Spacecraft for Mars to reach Sriharikota today for tests

Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) scientists are gearing for the launch of Mars Mission this month. All the tests have been successfully cleared and the spacecraft for Mars Mission would be taken from Bengaluru to Sriharikota on Wednesday.

Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) scientists are gearing for the launch of Mars Mission this month. All the tests have been successfully cleared and the spacecraft for Mars Mission would be taken from Bengaluru to Sriharikota on Wednesday.

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“The spacecraft has cleared all environmental tests and will now be moved to Sriharikota in a special container with environmental monitoring system. It will reach Sriharikota by Thursday afternoon,” Isro chairman Dr K Radhakrishnan said.

The Mars Orbiter Mission is due to be launched on October 28 at 4.15pm. At Sriharikota, a few more tests would be conducted on the spacecraft followed by fuel filling. This will then finally be integrated with the launch vehicle.

Mars Orbiter Mission —onboard PSLV-C25, is India’s maiden effort to explore the red planet.

It will place India among the six nations to launch a mission to Mars.

After leaving the Earth’s orbit, the spacecraft will cruise in deep space for about ten months using its own propulsion system and will reach Martian transfer trajectory in September 2014.