Mars Orbiter Mission goes mum for 15 days
Isro’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) on Monday bid a 15-day farewell to ground stations as a result of what is known as Mars conjunction.
MUMBAI: Isro's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) on Monday bid a 15-day farewell to ground stations as a result of what is known as Mars conjunction — a phenomenon during which the sun will disrupt communication between the two.
This is the first time since its launch on November 5, 2013 that MOM will be cut off completely from ground stations for such a long period, making it quite a challenging period for the MOM team.
On Monday, the spacecraft also completed 259 days in the Martian orbit.
The communication blackout will remain till June 22. MOM will operate autonomously till then. Simulations carried out earlier have made the Isro team optimistic that there will be no problems. All commands were pre-loaded in it in preparation for the blackout. The spacecraft has about 37kg fuel in reserve.
To prevent the spacecraft from receiving garbled commands that could be misinterpreted or prove harmful, ground control stopped transmitting them. In fact, MOM's entry into the blackout phase kicked off on May 27 when it was telemetering data only for three hours a day.
An Isro official told TOI that the five MOM payload operations have been suspended. "Whatever signal from MOM the antenna is acquiring at Byalalu deep space network is extremely noisy, indicating that they contain no useful data. This is not communication," he said.
The pause does not mean that scientists and engineers at the mission operations complex in Bengalaru, who have been monitoring MOM since its launch on November 5, 2013, are on a holiday. "They will be attending to tasks related to other spacecraft," he said.
Nasa has stopped transmitting commands to five of its Mars spacecraft — two rovers (Curiosity and Opportunity) and three are orbiters (Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission).
MAVEN, which entered the Martian orbit on September 22, 2014, will continue to make measurements during the communication blackout phase. "But, the data will be stored and transmitted back to earth at the end of the conjunction," Nasa said.
This is the first time since its launch on November 5, 2013 that MOM will be cut off completely from ground stations for such a long period, making it quite a challenging period for the MOM team.
On Monday, the spacecraft also completed 259 days in the Martian orbit.
The communication blackout will remain till June 22. MOM will operate autonomously till then. Simulations carried out earlier have made the Isro team optimistic that there will be no problems. All commands were pre-loaded in it in preparation for the blackout. The spacecraft has about 37kg fuel in reserve.
To prevent the spacecraft from receiving garbled commands that could be misinterpreted or prove harmful, ground control stopped transmitting them. In fact, MOM's entry into the blackout phase kicked off on May 27 when it was telemetering data only for three hours a day.
An Isro official told TOI that the five MOM payload operations have been suspended. "Whatever signal from MOM the antenna is acquiring at Byalalu deep space network is extremely noisy, indicating that they contain no useful data. This is not communication," he said.
The pause does not mean that scientists and engineers at the mission operations complex in Bengalaru, who have been monitoring MOM since its launch on November 5, 2013, are on a holiday. "They will be attending to tasks related to other spacecraft," he said.
Nasa has stopped transmitting commands to five of its Mars spacecraft — two rovers (Curiosity and Opportunity) and three are orbiters (Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission).
MAVEN, which entered the Martian orbit on September 22, 2014, will continue to make measurements during the communication blackout phase. "But, the data will be stored and transmitted back to earth at the end of the conjunction," Nasa said.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave a comment-- or suggestions, particularly of topics and places you'd like to see covered