[meteorite-list] India to Sling Mars Spacecraft Into Solar Orbit on Sunday

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 18:05:12 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201311300205.rAU25COZ027865_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.ianslive.in/index.php?param=news/India_to_sling_Mars_craft_into_Sun_orbit_on_Sunday-404412/SCI-TECH%20and%20HEALTH/36

India to sling Mars craft into Sun orbit on Sunday.
IANS Live
November 28, 2013

Bangalore: India's maiden Mars craft will sling into Sun orbit early Sunday
for a 280-day long voyage to reach the red planet Sep 24, 2014.

"The Orbiter entered the final orbit of earth early Wednesday for its
trans-injection into the Sun orbit on Sunday at 00.49 a.m. for a nine-month
journey to Mars through the interplanetary space, a senior space agency
official said here.

The craft passed its penultimate perigee (closest to equator) at 07.10
a.m. Wednesday to commence its four-day final orbit around earth to leave
for Mars in the wee hours of Sunday.

"A 440 Newton engine will be fired for nearly 23 minutes to sling the
craft into the Sun orbit at a speed of 648 metres per second for which
190 kg of fuel will be consumed," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)
scientific secretary V. Koteshwara Rao told reporters here.

Orbiter has completed its six-orbit raising manoeuvres between Nov 7 and
Nov 16 and crossed an apogee (farthest from equator) of 192,915 km.

"All is going well, Orbiter will be slung into the heliocentric (Sun)
orbit towards Mars for a 680-million-long coasting distance," Rao said
at the space agency's telemetry, tracking and command network (Istrac)
in the city.

The 1,337-kg Orbiter was launched on Nov 5 from Sriharikota spaceport
off the Bay of Bengal, about 80 km north east of Chennai, on board a 350-tonne
rocket with five scientific instruments to detect Methane in the Martian
atmosphere, measure the thermal emission and capture images of the red
planet from its orbit at a distance of 500 km.

"The slingshot for the trans-injection will be a complex combination of
navigation and propulsion technologies, governed by the gravity of Sun
and Mars," Rao said at a briefing on the Rs.450-crore mission's next phase.

The Orbiter's trajectory will be achieved using the attitude and orbit
control thrusters during the correction manoeuvres planned enroute.

As the fourth planet from Sun and behind Earth, Mars is the second smallest
celestial body in the solar system. Named after Roman god of war, it is
also known as red planet due to the presence of iron oxide in abundance,
giving it a reddish appearance.

Though Earth and Mars have equal period of revolution around their axis,
the red planet takes 24 hours and 37 minutes to complete a revolution.
Earth takes around 365 days to orbit the sun and Mars 687 days.

"The craft will be injected into the outer space in a trajectory by precisely
computing 280 days in advance the position it would achieve near Mars
Sep 14, 2014, which will be 500 km above its surface at that time," Rao
pointed out.

The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) complex at Istrac is also daily conducting
checks of the main bus systems, redundant systems, failure detection,
reconfiguration and its scientific instruments, including its powerful
colour camera.

The camera, which has been activated, has demonstrated its functioning
by taking a clear picture of the Indian sub-continent Nov 19 from a distance
of 67,975 km with a 3.5 metre resolution.

During the helio sun phase, travelling at a speed of 32.5 km per second
mid-course corrections will be carried, if required, Dec 11, mid-April,
mid-August and Sept 14.

"The Orbiter will be inserted on Sep 24 at 07:14 a.m. into the Martian
orbit at 372 km periapsis (nearest to surface) and 80,000 apo-asis (farthest
from surface) by firing the engine for nearly 29 minutes in the reverse
direction to reduce its speed to 11,009 metres per second by consuming
24 kg fuel," Rao pointed out.

The mission has also built-in mechanism for contingencies and redundancies
have been built into the systems and the onboard autonomy to switch over
from primary to stand by system.
Received on Fri 29 Nov 2013 09:05:12 PM PST