India to launch mission to Mars Tuesday

India will launch its Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) Tuesday at 2.38pm (local time) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, a barrier island off the coast of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Scientists at the spaceport said all the preparations are as per schedule. "The weather is fine and all parameters are just great for the launch," an Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) official told The Times of India Monday. ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan said, "This is our first interplanetary mission. There will be bigger missions later." The payload has five indigenous instruments that will look for, among other things, traces of methane and deuterium, signs of possible early life and water in Mars. Of the 51 such missions by the US and Russia/USSR, 21 have been successful. The orbiter will remain in Earth orbit till December 1 when it starts its 300-day voyage to Mars. It is expected to reach the orbit of the red planet on September 24, 2014, after travelling 400 million km. Two tracking ships of Shipping Corporation of India - SCI Nalanda and SCI Yamuna - have taken their positions in the South Pacific, off Fiji, to monitor the mission. India will be the sixth after the US, Russia, China, Japan and the European Union to launch a Mars mission. Fourteen days after the Indian mission, the US will be launching a similar Mars orbiter called Maven.