Bangalore: Ahead of India's Mars orbiter's scheduled rendezvous with the red planet on September 24, ISRO on Monday successfully performed the crucial fourth trajectory correction manoeuvre and test fire of the main liquid engine on the spacecraft.
The 440 Newton Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) engine was in an idle mode on the Mars Orbiter Mission for 300 days. It was fired for about four seconds.
"Main Liquid Engine test firing on Mars orbiter spacecraft successful," ISRO said.
The success has boosted the confidence level of ISRO about the success of insertion of the spacecraft into the Martian orbit on Wednesday morning.
The MOM, India's first interplanetary mission launched on November 5, 2013 by India's workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from the spaceport of Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, will enter into Sphere of Influence of Mars on Monday.
On a 666 million km journey, the spacecraft escaped the earth gravity pull on December 1, 2013.
