Engineers work with their staff next to a pyramid shaped rocket or Liquid Apogee Motor, foreground, to be installed on the Mars orbiter spacecraft, background, at the satellite center of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in Bangalore - PTI

India's Mars Orbiter Mission is slated to be launched on October 28 after a national committee of experts gave the go ahead for the Rs 450 crore ambitious venture after threadbare deliberations.

The committee held deliberations over two days on Thursday and Friday last and reviewed the status after senior Indian Space Research Organisation scientists gave an in-depth presentation on the mission.

Primary objectives of the mission are to demonstrate India's technological capability to send a satellite to orbit around Mars and conduct meaningful experiments such as looking for signs of life, take pictures of the red planet and study Martian environment.

"The committee has given the go ahead", an ISRO official told the media here on Sunday.

Former ISRO Chairman U.R. Rao, noted space expert Roddam Narasimha and Professors of Indian Institute of Science Bangalore were among those part of the eminent panel.

The October 21-November 19 launch window has now been pushed forward by a week, and it now starts on October 28 though final date of the window remains the same (Nov19).

"We would like to utilise the first available opportunity", the official said, adding, the launch can be expected on the afternoon of October 28, weather permitting. The Rs 150-crore Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) spacecraft is currently underoing vibration and acoustic tests at ISRO Satellite Integration and Testing Establishment here, and is slated for shipment from here on September 30 to the Sriharikota spaceport after a pre-shipment committee review on September 26. Launch campaign has already commenced in Sriharikota spaceport from where the 1,350-kg MOM spacecraft is slated to be launched by the Rs 110 crore Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C25).

The first stage of the PSLV-C25 with strap-ons has already been assembled, with the rocket ready for satellite integration by October ten.

Amid fears of a comet (C/2013 AI) heading into the Red Planet in 2014, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has said that its Rs 450-crore Mars Orbiter Mission, scheduled to be launched in November this year will take place as per the plan.

Comet C/2013 A1, discovered on January 3 by Rob McNaught at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia, is crashing into the Mars in October. Earlier, NASA has said that the chance of comet striking Mars is1 in 8,000, but now revised calculations put the possibility of an impact at just 1 in 120,000. 

“The comet could bring some constituents, but we don't expect any effect on the spacecraft. It will pass 50,000 km away from Mars’ surface. We will get more information on the comet in future and scientists are looking at all possibilities,” ISRO Chief K Radhakrishnan said. 

The Mars Orbiter will carry scientific payload consists of five instruments (weighing about 15 kg): Methane Sensor for Mars (MSM) Mars Color Camera (MCC) Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyzer (MENCA) TIR Spectrometer (TIS) Lyman-Alpha Photometer (LAP) 

According to ISRO, the tentative scientific objective for the Mars mission will be to focus on life, climate, geology, origin, evolution and sustainability of life on the planet. 

ISRO will launch the orbiter using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. 

The Mars Orbiter, which is expected to exit the Earth’s orbit on 27 November, will take over 300 days to travel towards the Red Planet. The orbit insertion is planned for September 2014 and would allow the spacecraft to enter a highly elliptical orbit of 500 km x 80,000 km around Mars. 

India will become the sixth country to launch a mission to Mars after the US, Russia, Europe, Japan and China.