Preparation to fire rocket progressing well, says Isro

Says vehicle systems powered up and the health of the systems is normal

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) on Thursday said all preparations for its Mars Orbiter Mission were progressing well and the rocket systems had been powered. This was announced after Isro conduced a rehearsal that started at 6:08 am at Sriharikota, about 100 km from Chennai, on Thursday.

The Rs 430-crore Mars Orbiter Mission is scheduled to be kicked off at 2:36 pm on November 5, the countdown for the mission would start in three days.

During the rehearsal, all procedures, excluding ignition, were checked, said an official. The rehearsal simulated the entire procedure of the final eight hours of the countdown, right up to the ignition, after which the system was shut.

According to reports, the dry run would demonstrate mission-readiness and on Friday, the launch authorisation board would take a final decision on initiating the 56-and-a-half hour countdown. The reports added the XL variant of the polar satellite launch vehicle had been designed to first inject the spacecraft into an elliptical path around the earth in a geocentric phase, followed by a heliocentric phase.

On December 1, the satellite would be injected into the trans-Martian orbit. It would then begin a 300-day cruise. It is expected the satellite would be inserted into the Martian orbit on September 24, 2014.

Isro Chairman K Radhakrishnan is confident the launch would be successful. He said there had been only 51 missions to Mars, most by the US, Russia and the European Union consortium, adding the success rate was less than 50 per cent.