[meteorite-list] Indian Mars Orbiter Attached To Launch Vehicle (MOM)

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/pslv/c25/131024update/# 

Indian Mars orbiter attached to launch vehicle
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
October 24, 2013

Workers have placed India's first Mars orbiter on top of a Polar Satellite 
Launch Vehicle for liftoff Nov. 5, the Indian Space Research Organization 
announced this week.

The 2,976-pound spacecraft is set to blast off at 0906 GMT (4:06 a.m. 
EST) from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on Sriharikota Island, a facility 
on India's east coast about 50 miles north of Chennai.

Technicians lifted the Indian-built orbiter on top of the four-stage PSLV 
inside the rocket's mobile service structure at the space center's First 
Launch Pad. The ground team installed the rocket's aerodynamic shroud, 
emblazoned with the Indian flag and mission logos, around the spacecraft 
this week to finish assembly of the 144-foot-tall launcher.

The Mars Orbiter Mission will use the most powerful version of India's 
workhorse rocket named the PSLV XL, which features beefed-up solid rocket 
boosters. The PSLV XL will boost the spacecraft into an elliptical orbit 
around Earth, then the probe will use its own propulsion system to propel 
itself out of Earth orbit and on a trajectory to Mars.

The final Earth departure burn is scheduled for around Nov. 30, according 
to ISRO.

ISRO officials delayed the launch from Oct. 28 because bad weather in 
the Pacific Ocean delayed the arrival of communications ships in Fiji. 
The vessels will track the mission's progress after launch.

India has until Nov. 19 to launch the mission or else abandon the flight 
until early 2016. The launch window depends on the proper alignment of 
Earth and Mars in the solar system to permit the interplanetary journey.

The $73 million project is India's first Mars mission. The spacecraft 
is scheduled to arrive in orbit around the red planet in September 2014.

The Indian spacecraft will enter an orbit ranging in altitude from 234 
miles to nearly 50,000 miles above Mars, completing a lap around the planet 
every 3.2 days.

The Mars Orbiter Mission will demonstrate deep space navigation and communications, 
interplanetary travel, spacecraft autonomy, and the complex make-or-break 
rocket burn to place the spacecraft in orbit around Mars.

Only the United States, Russia and the European Space Agency have successfully 
dispatched robots to Mars before. The Indian Space Research Organization 
hopes to be the fourth space agency to accomplish the feat.

The Indian orbiter carries a small camera to return medium-resolution 
color imagery of the Martian terrain, a thermal infrared spectrometer 
to measure the chemical composition of the surface, and instruments to 
assess the Mars atmosphere, including a methane detector.