ISRO, which operated the spacecraft around Mars, confirmed that the Mangalyaan has reached its end of life after completing years of interplanetary journey.
India’s Mangalyaan Mars Orbiter Mission has ended.
The nation’s Space Research Organisation (ISRO) During the meet, Isro chief S Somanath, also mentioned that the mission gifted an understanding of Martian surface features, morphology, Martian atmosphere and of the composition of various gases in the Martian exosphere.
The mission could capture the full disc image of Mars because of its elliptical orbit and generate an atlas of Mars with the help of the colour camera onboard the mission, Isro further said in its statement. an outline of the proceedings of a September 27th meeting at which the state of the mission was discussed.
The news was not good: communication with the orbiter was lost in April 2022, and ISRO staff believe it has run out of propellant and cannot therefore align its solar panels to sufficiently recharge its batteries and resume operations.
“It was declared that the spacecraft is non-recoverable, and attained its end-of-life,” the document states.On September, 27, 2022, ISRO organised a one-day national meeting to commemorate the Mars Orbiter Mission, as Mangalyaan completed eight years in Martian orbit.During the national meeting, ISRO deliberated that the propellant must have been exhausted, and therefore, the desired attitude pointing could not be achieved for sustained power generation.
ISRO’s statement on the Mars Orbiter Mission on the national meet held on September 27
“Right now, there is no fuel left. The satellite battery has drained,” sources in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told PTI. “The link has been lost”. There was, however, no official word from the country’s national space agency, headquartered here.
With 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. “But recently there were back-to-back eclipses including one that lasted seven-and-half hours,” officials said on condition of anonymity, noting that all the propellant on board the ageing satellite had been consumed.
“As 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,” another official said.
ISRO officials noted that the Mars orbiter craft functioned for almost eight years, well beyond its designed mission life of six months. “It has done its job and yielded significant scientific results,” they said.
During the meet, Isro chief S Somanath, also mentioned that the mission gifted an understanding of Martian surface features, morphology, Martian atmosphere and of the composition of various gases in the Martian exosphere.
The mission could capture the full disc image of Mars because of its elliptical orbit and generate an atlas of Mars with the help of the colour camera onboard the mission, Isro further said in its statement.
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.
The MOM — a technology demonstration venture — carried five scientific payloads (total 15 kg) collecting data on surface geology, morphology, atmospheric processes, surface temperature and atmospheric escape process. The five instruments are: Mars Colour Camera (MCC),
Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (TIS),
Methane Sensor for Mars (MSM),
Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA) and
MOM was launched on November 5, 2013, and after completing 300 days of interplanetary journey, it was inserted to the Martian orbit on September 24, 2014. “Equipped with five scientific payloads onboard, during these eight years, the mission has gifted significant scientific understanding on the Martian surface features, morphology, as well as the Martian atmosphere and exosphere,” ISRO said.
Mangalyaan’s Achievements in 8 incredible years.
Mangalyaan was modestly equipped with five instruments – a colour camera, the Lyman Alpha Photometer used to measure the composition of Mars’ upper atmosphere, a thermal imaging spectrometer, another named the “Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyzer”, and a methane sensor.
Those instruments nonetheless produced plenty of data.ISRO listed the following achievements of the mission:
- Captured the first photos of the far side of Mars’ moon Deimos;
- Enhanced our understanding of the composition of several gases in the Martian exosphere;
- Quantified the altitude where the Martian atmosphere transitions from a CO2-rich regime to atomic Oxygen-rich regime during the local evening;
- Discovering “suprathermal” Argon-40 atoms in the Martian exosphere, hinting at why the red planet lost most of its atmosphere;
- Observed many Martian dust storms and advanced our understanding of their workings;
- Helped to generated an atlas of Mars;
- Recorded variations in Mars’ ice caps;
- Used its elliptical orbit to capture full-disk images of Mars like the one below.
