India to launch Mars Orbiter Mission on October 28 without NASA support

BANGALORE: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said that India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) will go ahead as scheduled on October 28, according to Indian news site NDTV. ISRO spokesperson dismissed suggestions that American space agency NASA may not be in a position to offer India deep space network support following government shutdown in the US. “There is no delay,” he said. “We are going ahead with our MOM as scheduled.” The Bangalore-headquartered space agency is drawing comfort from NASA’s announcement that it would go ahead with its own MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) mission, slated for launch as early as November 18. This, in other words, means that NASA would have to keep its DSN, an international network of antennas that track interplanetary spacecraft missions, operational. Once launched, the MOM would go around the earth for 20-25 days before embarking on a nine month voyage to Mars.