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Anticipation is building in India over its rendezvous with Mars. <\/p>\n
NASA erupted into cheers after confirmation Sunday night that its space probe MAVEN injected into the Martian orbit. NASA's success came two days ahead of a critical engine burn designed to place an Indian spacecraft around the Red Planet, in a project dubbed MOM, Mars Orbiter Mission. <\/p>\n
Sleepless scientists conferring at the Space Center in Bangalore passed a crucial dry run Monday: a four-second fire-up of a Mars Orbiter engine that has been dormant in space for some 300 days. The moment of truth comes, says A.S. Kiran Kumar, director of India's Space Application Center, when they will flip the switch for a much longer duration. <\/p>\n
\"Now it has to fire,\" Kumar says. \"So that is the tricky part.\" <\/p>\n
Trickier still, he says the orbiter must reorient its trajectory to place itself into the Martian orbit. <\/p>\n
Kumar says the engine will reverse thrust like a plane does after it touches down and slow the spacecraft to 2.5 miles per second. Plan B is for scientists at the Bangalore-based Indian Space Research Organization, India's version of NASA, to fire eight small thrusters to elbow the probe into place. Failing that, the probe could shoot past Mars and move into the outer reaches of the solar system. <\/p>\n
The carefully calculated maneuver is slated for Wednesday, when Kiran Kumar says the craft is nearest to Mars. <\/p>\n
\"That is when we are firing these engines to reduce its velocity,\" he says. \"And with that reduced velocity Mars' gravitational influence will be sufficient to bring the satellite into an elliptical orbit [around Mars].\" <\/p>\n
Adding to the suspense, at that moment Mars will cast a shadow over the spacecraft, blocking communication with ground control. <\/p>\n
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Look out MAVEN, India's Mars orbiter is closing in<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Listen Story audio 5min 10sec Anticipation is building in India over its rendezvous with Mars. Continue reading