New Delhi: China has beaten India in space in almost every aspect but when it comes to explore the plant Mars, India sees the Mangalyaan, its first Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), as an opportunity to beat its regional rival China in reaching the Red Plant.
Past records say that probes to the Red Planet have a high failure rate. And if the Rs 450 crore mission turns out to be a success, India will be the first Asian nation to have reached Mars in the first shot itself and ISRO will be the fourth space agency in the world after the United States, Russia and Europe to have undertake a successful Mars mission.
In November 2011, a Russian mission carrying the Chinese satellite, Yinghuo-1, to Mars failed. Japan also failed in a similar effort in 1998.
On Monday, ISRO will perform the crucial fourth trajectory correction manoeuvre and test fire of the main liquid engine on the spacecraft.
Mangalyaan is scheduled to leave the solar orbit and enter an orbit around Mars in the early hours of September 24.
The mission is aimed to map the surface, study the atmosphere and search the presence of methane gas on the Red Plant.
The spacecraft has covered 98 per cent of its 300-day odyssey and the critical manoeuvre would be performed when the scientists restart the onboard liquid engine which is in sleep mode for nearly 10 months.
The Mars Orbiter Mission was launched on November 5, 2013 by India's workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from the spaceport of Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.
On a 666 million km journey, the spacecraft escaped the earth gravity pull on December 1,2013.
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