MOM’s life to get longer with ISRO’s manoeuvre

ISRO Chairman AS Kiran Kumar said that the MOM had completed two years on Saturday, although its original mission life was slated to be six months, and that the space agency had released a lot of first year data beamed by its five payloads. 

“Our next major event in the Mars Orbiter will be sometime in the beginning of next year when we will be doing a manoeuvre to reduce the impact of the eclipse duration the satellite is going to encounter,” he said. 

He said during an eclipse, the battery in the satellite has to support its operation. “So, with the manoeuvre, we will be able to survive for many more years because the satellite still has large (amount of) fuel left in it,” he added. 

The MOM, also called Mangalyaan, was successfully launched on November 5, 2013 by ISRO’s PSLV-C25 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre. After a 300-day journey in deep space, it was successfully inserted into Martian orbit on September 24, 2014. 

Meanwhile, ISRO is all set for an historic launch, when its home-grown rocket PSLV, with eight satellites on board, would for the first time put the payloads in two different orbits, after twice switching off and switching on the fourth stage engine, on Monday. In its 37th flight, the PSLV-C35, carrying the 371 kg SCATSAT-1 for weather related studies, and seven other co-passenger satellites, including five from foreign countries, would lift off from the First Launch Pad at 9.10 am from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, about 80 km from here. 

The 48 and half hour countdown for the launch, which began at 8.42 am on Saturday, was progressing smoothly, ISRO sources said. 

This mission was significant for ISRO as for the first time, it would place the satellites in two different orbits, after switching off and re-igniting the fourth stage engine two times more than one hour after the lift off and injection of SCATSAT-1. Almost about two hours after the flight, the remaining seven co-passenger satellites, together weighing about 304 kg, would be injected into the orbit.