Published: 10th April 2014 06:00 AM
Last Updated: 10th April 2014 01:35 AM
Even as Mars prepares to line up opposite the Earth and in line with the Sun, the country's Mars Orbiter has travelled half its distance towards the red planet without glitches so far, the Indian Space Research Organisation said.
On Wednesday, Mars was at its closest point to Earth with approximately 57 million km separating the two planets. A phenomenon that occurs every two years, when Mars reaches the 'opposition' point in its orbit around the Sun, stargazers could see the Sun setting in the west and Mars in the east.
Since the Orbiter set out on its heliocentric journey to Mars on December 1 last year, it has travelled close to 340 million km.
The ISRO in a statement on Wednesday said it crossed the halfway mark at 9.50 am on Wednesday. Assisted by the Deep Space Network maintained by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA, the ISRO has been continuously monitoring the progress of the Orbiter and it was decided that no trajectory correction manoeuver (TCM) was needed at the moment.
"If required, the next TCM is planned to be carried out in June 2014," the ISRO officials said.
The spacecraft and five onboard scientific instruments are said to be in good condition. "Periodic tests are being done on the different levels of autonomy built into the spacecraft. At present, the radio distance between the spacecraft and Earth is 39 million km. A signal from earth to the spacecraft and back takes four minutes and 15 seconds," the statement said.
A high gain antenna installed for long-range communications would soon be made operational for further commands to the Orbiter.
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