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Exactly 100 days from today, the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, India's first interplanetary mission, is scheduled for a rendezvous with the Red planet. On September 24, the spacecraft is expected to reach the Mars.
If the event is successfully conducted, it will be a "very" significant technological milestone for the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro).
The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) is racing towards its target and almost 70 per cent of its journey is complete. MOM is currently at a radio distance of 108 million km from the earth, and a signal takes around six minutes to reach the earth.The spacecraft and its five payloads are in good health, said Isro.
The second trajectory correction manoeuvre (TCM-2) of the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft was successfully performed on June 11, 2014, it said. The TCM-2 was performed by firing the spacecraft's 22 newton thrusters for a duration of 16 seconds.
Isro is continuously monitoring the spacecraft using the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN).
The spacecraft has so far traveled to Mars a distance of 466 million km as part of its total journey of 680 million km. On November 5, 2013, PSLV-C25, in its 25 flight, successfully launched the Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR at Sriharikota, near Chennai.
