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Emily Lakdawalla • Sep 16, 2014
Mars Orbiter Mission arrival timeline
Edit Sep 21: Some of the times in the Pacific Time column were not correct when this was originally posted. I have fixed the error. Sorry and thanks to Sameer for pointing out the error in the comments.
Mars Orbiter Mission's fated arrival day is approaching fast! ISRO released a timeline of the critical orbit insertion events yesterday, and I thought it would be handy to people for me to convert this to some other time zones. Also, one item in the ISRO timeline made it clear that all of the times they are mentioning in public communication are spacecraft event time -- that is, the time on the spacecraft's clock when the events take place. But we on Earth will be 224 million kilometers from Mars on that day, and it will take 12.5 minutes for the signals from the spacecraft to reach Earth. So I have also added those 12.5 minutes to the times listed below, making them Earth Received Time. These are the times on our clocks when we will hear from the spacecraft...or not. If these times change at all, I will update this blog entry with new information.
| Event | Time (rel) | Time (IST) | Time (CEST) | Time (UTC) | Time (PDT) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MAVEN orbit insertion burn start -- not part of Mars Orbiter Mission, of course, but an important Mars event in this time period! | -2d | Sep 22 07:07:00 | Sep 22 03:37:00 | Sep 22 01:37:00 | Sep 21 18:37:00 |
| Mars Orbiter Mission test fire main engine | -1d 17h | Sep 22 14:42:00 | Sep 22 11:12:00 | Sep 22 09:12:00 | Sep 22 02:12:00 |
| Change over to Medium Gain Antenna | -3h | Sep 24 04:30:02 | Sep 24 01:00:02 | Sep 23 23:00:02 | Sep 23 16:00:02 |
| Forward rotation starts | -21m | Sep 24 07:09:02 | Sep 24 03:39:02 | Sep 24 01:39:02 | Sep 23 18:39:02 |
| Eclipse starts | -5m 13s | 07:24:49 | 03:54:49 | 01:54:49 | 18:54:49 |
| Attitude control with thrusters | -3m | 07:27:02 | 03:57:02 | 01:57:02 | 18:57:02 |
| MOI start | 07:30:02 | 04:00:02 | 02:00:02 | 19:00:02 | |
| Mars occultation start | +4m 18s | 07:34:20 | 04:04:20 | 02:04:20 | 19:04:20 |
| Telemetry off | +5m | 07:35:02 | 04:05:02 | 02:05:02 | 19:05:02 |
| Eclipse ends | +19.48m | 07:49:31 | 04:19:31 | 02:19:31 | 19:19:31 |
| MOI end | +24m 14s | 07:54:16 | 04:24:16 | 02:24:16 | 19:24:16 |
| Reverse maneuver start | +25m 14s | 07:55:16 | 04:25:16 | 02:25:16 | 19:25:16 |
| Mars occultation ends | +27m 38s | 07:57:40 | 04:27:40 | 02:27:40 | 19:27:40 |
| Telemetry resumes | +30m 14s | 08:00:16 | 04:30:16 | 02:30:16 | 19:30:16 |
For more information about orbit insertion events, read this guest post by Srinivas Laxman.
