Following jus two days after the arrival of NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft at Mars (see previous post), India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) probe will go into orbit around the Red Planet on Wednesday September 24th.
This is the first deep space mission by India. The probe was launched into earth orbit on Nov. 5, 2013 via a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket from the Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradeshand.
On Dec. 1, 2013 MOM fired its engine to send it on a trajectory to intersect with Mars this week.
On Monday Sept. 22, there will be a brief 4 second firing test of the engine to insure it is still working correctly after its long dormancy. Then on Wednesday MOM will fire the engine for 24 minutes to go into orbit around Mars.
A top goal of the Mars Orbiter Mission is to strengthen the technical capabilities of the Indian space program. The scientific goals of the mission are to study the Martian atmosphere and the morphology and mineralogy of the planet’s surface.
NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft is set to go into orbit around the Red Planet this evening at 9:50 pm EDT. NASA TV coverage of the event starts at 9:30 pm EDT and lasts till 10:45 pm EDT.
NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft successfully entered Mars’ orbit at 10:24 p.m. EDT Sunday, Sept. 21, where it now will prepare to study the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere as never done before. MAVEN is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the tenuous upper atmosphere of Mars.
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Below is a NASA item about the arrival of MAVEN at Mars:
NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft is nearing its scheduled Sept. 21 insertion into Martian orbit after completing a 10-month interplanetary journey of 442 million miles (711 million kilometers).
Flight Controllers at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Littleton, Colorado, will be responsible for the health and safety of the spacecraft throughout the process. The spacecraft’s mission timeline will place the spacecraft in orbit at approximately 6:50 p.m. PDT (9:50 p.m. EDT).
“So far, so good with the performance of the spacecraft and payloads on the cruise to Mars,” said David Mitchell, MAVEN project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The team, the flight system, and all ground assets are ready for Mars orbit insertion.”
The orbit-insertion maneuver will begin with the brief firing of six small thruster engines to steady the spacecraft. The engines will ignite and burn for 33 minutes to slow the craft, allowing it to be pulled into an elliptical orbit with a period of 35 hours.
Following orbit insertion, MAVEN will begin a six-week commissioning phase that includes maneuvering the spacecraft into its final orbit and testing its instruments and science-mapping commands. Thereafter, MAVEN will begin its one-Earth-year primary mission to take measurements of the composition, structure and escape of gases in Mars’ upper atmosphere and its interaction with the sun and solar wind.
“The MAVEN science mission focuses on answering questions about where did the water that was present on early Mars go, about where did the carbon dioxide go,” said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator from the University of Colorado, Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. “These are important questions for understanding the history of Mars, its climate, and its potential to support at least microbial life.”
MAVEN launched Nov. 18, 2013, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying three instrument packages. It is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the upper atmosphere of Mars. The mission’s combination of detailed measurements at specific points in Mars’ atmosphere and global imaging provides a powerful tool for understanding the properties of the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere.
“MAVEN is another NASA robotic scientific explorer that is paving the way for our journey to Mars,” said Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Together, robotics and humans will pioneer the Red Planet and the solar system to help answer some of humanity’s fundamental questions about life beyond Earth.”
The spacecraft’s principal investigator is based at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at University of Colorado, Boulder. The university provided two science instruments and leads science operations, as well as education and public outreach, for the mission.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the project and also provided two science instruments for the mission. Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft and is responsible for mission operations. The Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley provided four science instruments for MAVEN. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, provides navigation and Deep Space Network support, and Electra telecommunications relay hardware and operations. JPL manages the Mars Exploration Program for NASA.
This week’s Space to Ground video report on activities aboard the Int. Space Station focuses on preparations for the upcoming arrival of a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft with two and a half tons of cargo. The Dragon is currently set to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday morning at 2:16 am EDT.
Robert Zubrin gave the following talk this summer at NASA Ames Research Center on his Mars Direct plan, first proposed in the 1990s, for putting humans on the Red Planet at an affordable cost and in a finite time:
From the caption:
Achieving a human mission to Mars has been a fascination of humanity for some time. In the 1990s, Dr. Robert Zubrin proposed the “Mars Direct” mission architecture, using conventional rockets and Mars in-situ resources to establish a sustained human presence on Mars. Now, with the nation debating how to proceed with human space exploration, the “Mars Direct” plan is more relevant than ever: Can Americans reach the Red Planet in our time?
Robert Zubrin, formerly a staff engineer at Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Denver, is now president of his own company, Pioneer Astronautics. He is a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society and former Chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Space Society. He is the founder of the Mars Society; an international organization dedicated to furthering the exploration and settlement of Mars by both public and private means.
The Director’s Colloquium Summer Series is presented by the Office of the Chief Scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center as part of the Center’s 75th anniversary celebration.
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