Bengaluru, 2 Oct: India\u2019s Mars Orbiter craft has run out of propellant and its battery drained beyond the safe limit, fuelling speculation that the country\u2019s maiden interplanetary mission \u2018Mangalyaan\u2019 may have finally completed its long innings.
\nThe Rs 450 crore Mars Orbiter Mission was launched onboard PSLV-C25 on November five, 2013, and the MOM spacecraft was successfully inserted into Martian orbit on September 24, 2014 in its first attempt.
\n\u201cRight now, there is no fuel left. The satellite battery has drained,\u201d sources in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told PTI. \u201cThe link has been lost\u201d.
\nThere was, however, no official word from the country\u2019s national space agency, headquartered here.
\nWith fuel on board, ISRO had been performing orbital manoeuvres on MOM spacecraft to take it to a new orbit to avoid an impending eclipse in the past.
\n\u201cBut recently there were back-to-back eclipses including one that lasted seven-and-half hours,\u201d officials said on condition of anonymity, noting that all the propellant on board the ageing satellite had been consumed.
\n\u201cAs the satellite battery is designed to handle eclipse duration of only about one hour and 40 minutes, a longer eclipse would drain the battery beyond the safe limit,\u201d another official said.
\nISRO officials noted that the Mars orbiter craft functioned for almost eight years, well beyond its designed mission life of six months.
\n\u201cIt has done its job and yielded significant scientific results,\u201d they said. The objectives of the mission were primarily technological and included design, realisation and launch of a Mars Orbiter spacecraft capable of operating with sufficient autonomy during the journey phase; Mars orbit insertion\/ capture and in-orbit phase around Mars.
\nThe MOM \u2014 a technology demonstration venture \u2014 carried five scientific payloads (total 15 kg) collecting data on surface geology, morphology, atmospheric processes, surface temperature and atmospheric escape process.
\nThe five instruments are: Mars Color Camera (MCC), Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (TIS), Methane Sensor for Mars (MSM), Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA) and Lyman Alpha Photometer (LAP).
\n\u201cMOM is credited with many laurels like cost-effectiveness, short period of realisation, economical mass-budget, and miniaturisation of five heterogeneous science payloads\u201d, ISRO officials pointed out.
\nHighly elliptical orbit geometry of MOM enabled MCC to take snap shots of \u2018Full disc\u2019 of Mars at its farthest point and finer details from closest point.
\nThe MCC has produced more than 1000 images and published a Mars Atlas.
\nMeanwhile, plans on a follow-on \u2018Mangalyaan\u2019 mission to the red planet, however, are yet to be firmed up.
\nISRO came out with an \u2018Announcement of Opportunity\u2019 (AO) for future Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM-2) in 2016 but officials acknowledged that it\u2019s still on the drawing board, with the coming \u2018Gaganyaan\u2019, \u2018Chandrayaan-3\u2019 and \u2018Aditya \u2013 L1\u2019 projects being in the space agency\u2019s current priority list.
\nThe AO had said: \u201cIt is now planned to have the next orbiter mission around Mars for a future launch opportunity. Proposals are solicited from interested scientists within India for experiments onboard an orbiter mission around Mars (MOM-2), to address relevant scientific problems and topics.\u201d \u201cNot in the approved list as of now\u201d, a senior ISRO official told PTI on being asked about an update on the MOM-2. (PTI)
\n\u201cWe need to formulate the project proposals and payloads based on the wider consultation with the research community,\u201d the official said. \u201cIt\u2019s still on the drawing board. But needs some more details and international collaboration for finalising the mission.\u201d PTI<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bengaluru, 2 Oct: India\u2019s Mars Orbiter craft has run out of propellant and its battery drained beyond the safe limit, fuelling speculation that the country\u2019s maiden interplanetary mission \u2018Mangalyaan\u2019 may have finally completed its long innings. The Rs 450 crore Mars Orbiter Mission was launched onboard PSLV-C25 on November five, 2013, and the MOM spacecraft […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-201960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-national"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201960\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}