Author Topic: ISRO Mars Orbiter Mission - Nov 2013 launch to September 2014 arrival - UPDATES  (Read 786999 times)

Offline sanman

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I wonder if they can get a picture of India at night sometime before Earth departure? Too bad they missed Diwali by a couple of weeks, or they could have gotten a good nighttime image.

Offline Steven Pietrobon

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Here's an interview with ISRO chief, which has pretty detailed info on spacecraft operations and technicalities:
http://thehindu.com/opinion/interview/mars-orbiter-tests-have-shown-our-ability-to-predict-isro-chairman/article5372129.ece

I'm not sure if this was posted before, but the article says that trans Mars injection is at about 00:36 hours on 1 December. If that's Indian time (+5.5 hours), that should be 18:48 hours UTC on 30 November. Delta-V is 648 m/s for a 1,351 second burn (about 22 and a half minutes).
« Last Edit: 11/21/2013 08:09 am by Steven Pietrobon »
Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design #1:  Engineering is done with numbers.  Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.

Offline seshagirib

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^ 22.5 minutes sounds like a pretty long burn time for the LAM - more than the launch time for a typical PSLV, 4 stages combined.

Any one know if the LAM ( assuming it is very similar to the LAM of ISRO's other sattelites) was fired for this long a period at one go?
« Last Edit: 11/21/2013 12:08 pm by seshagirib »
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Offline antriksh

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^ 22.5 minutes sounds like a pretty long burn time for the LAM - more than the launch time for a typical PSLV, 4 stages combined.

Any one know if the LAM ( assuming it is very similar to the LAM of ISRO's other sattelites) was fired for this long a period at one go?

Normal for LAM.

Quote
The first critical orbit-raising manoeuvre of GSAT-8 was successfully conducted at 03:58 hrs (IST) this morning (May 22, 2011) with the firing of the 440 Newton Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) on board GSAT-8 for 95 minutes by commanding the satellite from ISRO's Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka.

http://www.isro.org/pressrelease/scripts/pressreleasein.aspx?May22_2011
Nasadiya Sukta:
Srishti se pehle sat nahin thaa, asat bhi nahin | Antariksh bhi nahin, aakaash bhi nahin thaa | chhipaa thaa kyaa, kahaan, kisne dhakaa thaa | us pal to agam, atal jal bhi kahaan thaa ||

From: 1st verse of 129th Hymn of the 10th Book of Rig Veda

Offline seshagirib

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^antriksh: thanks! for clearing my query on LAM's endurance.
« Last Edit: 11/21/2013 03:06 pm by seshagirib »
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Offline antriksh

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Kurian Mathew
Principal investigator, Methane Sensors for Mars (MSM)

Mathew is aware of the keen gaze of the World space community on the methane sensors his team put together at Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad. He however, wears the attention with rare grace and nonchalance. The sensors will measure methane levels in the Mars atmosphere.

"This is the first time that a differential radiometer based on Fabry-Perot Etalon filters will be used for remote sensing of a planetary atmosphere. Such a complex payload was realized in one-and-a-half years and the credit goes to the payload team who worked day and night under the leadership of associate project director S S Sarkar, and deputy project director A R Srinivasan," says Mathew.

Mars Orbiter Mission has a highly elliptical orbit which is generally not suitable for remote sensing. But this apparent drawback was made an advantage by a suitable imaging strategy. "At the apogee of the orbit, satellite altitude is about 80,000 km while the ground track velocity is less than 20m per sec. This means the MSM will look on the same ground scene for longer periods. By integrating the MSM signal for longer time intervals it is possible to increase the signal-to-noise performance of the sensor. So, even though the expected methane concentration in the Martian atmosphere is extremely low, we may detect it." Mathew said. "Retrieval of methane concentration from MSM data is a challenge as it requires correcting the data for absorption by carbon dioxide gas which constitutes about 95% of the Martian atmosphere," he added.

