India’s ambitious mission to Mars will have to pass a real test tomorrow as it is set to undergo a Trajectory Correction Manouever. This TCM, considered the most significant in the Marscraft’s journey would take place at 16:30 hrs.(IST).
ISRO, today announced on its official Facebook page that the Mars Orbiter Mission, which India launched in November last year, would undergo a major Trajectory Correction Manouever tomorrow, at 16:30 hrs.(IST).
The Correction Manouever would last for approximately 16 seconds, with a delta velocity of 1.577 m.s.
Last year, in November, India launched its ambitious Mangalyaan (Hindi for Marscraft), a mars mission to study the martian atmosphere. One of the main objectives of the first Indian mission to Mars is to develop the technologies required for design, planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission.
The small spacecraft was launched aboard India’s highly trusted PSLV C-25 rocket. India drew equal appreciation and criticism for the mission. Scientific community appreciated India’s effort of launching such a complex mission aboard a rocket, which is meant for earth missions. ISRO used the slingshot method to throw Mangalyaan into space.
Although being an extremely cheap mission, considering costs which are incurred by NASA for such missions, India still drew criticism for spending such an amount (approx $66 million) on a space mission, when almost half of the country still lives under poverty.
Overall, the project was much appreciated due to the highly complex antennas and space technologies, developed by India in such a short span of time. If successful, India would become the first Asian country to successfully send a mission to planet Mars.
