Bangalore: Isro on Saturday said the country's October 28 Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) was on schedule, dismissing suggestions that Nasa may not be in a position to offer it deep space network support following government shutdown in the US.
"There is no delay. We are going ahead with our MOM as scheduled," Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) spokesperson Deviprasad Karnik told PTI in Bangalore.
The Bangalore-headquartered space agency is drawing comfort from the fact that Nasa has announced that it would go ahead with its own MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) mission, slated for launch as early as November 18.
This, in other words, means that Nasa would have to keep its DSN, an international network of antennas that track interplanetary spacecraft missions, operational.