The MSM's sensitivity will be calibrated during the Earth-bound phase of the mission. "By measuring reflected solar radiation from the Earth surface it is possible to estimate methane concentration in the atmosphere which will validate the performance of the sensor."


Source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-10-25/ahmedabad/43393926_1_mars-orbiter-mission-martian-atmosphere-payloads
Nasadiya Sukta:
Srishti se pehle sat nahin thaa, asat bhi nahin | Antariksh bhi nahin, aakaash bhi nahin thaa | chhipaa thaa kyaa, kahaan, kisne dhakaa thaa | us pal to agam, atal jal bhi kahaan thaa ||

From: 1st verse of 129th Hymn of the 10th Book of Rig Veda

Offline antriksh

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Ashutosh Arya

Principal Investigator, Mars Colour Camera (MCC)

When the Mars Colour Camera aboard Mangalyaan sends back the first colour images of the Martian surface in September next year, Ashutosh Arya and his team will heave a sigh of relief at Space Applications Centre (SAC) in Ahmedabad. These will be India's first colour images from space by a camera developed indigenously by ISRO. The MCC will also record Mangalyaan's 10-month journey.

The size of a shoe box and armed with a high-resolution camera, the MCC's job is to click images of the red planet surface from the nearest and farthest points of Mangalyaan's orbit. Interestingly, Mangalyaan will enter its Mars orbit a few days before the ISON comet whizzes past the red planet. "Developed countries plan exclusive space missions to click images of comets. Mangalyaan will be there before the comet arrives near Mars. This gives us a unique opportunity to click images of the comet's tail," says Arya. Besides capturing the comet, the MCC will capture images of geological features on Mars - like rivers, valleys, delta, and dune structures. "MCC will work in synergy with the many sensors aboard Mangalyaan," says Arya.

Arya's team faced many challenges when designing the camera. The principal one was weight reduction and the stringent environmental tests. "The optics and the mechanical components were subject to severe thermoware and vibration tests and the camera remained intact. Another challenge was to make the camera meet our weight budget. We succeeded in both," says Arya. When MCC is 370km away from the Mars surface it provides a frame image of 25m x 25m. At the farthest point on the orbit, 80,000 km away, MCC provides a 4km x 4km field of view.

Source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-10-25/ahmedabad/43393926_1_mars-orbiter-mission-martian-atmosphere-payloads
« Last Edit: 11/22/2013 02:07 am by antriksh »
Nasadiya Sukta:
Srishti se pehle sat nahin thaa, asat bhi nahin | Antariksh bhi nahin, aakaash bhi nahin thaa | chhipaa thaa kyaa, kahaan, kisne dhakaa thaa | us pal to agam, atal jal bhi kahaan thaa ||

From: 1st verse of 129th Hymn of the 10th Book of Rig Veda

Offline plutogno

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When MCC is 370km away from the Mars surface it provides a frame image of 25m x 25m. At the farthest point on the orbit, 80,000 km away, MCC provides a 4km x 4km field of view.


really?!? this would mean that the camera has a centimeter-resolution at periapsis!
I think that these numbers do not refer to the field of view but to the pixel size, or to the spatial resolution.

Offline notsorandom

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When MCC is 370km away from the Mars surface it provides a frame image of 25m x 25m. At the farthest point on the orbit, 80,000 km away, MCC provides a 4km x 4km field of view.


really?!? this would mean that the camera has a centimeter-resolution at periapsis!
I think that these numbers do not refer to the field of view but to the pixel size, or to the spatial resolution.
Yes it must be referring to the spatial resolution and not the total image size size. The picture of Earth that was recently taken showed a much larger area than would have been possible if the MCC was only able to take 4 km wide images at Mars.  For comparison MRO is able to resolve at about 30 cm per pixel and HiRISE is a much larger and massive sensor.

