Why flawless functioning of the LAM engine was pivotal to ISRO’s Martian Odyssey
The sigh of relief is palpable. Everyone tries to hide his or her smile; the body language exudes confidence. ISRO engineers could sucessfully wake up the thruster LAM engine sleeping for the last about 300 days and test-fire it for about 4 seconds. India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), popularly called Mangalyaan, has crossed a crucial hurdle.
The day dawned with the news of NASA's Mars probe MAVEN successfully inserted into the Martian orbit and now the MOM has awakened from its deep slumber and has entered into the sphere of influence of Mars.
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Out of this world mission
MOM has travelled more than 680 million km and has covered about 99 per cent of the total distance; it is just 500,000 km short of the final destination. Currently, the spacecraft is propelling at a breakneck speed of about 22 km per second (80,000 kmph) on an orbit around the Sun in a path that intersects the orbit of Mars. On September 24, at about 7.30 am IST, both the MOM spacecraft and the Mars will arrive at this intersection. Precisely when the spacecraft is about 700 km above the surface of the Mars, the LAM engine should start and the retro-firing should take place, failing which the mission is lost.