After the Mars orbiter spacecraft's successful encounter with comet
Siding Spring last week, a major hurdle was over and the satellite is
now in a normal phase of the mission to proceed with other experiments,
Isro said on Wednesday.
"One thing that was quite satisfying was the
satellite survived this comet, there was absolutely no problem...; it
happened between October 19 and 20th, it has been about ten days since
then, things are going on very correctly as planned," Isro Satellite
Centre (ISAC) Director S K Shivakumar told reporters in Bangalore.
Speaking
at the pre-event press meet of Engineers' Conclave, he said, "We are
very satisfied with the way in which we have manoeuvred the satellite
and how it behaved pre and post manoeuvre, and how it survived from the
comet. With that, one major hurdle is really finished now we are more
concentrating on the experiments we are trying to do."
"Things are
going as per schedule, things are very clear for us and we are
conducting the experiments as planned. With that we feel it is at normal
face of the mission, and we can certainly hand over the satellite to
our ISTRAC friends for next six months minimum, beyond that it will be
really bonus to all of us," he said.
The comet, known as Siding
Spring (C/2013 A1), made its closest encounter with Mars on October 19th
midnight for which Isro had repositioned its Mars Orbiter satellite to
avoid collision.
Isro along with Indian National Academy of
Engineering is organising "Engineers'Conclave- 2014" (EC-2014) from
October 30 to November 1 in Banglore. The purpose of the event is to
provide a platform to all professional engineers/scientists of the
country to address some of the major engineering challenges relevant to
society and to suggest suitable engineering solutions. K Radhakrishnan,
Chairman, Isro/Secretary, Department of Space is the Chair and Dr Baldev
Raj, President, INAE/Director, National Institute of Advanced Studies,
is the co-chair of Engineers' Conclave-2014.
Outlining the GSAT
launches, Shivakumar said, "basically GSAT-16 will go on December 4
Kourou in French Guiana and then next will be GSAT-15, along with that
we are preparing GSAT-18 and 17 in the same order. We feel that by the
end of next year we have to send 18 and early 2016 we have to send 17."
ISRO Dismisses Glitch Reports in SpaDeX Docking, Confirms Mission Progress11 February 2025
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