Offline antriksh

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Quote
Of the orbiter’s five payloads, three had been tested from November 19. They are the MCC, the Martian Exospheric Neutron Composition Analyser to look at the exosphere of Mars and the Thermal Infrared Imaging System (TIIS) to study the Red Planet’s geological activity. “We switched on these three and their health is normal. They are basically working,

Quote
Mars spacecraft, said ISRO had successfully completed the calibration of the spacecraft’s high-gain and medium-gain antenna. “All the spacecraft systems are working normally. We are preparing for the orbiter’s trans-Mars insertion on December 1,”


http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/orbiters-mars-colour-camera-proves-itself-with-earth-pictures/article5380427.ece
Nasadiya Sukta:
Srishti se pehle sat nahin thaa, asat bhi nahin | Antariksh bhi nahin, aakaash bhi nahin thaa | chhipaa thaa kyaa, kahaan, kisne dhakaa thaa | us pal to agam, atal jal bhi kahaan thaa ||

From: 1st verse of 129th Hymn of the 10th Book of Rig Veda

Offline vyoma

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From The Hindu interview http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/interview/mars-orbiter-tests-have-shown-our-ability-to-predict-isro-chairman/article5372129.ece:
Quote
In the early hours of December 1, around 00.36 hours, we have the trans-Mars injection of our Mars spacecraft. On that day, we are going to use the 440 Newton liquid engine again to impart a delta-v, that is, an incremental velocity of nearly 648 metres a second to the spacecraft and the engine will burn for 1,351 seconds.
.
.
When this running of the 440 Newton liquid engine takes place on December 1, we also have eight numbers of 22 Newton control thrusters firing.

It seems 440N LAM and all 8 thrusters are going to fired together, on Dec 1. Is this maneuver specific to MOM? Or, is this a normal technique? Was it done in Chandrayaan-1 and/or any GSATs as well?

Offline AJA

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@vyoma: you should e-mail them and ask :D
isrosocialmedia AT isro.gov.in

https://twitter.com/Mangalyaan1/status/403539759538384896




Also, NASA's "Eyes on the Solar System" (eyes.nasa.gov) has now added Mangalyaan to its virtual environment!
https://twitter.com/nasa_eyes/status/403666988230139905

Offline vyoma

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An update about TMI:
Quote
"The trans-Mars injection- we are planning to depart on December 1, 2013 early hours of 00:49 hours IST and we are going to burn a liquid engine for duration of roughly 23 minutes which will impart an incremental velocity of 648 metres per second consuming a fuel of 198kgs," ISRO Scientific Secretary V Koteswara Rao told reporters here.

Quote
"We have planned right now four mid course corrections, first one will be around December 11- plus or minus a couple of days depending on the deviation how it is going."

"Second one will be in April 2014, third one will be in August 2014 and the last one- the fourth one will be on September 14 that is 10 days before we insert into Martian orbit. Couple of day's uncertainty will be there....," he added.

http://www.dnaindia.com/scitech/report-isro-all-set-for-trans-mars-injection-on-december-1-1925902

Offline jcm

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@vyoma: you should e-mail them and ask :D
isrosocialmedia AT isro.gov.in

https://twitter.com/Mangalyaan1/status/403539759538384896




Also, NASA's "Eyes on the Solar System" (eyes.nasa.gov) has now added Mangalyaan to its virtual environment!
https://twitter.com/nasa_eyes/status/403666988230139905

Note that the @mangalyaan1 feed is apparently not an official ISRO twitter account - email to me from isrosocialmedia AT isro.gov.in as follows:

"We have not yet started any twitter feed. Please note that,
facebook.com/isromom is the only social media entity officially hosted by
ISRO."

-----------------------------

Jonathan McDowell
http://planet4589.org

Offline vyoma

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Here's another tidbit:
Quote
Mars Programme Director M Annadurai told reporters that the spacecraft would require fuel of 190 kg and time of 1,346 seconds to achieve trans-Mars injection. “Sixteen hours before firing, we will pre-load all commands to the spacecraft and six hours ahead of firing, we will verify whether all processes and commands are accurate.”

