The fifth orbit raising manoeuvre performed on Saturday by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has raised the apogee of the Indian Mars Spacecraft to over 1,92,874 km from earth.
A senior space scientist, who is involved in this operation, told The Pioneer that with this orbit raising the Indian spacecraft to Mars will be injected to Mars Orbit on December 1.
ISRO said, “The fifth orbit-raising manoeuvre of Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, starting at 1.27 am (IST)... with a burn time of 243.5 seconds has been successfully completed. The observed change in apogee is 1,18,642 km to 1,92,874 km.”
The Indian Mars Mission is expected to 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 textbook 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 `450 crore mission.
The Mangalyaan or the Indian Mars Mission is carrying five instruments, which will remotely explore Mars’ surface features, mineralogy and its upper atmosphere.
One of the instruments will look for the presence of methane on Mars, which is the key to finding out whether microbial life exists on Mars.