Mars Orbiter Mission is heading to Mars today

India’s first interplanetary mission, Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), is all set to take off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 2.38pm on Tuesday.

The Mars orbiter satellite, with five pay loads, will be launched by Indian Space Research Organisation’s (Isro) work horse, Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

Addressing media a day ahead of the launch, an Isro official said the 56-hour countdown for the launch is progressing smoothly and hoped for a picture perfect launch on Tuesday, which will make India the sixth country to launch a mission to the Red Planet after the US, Russia, Europe, Japan and China.

“Mandatory checks and preparations for propellant filling operations of second stage (PS2) are in progress," the official said.

Keeping up with tradition, Isro chairman K Radhakrishnan offered prayers to Lord Balaji at Tirupati. A model of the to-be-launched rocket and satellite was placed before the deity and blessings were sought for a successful launch.

The MOM is ISRO’s first interplanetary mission to planet Mars with a spacecraft designed to orbit Mars in an elliptical orbit of 372 km by 80,000 km.

The primary driving technological objective of the mission is to design and realise a spacecraft with a capability to reach Mars (Martian transfer Trajectory), then to orbit around the planet (Mars Orbit Insertion).

The satellite will carry compact science experiments, totalling a mass of 15kg.

According to ISRO scientists associated with the MOM, the Rs450 crore expedition seeks to find if there is methane, considered a precursor chemical for life, in the Martian atmosphere.

Following its launch, the orbiter will embark on a nine month (nearly 300 days) voyage to orbit Mars. During its orbit, the satellite will be at a distance of 54.6 million km away from Earth: the farthest any Indian satellite would have travelled.

Isro has also leased two ships–SCI Yamuna and SCI Nalanda–from the Shipping Corporation of India to study the crucial period when the rocket ejects the spacecraft into space.