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India Mars mission back in orbit after engine glitch
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India’s Mars spacecraft was “successfully” raised into a higher orbit around Earth early yesterday, after a brief engine failure during an earlier attempt, the space agency said.
The Mars Orbiter Mission, which blasted off on November 5 for a 11-month trip to the Red Planet, is being launched on its way via an unusual “slingshot” method for interplanetary journeys.
Lacking a large enough rocket to blast directly out of Earth’s atmosphere and gravitational pull, the mission is orbiting Earth until the month-end while building up enough velocity to break free.
Yesterday, the spacecraft completed a fourth repositioning to take it 100,000 kilometers from Earth, after the thruster engines failed during an attempt on Monday, leading the auto-pilot to take over.
“Fourth supplementary orbit raising maneuver of Mars Orbiter Spacecraft... has been successfully completed,” the Indian Space Research Organization said.
The first three maneuvers, which involve firing additional fuel into the rocket’s engine, were performed last week.
The ISRO said the brief engine failure on Monday was not a setback to the ambitious low-cost mission. India has never before attempted interplanetary travel and more than half of all missions to Mars have ended in failure, including China’s in 2011 and Japan’s in 2003.
The project’s cost, at 4.5 billion rupees (US$73 million), is less than a sixth of the US$455 million set for a Mars probe by NASA to be launched later this month.
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