Article Posted on : - Oct 21, 2013

PSLV-C25 after the integration of all its four stages at Moible Service Tower. Photo: ISRO.

BANGALORE (PTI): India's Mars spacecraft, whose launch has been delayed by almost a week, has been integrated with launch vehicle, Indian Space Research Organisation said on Sunday.

"The spacecraft's integration with the launcher is completed," ISRO spokesman Deviprasad Karnik told PTI, a day after the decision to postpone the launch of the Mars Orbiter Mission on board the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-XL) was announced.

A decision on the new date of launch from the spaceport of Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh would be taken on Tuesday, he said.

The launch window for the MOM mission was earlier slated from October 28 to November 19.

ISRO decided to defer the launch due to bad weather in the South Pacific Ocean, where two Indian ship-borne terminals were moving slowly to reach its intended location, about 300 nautical miles from the Fiji Island.

The two ships SCI Yamuna and SCI Nalanda - leased from the Shipping Corporation of India to study the crucial period when the rocket ejects the spacecraft into space - left for the South Pacific Ocean in mid-September from Visakhapatnam.

The American NASA/JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) is also providing communications and navigation support to this mission with their deep space network facilities.