Second orbit raising manoeuvre completed on 8th Nov., 2013

Another milestone in ISRO MoM has been completed on 8th November, 2013.  The second orbit raising manoeuvre of Mars Orbiter Spacecraft started at 02:18:51 hrs IST on 8th November, 2013 with a burn time of 570.6 seconds of Liquid apogee motor has been completed successfully.    With this activity, the on-board motor of Mars Orbiter was fired for 570.6 seconds taking up the Mars Orbiter to 40,186 km apogee (farthest point to the Earth) from the earlier levels of 28,814 km.

 The first orbit raising activity was completed on 7th November, 2013.  The Mars Orbiter was launched on 5th November, 2013 by ISRO from Sriharikota.   The spacecraft was placed in an elliptical orbit with a perigee of 248.4 Km and an apogee of 23,550 Km with an inclination of 19.27 degrees to the equator.

 The 1,340 Kg Mars Orbiter spacecraft carries 852 Kg of fuel on board.  It is expected that around 360 Kg of fuel is likely to be expended on the six orbit raising activities.  During the final orbit raising activity, the satellite will be put on Mars Transfer Trajectory on 1st December, 2013.  It is expected that the satellite will travel to the viscinity of Mars in Sptember, 2014 after 300 days of deep space journey.

The motors of the spacecraft will be fired once again when the spacecraft is near Mars in the reverse direction to slow it down and allow it to be captured by Martian gravity into an orbit around the red planet.