India's Mars mission satellite mated with rocket, launch date revised

ISRO completed integration of its Mars satellite with the rocket while the heat shield is expected to be closed in couple of days, an official said

CHENNAI: The Indian Space Research Organization completed integration of itsMars mission satellite on Sunday with therocket while the heat shield is expected to be closed in couple of days, an official said. 

"The 1,340 kg satellite was mated with the rocket today (Sunday). The heat shield will be closed in two or three days after tests. Everything is progressing normally on the rocket and the satellite side," an Isro official, who did not want to be identified, told IANS. 

On Saturday Isro chairman K Radhakrishnan told IANS that the Rs 450 crore Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) will be delayed by a week as out of of the two ships — Nalanda and Yamuna — carrying rocket tracking systems, only the latter has reached Fiji. 

The Nalanda is expected to reach there October 21. From there, both the ships have to travel to their respective locations to track the rocket, Isro officials told IANS. 

The ships have terminals to track the rocket, which has a coasting period of around 20 minutes beyond the visibility of existing ground stations. 

The Malgalyaan mission was originally slated for October 28 from Isro's rocket launch centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, around 80km from here. 

According to Isro officials, there is no problem as far as the mission is concerned. 

Radhakrishnan said as the launch window is between October 28 to November 19, the revised launch date will be decided October 22 after the ship reaches Fiji. 

Incidentally October 22 is seems to be a special date for Isro. It is a Tuesday and in Tamil, Mars planet is called Sevvai Graham and Tuesday is also called Sevvai. In Hindi, Mars is called Mangal and Tuesday is Mangalwar. 

India's first inter-planetary mission was to the Moon October 22, 2008 at an outlay of around Rs 390 cror
e