India’s Mars Orbiter Mission- STK’s Role

Libish K Balachandran

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Introduction

India Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) is India’s first interplanetary

mission to Mars.

The orbiter was designed to orbit Mars in an elliptical orbit.

The objective of the mission was to explore Mars surface feature,

morphology, mineralogy and Martian atmosphere.

After the successful orbit insertion on 24th Sept 2014, India became

the first Asian country to successfully operate this mission as well

the first country in the world to achieve it in the first attempt.

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STK for Trajectory Design

Astrogator was used by ISAC Bangalore, VSSC Trivandrum and SAC

Ahmedabad for trajectory design.

We had responded to several support queries during the design of the

trajectory.

ISRO had their own internal tools and STK was used to validate their tools.

Astrogator was used to design the entire trajectory with impulsive as well

as finite maneuver modelling.

The orbits obtained via STK were compared with their results.

Mars Occult. STK was also used to find out Mars Occult. This

was significant since the final Mars orbit

insertion was performed during occult.

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Mars Mission - Earth SOI

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STK used for Simulating Comet Siding Spring

Courtesy: ISRO

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STK for Realtime Visualisation

STK was used for real-time visualization of the

spacecraft at ISTRAC Bangalore.

Telecasted Live on the national channel

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Feedback from ISRO

“It was indeed STK and we had real time

interface of data. STK gave entire nation

an idea about the way we are reaching

Mars. I once again thank you and IT globe

team.”

-ISRO Scientist

Thank You