ISRO performs last orbit raising manoeuvre on its Mars mission

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Saturday performed the last of the five orbit-raising manoeuvre on its Mars Orbiter in the early hours, raising the apogee (farthest point from Earth) of the spacecraft to over 1.92 lakh km.

“The fifth orbit raising manoeuvre of Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, starting at 01:27 a.m. (IST) with a burn time of 243.5 seconds has been successfully completed. The observed change in apogee is from 1,18,642 km to 1,92,874 km,” ISRO said.

In the series of five orbit raising manoeuvre with a supplementary operation after the fourth one, the space agency had raised the apogee of the spacecraft to over 1.92 lakh km.

After the successful completion of these operations, the Mars Orbiter mission is expected to take on the “crucial event” of the trans-Mars injection around 12.42 a.m. on December 1. It will reach the orbit of the red planet by September 24, 2014 after taking on a voyage of over 10 months.

ISRO’s PSLV-C25 successfully injected the 1,350-kg ’Mangalyaan’ Orbiter (Mars craft) into the orbit around the earth some 44 minutes after a text book launch at 2.38 PM from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota on November 5, marking the successful completion of the first stage of the Rs. 450 crore mission.