[meteorite-list] Rocket Burn Puts Indian Probe on Course to Mars

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2013 15:59:52 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201312012359.rB1Nxqss019124_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/pslv/c25/131130departure/

Rocket burn puts Indian probe on course to Mars
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
November 30, 2013

India's first robotic Mars probe set sail for the red planet Saturday
with a vital rocket burn to catapult the spacecraft out of the realm of
Earth's gravity and into interplanetary space.

The Mars Orbiter Mission, India's first Mars probe, is due to enter orbit
around the red planet on Sept. 24, 2014, two days after NASA's MAVEN Mars
probe arrives.

Saturday's crucial maneuver was timed for the precise moment necessary
to send the spacecraft toward Mars, and it had to go off without a hitch.

India's space agency said the orbiter's burn was successful, with the
spacecraft's main engine firing more than 22 minutes starting at 1919
GMT (2:19 p.m. EST) to gain speed and break free of Earth's gravitational
influence.

"Following the completion of this maneuver, the Earth orbiting phase of
the spacecraft ended. The spacecraft is now on a course to encounter Mars
after a journey of about 10 months around the sun," the Indian Space Research
Organization said in a written statement.

The $72 million mission has a trip of more than 400 million miles ahead
of it. The probe will fly halfway around the sun while moving out toward
the orbit of Mars, intercepting the red planet Sept. 24 for another major
rocket maneuver to place itself into orbit.

If the probe arrives successfully, India's space agency will become the
fourth entity to have a mission reach Mars. The United States, Russia
and the European Space Agency have already done it.

The Mars Orbiter Mission launched Nov. 5 on India's Polar Satellite Launch
Vehicle, the smaller but more reliable of the nation's two rockets.

The PSLV was not powerful enough to put the nearly 1.5-ton spacecraft
on a direct trajectory to Mars. Instead, engineers devised a departure
profile that put the probe into an oval-shaped orbit around Earth and
used its on-board engine to gain speed and altitude throughout November,
eventually generating enough energy to escape the planet's grasp.

Indian controllers used the time to activate the spacecraft's systems
and research payloads, including the mission's camera which snapped a
photo of Earth. All systems on the spacecraft are performing well, according
to ISRO.

The decision to launch on the PSLV removed the risk of launching on India's
larger failure-prone Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, which could
have put the mission immediately on the path to Mars.

But it also raised other risks.

The probe repeatedly passed through Earth's Van Allen radiation belts.
Indian officials mitigated the threat by beefing up the craft's computers
with radiation shielding.

And it meant the probe had to carry more propellant, leaving less room
for scientific instruments and decreasing the fuel left over to survey
Mars once it arrives there.

The Indian mission carries about 33 pounds, or 15 kilograms, of scientific
instrumentation.

Operating from a perch taking the spacecraft from just above the Martian
atmosphere to a peak altitude of nearly 50,000 miles, the Mars probe will
observe the planet with five science instruments, gathering data on the
history of the Martian climate and the mineral make-up of its surface.

The mission carries a color imaging camera to return medium-resolution
pictures of the Martian surface, a thermal infrared spectrometer to measure
the chemical composition of the surface, and instruments to assess the
Mars atmosphere, including a methane detector.

Scientific assessments of methane in the Martian atmosphere have returned
mixed results.

Methane is a potential indicator of current microbial life on Mars, but
some types of geologic activity can also produce trace levels of the gas.

Following up on detections from ground-based telescopes and Europe's Mars
Express orbiter, NASA's Curiosity rover measured no methane in the Martian
atmosphere when it sucked air into its internal instrument suite on several
occasions since landing in August 2012.

But India says the Mars Orbiter Mission's prime purpose is technological,
not scientific.

"First and foremost, India should be able to orbit a spacecraft around
Mars," ISRO chairman K. Radhakrishnan told India's NDTV television network
before the mission's launch. "We are moving from Earth's orbit to the
orbit of Mars through a long cruise phase around the sun."

The mission's ground team plans several course-correction burns over the
10-month trip to Mars, with the first set for Dec. 11. The midcourse maneuvers
will tweak the probe's trajectory to arrive at Mars at the right time
and in the correct position in September 2014.
Received on Sun 01 Dec 2013 06:59:52 PM PST