India's Mars probe (MOM), Development, launch, and cruise to Mars Options

[climber]

Some news on AW&ST blog: http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?i...3_p0-636048.xml

[climber]

5th burn's ok too: http://isro.org/mars/updates.aspx
16-11-2013

• The fifth orbit raising manoeuvre of Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, starting at 01:27 hrs(IST) on Nov 16, 2013, with a burn Time of 243.5 seconds has been successfully completed.The observed change in Apogee is from 118642km to 192874km.

[Paolo]

if I got the math right, it will now pass three perigees without any further maneuver (on the 19th, 23rd and 27th) and will then leave Earth orbit bound to mars on the fourth perigee, around 1 UTC on December 1.
also note that instruments, including camera, are expected to be tested in this 3.8-day orbit. expect the first pictures of Earth in a few days!

[Explorer1]

First pics; looking good...

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakda...er-mission.html

[bobik]

A quite interesting article on some of the scientific instruments, Men behind Mars dreams.

[Astro0]

Some info passed on by a friend from India.

"On Wednesday 27 November 2013 over 200 scientists involved in India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) were glued to their workstations and the giant screens at the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network’s Mission Operations Complex.
They were monitoring the movement of the MOM spacecraft as it completed its penultimate perigee to go around the Earth before it embarks on a 680 million km long interplanetary voyage to the Red Planet.
Four days ahead of the trans-Mars injection, the scientists are confident that the complex operation, which is scheduled for December 1 at 12.49 am, will successfully enable the spacecraft to embark on a 300-day long journey to Mars.
The trans-Mars injection is to be carried out December 1, which involve complex combination of navigation and propulsion technologies, governed by the gravity of Sun and Mars, and assisted by the 440 N liquid engine, the space agency has also has planned to carry out four mid-course corrections. The first one is scheduled on December 11 and three more next in April, August and September 2014.
During this phase, the 32-meters deep space antenna and the 18-meters antenna terminal at the Indian deep space network located at Byalalu village will be providing deep space support and ensure that the spacecraft is put into the designated Martian orbit.
Upon completion of its 300 journey, the spacecraft is expected to be in Mars orbit on September 24 next year.
Looking at the history of Mars missions, no country so far has achieved the success of the mission in first attempt; Russia made 10 attempts, US succeeded only in its sixth and China is yet to enjoy success.
If ISRO manages to successfully put the spacecraft in the Martian orbit, India will be the first country to achieve this in its maiden attempt.
Let us hold our nerves and wish the mission every success."

[rlorenz]

Some info passed on by a friend from India.
Looking at the history of Mars missions, no country so far has achieved the success of the mission in first attempt; Russia made 10 attempts, US succeeded only in its sixth and China is yet to enjoy success.
If ISRO manages to successfully put the spacecraft in the Martian orbit, India will be the first country to achieve this in its maiden attempt.
Let us hold our nerves and wish the mission every success.[/i]"

I suppose ESA isnt a country, so maybe this is literally correct as written, but surely is inaccurate in spirit - Mars Express succeeded at ESA's first attempt....

Japan's Nozomi got close - it's bid to go into Mars orbit had to be abandoned (it made a flyby only, having suffered many tribulations en route, largely due to radiation damage during a long cruise necessitated by the underburn of its first attempt at Trans-Mars Injection.) So MOM's next step is an important one - wishing them luck !

[monitorlizard]

Technically, Mars Express and Beagle 2 were launched together as a single mission, so the statement that no country has been fully successful in its first Mars mission is accurate. And the US was successful in its second attempt to orbit Mars (Mariner 8 was the first intended Mars orbiter, Mariner 9 was a success).

[dvandorn]

Yeah -- I'm not sure where they get the line that the "US succeeded only in its sixth," when the first two American probes aimed at Mars were Mariners 3 and 4 -- and Mariner 3 didn't so much fail at Mars as it ended up on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, having failed to make its parking orbit. The next complete failure of an American Mars probe was Mariner 8, for the same reason as Mariner 3 -- it failed to reach orbit. In between those two failures, Mariners 4, 6 and 7 all completed their missions.

After Mariner 9's success, the next American failure was the Mars Observer, followed by the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander (all of which were lost at or approaching Mars). All other American Mars missions have been rather highly successful. The actual American won-loss on Mars probes is 15 successes, 5 failures. This counts the Vikings as one mission each (you could make a case for them being 4 missions, two landers and two orbiters, but I just counted them as one each for a total of 2) and it counts MPL as one mission, not splitting out the Deep Space 2 hard landers. Basically, of 20 American launches to Mars, five have failed and 15 succeeded.

-the other Doug

[elakdawalla]

Reports in Indian mass media are no more accurate than ones in American mass media. The problem with MOM is compounded by the fact that it's been ISRO's modus operandi to release information only to the media rather than do press releases on their own website. They've changed that somewhat recently, but there's still a lot of information that comes out about MOM that is filtered through the media first, often with a loss of signal. So yeah, that's wrong. Further discussion of how it's wrong belongs in the Inaccuracy in Reporting thread.

[Astro0]

As Emily said, the media get it wrong (Who knew!?!). The emails my friend is sending are from reports appearing in his local newspaper.

[Paolo]

Mariner 3 didn't so much fail at Mars as it ended up on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, having failed to make its parking orbit.

actually, M3 ended in a wrong solar orbit stuck under its aerodynamic shroud

[Explorer1]

Facebook page here posting updates: https://www.facebook.com/isromom

[Paolo]

Mars insertion burn has begun. fingers crossed!

[Explorer1]

Halfway complete (crossed perigee).
So far, so good...