Mangalyaan Faces Four-Second Trial by Fire

Bangalore: India's Mars orbiter satellite has been on an arduous nine-month-long journey to the Red Planet, but its main rocket engine has been lying dormant for this extended period. Now, scientists from the Indian Space Research Organisation or ISRO will 'wake up' the engine to see if it can work at its efficient best. (Also Watch: Mangalyaan Healthy, Team Cool, says ISRO Chief to NDTV)

Launched on November 5 last year, India's Mangalyaan has been successfully braving the rough weather in space. The satellite carries one large rocket motor and eight smaller thrusters.

For most of its journey, the larger rocket motor has been idling, so the worry is will it function on demand and will it function efficiently? ISRO will test it in a short four-second burn and then embark on the future course of action. (Mangalyaan Faces Four-Second Trial by Fire)

ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan says, "We have done a lot of ground simulations and hope that the four-second test will slow the satellite down and correct its trajectory as well in a two-in-one operation".

The big rocket motor on board Mangalyaan has performed flawlessly in over two dozen earlier missions since 1992, so there is a lot of confidence that this time too, things will go as per plan.

"All commands have been uploaded and the satellite will perform the tasks automatically," says Mission controller B N Ramakrishna.

There are two parallel circuits to start up the larger rocket motor; ISRO will use these two paths sequentially as part of plan A and plan B. In case this trial by fire of the big engine fails, the engineers even have a Plan C; they could use the tiny thrusters to slow down the satellite and still try to reach an orbit of Mars.

The Mangalyaan is laced with eight small rockets and one big rocket. The bigger one has been on an extended slumber, like that of the sleeping demon 'Kumbhakaran'.

But now, it will be woken up for four seconds, in what is bound to be the most risky operation for the ISRO.