21am, Mars occult begins. A minute later at 7.22am, telemetry (radio signals) will be off or out of receiving radars on the earth,” Rao said.
Scientists at the space agency’s deep space network at Byalalu, about 40km from Bangalore, Nasa’s Earth station at Goldstone on the US West Coast and the ESA’s Earth station at Madrid will confirm the insertion into the Martian orbit 24 minutes later at 7.54am.
The spacecraft, with five scientific instruments, will be placed in an elliptical orbit, with the nearest distance from the Martian surface being 423km and the furthest 80,000km, to rotate around it in a duration equivalent to 3.2 earth days.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has hailed the country’s low-cost technology, saying a domestically-made rocket that launched four foreign satellites into orbit in June had cost less to make than the Hollywood film Gravity.
But the programme has also faced critics who say a country that struggles to feed its people adequately should not be splurging on space travel.
