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A second orbit-raising manoeuvre was successfully carried out by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) on its Mars Orbiter Spacecraft at 02:18:51hrs (IST) on Friday. The move raised the apogee of the spacecraft (furthest point from earth) from 28,814 km to 40,186 km. The orbit-raising was done by firing a spacecraft engine for 570.6 seconds.
The first orbit-raising manoeuvre on the Mangalyaan spacecraft had been carried out in the early hours of Thursday at 01:17hrs IST as part of a six-step process to generate velocity to slingshot the spacecraft from the earths orbit towards Mars on December 1.
The orbit-raising move is done by firing the 440 Newton liquid engine (NLE) of the spacecraft with commands from the Spacecraft Control Centre (SCC) at Isro Telemetry,Tracking and Command Network at Peenya,Bangalore.
All systems on-board the spacecraft are functioning normally. Further orbit-raising manoeuvres using the 440 NLE are planned in the coming few days following which the spacecraft will be put on Mars Transfer Trajectory on December 01,2013,Isro said.
This enables the spacecraft to travel to the vicinity of Mars on September 2014 after a 300-day journey in deep space. At that time,the 440 NLE is fired again to slow down the spacecraft to enable it to be captured by Martian gravity into an orbit around it, Isro said.
