The final countdown for the much awaited launch of India's Mars Orbiter Mission(MOM) will start at 6 pm on November 3, an ISRO official said. The launch is slated for 2.36 pm on November 5.
The postponement of the launch from October 28 to November 5 has come as an advantage because the spacecraft will be less exposed to Van Allen radiation belt.
The 56 and a Half hour final countdown will consist of filling liquid propellants in the second and fourth stage of the rocket, and checking the electrical system and the communication network. PSLV-XL, the rocket which will be used for the launch is an advanced version of four stage Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.
The American NASA/JPL is providing communications and navigation support to this mission with their Deep Space Network facilities. The 18 metre antenna at Byalalu was tailored for Chandrayan-1 mission, the 32 metre antenna can support other planetary mission including Mars. To augment the mission, we have increrased the power from 2 to 20 kilowatts. While Chandrayan-1 was powered by a 2 kw charge, Mangalyan will have 20kW power for the command operations, the ISRO Chairman explained and added that the other up graduation have done to improve the accuracy of the position determination of the spacecratft. Apart from this, the three ground stations Jet Propulsion Labaratory of NASA will also be tracking various phases of the flight and its visibility.
The propulsions systems for the spacecraft was provided comlpletely by the Liquid Propulsion System Centre at Indira Nagar while the entire mission operations control of Mangalyaan will be taken over by ISTRAC once PSLV injects the spacecraft around the earth's orbit.
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