NASA spacecraft set for Mars orbit insertion Sep 21

Washington, Sep 18:

's Mars

is nearing its scheduled insertion into the Martian orbit Sep 21 after completing a 10 month interplanetary journey of 442 million miles.

The team, the flight system and all ground assets are ready for Mars orbit insertion of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft, the US space agency said in a statement.

"So far, so good with the performance of the spacecraft and payloads on the cruise to Mars," said David Mitchell, MAVEN project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The orbit insertion manoeuver will begin with the brief firing of six small thruster engines to steady the spacecraft.

The engines will ignite and burn for 33 minutes to slow the craft, allowing it to be pulled into an elliptical orbit within a period of 35 hours.

Following orbit insertion, MAVEN will begin a six week commissioning phase that includes manoeuvering the spacecraft into its final orbit and testing its instruments and science mapping commands.

Thereafter, MAVEN will begin its one-Earth-year primary mission to take measurements of the composition, structure and escape of gases in Mars' upper atmosphere and its interaction with the sun and solar wind.

"The MAVEN science mission focuses on answering questions about where did the water that was present on early Mars go, about where did the carbon dioxide go," said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator from the University of Colorado, Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.

These are important questions for understanding the history of Mars, its climate, and its potential to support at least microbial life.

MAVEN was launched Nov 18, 2013, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying three instrument packages. It is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the upper atmosphere of Mars.

The mission's combination of detailed measurements at specific points in Mars' atmosphere and imaging provides a powerful tool for understanding the properties of the Red Planet's upper atmosphere.

IANS