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[b]Mars Orbiter Spacecraft Successfully placed in Mars Transfer Trajectory[/b] The critical maneuver to place India's Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft in the Mars transfer trajectory was successfully carried out in the early hours of Sunday (Dec. 1). During this maneuver, which began at 00:49 IST, the spacecraft's 440 Newton liquid engine was fired for about 22 minutes providing a velocity increment of 648 meters per second to the spacecraft. Following the completion of this maneuver, the Earth orbiting phase of the spacecraft ended. The spacecraft is now on a course to encounter Mars after a journey of about 10 months around the Sun. It may be recalled that the Mars Orbiter spacecraft was launched into an elliptical parking orbit with a perigee (nearest point to Earth) of 248 km and an apogee (farthest point to Earth) of 23,550 km by India's workhorse launch vehicle PSLV on Nov. 5, 2013. Following this, the apogee height of the spacecraft's orbit was successively raised through a series of maneuvers to nearly 193,000 km. Besides, health checks of the Mars Orbiter spacecraft as well as its payloads were performed. Since its launch, all systems on-board Mars Orbiter spacecraft are performing normally. The spacecraft is being continuously monitored from the Spacecraft Control Center at the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bangalore with support from the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antennae at Byalalu.
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