India's Voyage To Mars: ISRO's Mangalyaan Wakes Up After 300 Days Of Sleep!

Indian Space Research Organisation's Mars orbiter Mission (MOM), Mangalyaan, is just two days away from its much talked-about date with the Red Planet. Scientists at ISRO have successfully tired-fired its main liquid engine at 2:30 pm (IST) on Monday. Soon after the test-firing of the MOM, the Indian space agency's Facebook page said, "We had a perfect burn for four seconds as programmed. The trajectory has been corrected. MOM will now go for the nominal plan for Mars Orbit Insertion."

India also became the first Asian country to reach the Martian neighbourhood earlier during the day. "Our navigators' calculations show that MOM has entered the gravitational sphere of influence of Mars around 9am," said ISRO’s Facebook page.

Reports suggest that on September 24, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to witness the historic occasion when the ISRO’s spacecraft will be inserted into the Mars orbit around 7:30 am at a distance of 423 km from its surface and 215 million km away (radio distance) from Earth. Researchers believe that this step will certainly boost up the morale of Indian space scientists.

The Mangalyaan probe, which is India’s first interplanetary mission, has a Rs 450-crore price tag. The mission was launched on November 5, 2013 to find evidence of life on the Red Planet. Earlier, we had reported that the mission is simply to test the ISRO’s ability to take something all the way upto Mars and make it go around the planet.

If ISRO’s MOM reaches its destination successfully, India will become fourth country after the US, Russia and Europe to send a probe to Mars.
(Image: indiatimes)