by ISRO
The journey of Mars Orbiter from launch to Martian Orbit
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The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), commonly referred to as Mangalyaan-1, is a space probe launched by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on November 5, 2013. The indigenously-built space probe, which is India's first interplanetary mission, has been in the Martian orbit since September 24, 2014. The mission is aimed to explore Mars surface features, morphology, mineralogy and Martian atmosphere.
Once India decided to go to Mars, ISRO had no time to lose as the nearest launch window was only a few months away and it could not afford to lose the chance, given the next launch would present itself after over 780 days. Thus, mission planning, manufacturing the spacecraft and the launch vehicle and readying the support systems took place swiftly.
MOM was launched aboard PSLV C-25, which was an XL variant of the PSLV, one of world's most reliable launch vehicles. The XL variant was earlier used to launch Chandrayaan (2008), GSAT-12 (2011) and RISAT-1 (2012).
Based on the I-1-K satellite bus of ISRO that has proved its reliability over the years in Chandrayaan-1 and the IRS and INSAT series of satellites, the MOM spacecraft carries 850 kg of fuel and following 5 science payloads:
The spacecraft is tracked by the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN), located near Bengaluru and complemented by NASA-JPL's Deep Space Network. MOM showcased India's spacecraft building, rocket launch systems and operation capabilities. The mission's primary objective is to develop technologies required in planning, designing, management and operations of an interplanetary mission.
MOM is reoriented to align the thrust vector, before firing the engines, to reduce the velocity.
The 440 N liquid Engine and 8 number of 22 N thrusters fire, imparting braking velocity of 1098.7 m/s.
Burn starts when MOM is speeding at 5.127 km/s relative to Mars at an altitude of 1847 km from Mars.
Nominally the burn ends in 24 minutes at an altitude of 973 km and a velocity of 4.316 km/s.
During the burn, the lowest altitude the spacecraft reaches is 462 km
The radio link between MOM and Ground station gets blocked by Mars.
Thus about 20 minutes of the engine burn happens in this phase and all the operations are carried out autonomously.
The spacecraft is reoriented to point the Medium Gain Antenna towards Earth to communicate to the 70m Antenna of Deep Space Network.
Made completely from scratch and no third-party libraries/frameworks are used.