Quote
The fuel it has consumed so far is 338 kg. The total fuel spent by the time it reaches mars will be 832 kg, leaving 20 kg for rest of the activity of the spacecraft.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/371466/isros-mars-mission-all-set.html

Offline seshagirib

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Offline antriksh

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Two opportunities for MOI

Quote
“MAVEN upon reaching the designated Mars orbit will have only one chance to enter the the orbit, and if it does not do so, that will be the end. But we have an additional opportunity. In case we reach on September 24, 2014 and we are not able to perform the orbit insertion maneuver, we will have another opportunity after three days of orbiting Mars,” said MoM project director, M Annadurai

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-mom-has-edge-over-maven-say-isro-scientists-1926574
Nasadiya Sukta:
Srishti se pehle sat nahin thaa, asat bhi nahin | Antariksh bhi nahin, aakaash bhi nahin thaa | chhipaa thaa kyaa, kahaan, kisne dhakaa thaa | us pal to agam, atal jal bhi kahaan thaa ||

From: 1st verse of 129th Hymn of the 10th Book of Rig Veda

Offline vineethgk

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I am wondering whether the above DNA report is correct or whether it is just a case of misreporting and typo (or even bluff)?

Quote
we will have another opportunity after three days of orbiting Mars
???

As per Emily's article in the link attached below, both MAVEN and MOM seem to get only a single chance to enter Martian orbit.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2013/11220947-maven-mom-trajectory-explainer.html

Quote
Both spacecraft get only one chance to enter Mars orbit. Mars Orbiter Mission will again be using its single 440-Newton rocket to perform the orbit insertion maneuver. MAVEN has six rocket motors, each of which can achieve 200 Newtons of thrust.
« Last Edit: 11/29/2013 10:38 am by vineethgk »

Offline AJA

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Alright.... Alright. I'm not going to rant about the Indian Corporate Media again.

So, a sincere request: can you guys read the "articles" you share, perhaps even read the comments below said "articles", and then use your discretion? I'm now recovering from a thanks to having clicked on that DNA link.

As for the injection. It's not a discrete number of chances. It's a window that's determined by the delta-v margin still available to the spacecraft. (There may be other concerns to take care of, like ensuring the S/C isn't eclipsed, and has power etc. - but delta-v is a physical requirement, and likely to be the determining factor) Both MAVEN and Mangalyaan are in bound helio-centric orbits. That means, if they miss this particular window, they'll have another opportunity many many many years later when the alignments all match (if the S/C aren't yanked out of their heliocentric orbits by Jupiter, or if they don't collide with something in the asteroid belt... I don't know how far out they go if they miss capture burn). But I don't think they expect either S/C to survive that long. So it's essentially just this window.

Now, within that window, you're likely to have a single point at which the delta-v required for Mars orbit capture is minimum. But (and this is only the preliminary speculation of a someone not trained in orbital mechanics) if the S/C is using gravity assist to reduce its Mars-relative velocity (depends on the trajectory) - this minimum delta-v point may not be unique, and the set of all such points may not be contiguous. In effect, this offers multiple points for orbit capture with the same delta-v costs. But all these points still lie in the same window.

So, it may well be the case that MAVEN's trajectory doesn't exhibit a 'dual trough' in the "Delta-v required for MOI" vs "MET" graph; and Mangalyaan's does.

But it's definitely not "after 3 days in Martian orbit". Because..well, YOU DO AN MOI..... TO GET INTO MARTIAN ORBIT. That's either a solecism by Annadurai, or a typo by this "correspondent". It may be a second opportunity 3 days, after the first opportunity (and 3 days inside the Martian sphere of influence).




EDIT: Forgot to mention this. Comparisons between Mangalyaan and MAVEN are NOT inevitable. You could, you know... just NOT DO IT.
« Last Edit: 11/29/2013 02:59 pm by AJA »

Offline input~2

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Reminder: MOM trans-Mars injection maneuver starts to-day November 30 at 1919UTC for a duration of 23 minutes

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