Mars mission back on track after glitch, says Isro

The supplementary orbit raising manoeuver of the Mangalyaan, to raise the apogee height to about 1,00,000km was completed successfully today. It needs one more orbit raising operation to move out of Earth's sphere of influence on Dec 1.

The supplementary orbit raising manoeuver of the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) or Mangalyaan, to raise the apogee height to about 1,00,000km was completed successfully on Tuesday at 5.03am.

The fourth supplementary orbit raising manoeuvre of the Mangalyaan started at 5:03am with a burn time of 303.8 seconds.

The apogee was successfully changed from 78,276km to 1,18,642km.

The velocity added was 124.9m/s.

"Everything is normal," said an Isro scientist.

The spacecraft suffered a minor hurdle on Monday morning during its fourth orbit raising operations.

With one more orbit raising operation, it will finally move out of Earth's sphere of influence on December 1.

Following a 300-day interplanetary phase, the spacecraft will enter the Mars orbit on Sept 24, 2014. The five payloads on the spacecraft will thereafter perform various scientific experiments.

The Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, India's first interplanetary spacecraft, was launched on Nov 5 from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh into an elliptical Earth orbit by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle in its 25th flight (PSLV-C25).