The Mangalyaan Mars orbiter is celebrating 100 days in space, on its travel to the red planet. The craft was designed and launched by the Indian space agency, ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization). The craft launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on 5 Nov. 2013.
India's first deep-space probe is now nearly nine million miles from the Earth. The probe is being tracked and controlled by mission managers at Byalulu, located near Bangalore.
"The spacecraft health is normal. The spacecraft is continuously monitored by the ground station... Except for a 40 minute break in the Telemetry data received from the spacecraft to the ground station, data has been continuously available for all the 100 days," the space agency wrote in a press release.
Goals of the ISRO mission to Mars include developing technology for a future trip, bringing humans out to deep space. The craft will test communications and maneuvering technologies, as well as mission planning. Automated safety features are also being tested. These will allow future spacecraft to handle many technical problems, without guidance from the ground. Already, the spacecraft is so distant, it takes nearly a minute for radio waves from Earth to be received by the orbiter.
The spacecraft, now traveling 20 miles a second, is expected to arrive at Mars on Sept. 24. When it reaches its destination, the vehicle will enter an elliptical orbit around the red planet. This path will bring the orbiter just 225 miles from the surface of Mars each orbit. The craft will then swing out nearly 50,000 miles from the planet.
In order to achieve orbit insertion, engines on the orbiter will be fired for 25 minutes. This will be the first time the engines will be used after nine months of flight.
"The firing at that time will last for nearly 1500 seconds. The Mars Orbiter insertion would be a major challenge for us but we have done a lot of ground simulation for that," Mylswamy Annadurai, mission program director, told Hindustani Times.
ISRO still has over 300 million miles to travel. The craft is expected to cover that distance in just over 200 days. Instruments aboard the craft include the Lyman Alpha Photometer. This device may be able to determine why Mars lost its ancient oceans. The Mars Color Camera is due to take new photos of the two satellites of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. A thermal imager will be able to take pictures of the Martian surface at night, revealing the composition of the alien soil.
Mars has often been a graveyard for missions from the Earth. Only 21 of the 51 missions ever launched were successful. If ISRO orbiter Mangalyaan continues to operate once it reaches Mars, the craft will join NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, currently circling above the red planet.
