After the scare it went through on Monday when it failed to raise the orbit of its Mars spacecraft to the required height, the Indian Space Research Organisation succeeded in its renewed attempt in the early hours of Tuesday.
After the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bangalore gave commands at 5 a.m., the spacecraft’s propulsion system fired for about 304 seconds and its apogee shot up from 78276 km to 118642 km as required, sending ripples of joy in the ISTRAC.
On Monday, ISRO activated both the primary and redundant coils in the spacecraft’s propulsion system, called the 440 Newton engine, to allow the flow of liquid propellants into the engine.
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This trial backfired and the flow stopped, resulting in the orbiter not reaching the required apogee.
On Tuesday, the primary and redundant coils were used separately or independently, similar to the successful orbit-raising manoeuvres on November 7, 8 and 9.
The ISTRAC will try to raise the apogee of the spacecraft again on November 16 and December 1. ISRO’s PSLV-C25 put the spacecraft into earth-bound orbit on November 5.
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