India's Mars mission encountered a problem when an engine burn failed to lift the spacecraft to the intended orbit level around Earth.
The burn was supposed to lift the craft to 71,623km to 100,000km but a complication with the Mars Orbiter Mission's (MOM) liquid fuel thruster kept the spacecraft from hitting its mark, the BBC reported.
Some officials denied the problem.
"There is no hiccup. The apogee (farthest point from earth) achieved is 78,276 km," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told FirstPost India over the phone.
The organization's Facebook page was a bit less clear.
"During this firing an incremental velocity of 35 m/s (metres per second) has been imparted to the spacecraft. We will come back to you after Orbit determination," the post stated, FirstPost India reported.
The craft is scheduled to continue orbiting Earth until the end of the month, when it is predicted to have built up a velocity that would allow it to break free of our orbit, the BBC reported.
The questionable engine burn was the fourth out of a series of five "midnight maneuvers" (named for the early hours of the morning the burns must be conducted during).
"The spacecraft is healthy and it encountered a problem when a specific redundancy test was being conducted and it failed to reach the desired velocity it was to achieve," science editor at Indian broadcasting network NDTV, ISRO's K Radhakrishnan said, the BBC reported.
As a result, the spacecraft's apogee from 71,623km to only 78,276km, which is only about 25 percent of the 100,000km goal.
Some officials believe the glitch occurred when two coils in the liquid engined did not energize simultaneously as they were supposed to, others aren't as sure.
"Using the primary and redundant coils of the [engine's] solenoid valve of itself should not necessarily lead to a lack of thrust," an anonymous source told the BBC.
"It should be a configuration they will have tested on the ground, which may mean this lack of thrust is nothing to do with the coils and that it's another issue."
