Just yesterday, India’s successful maiden inter-planetary Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), also called Mangalyaan, completed its planned lifespan of half a year in the planet’s orbit, but will prolong its expedition for another 6 months. MOM was launched by Indian Space Research Organization aboard the PSLV-C25 rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR in Sriharikota, on November 5, 2013. It entered the Mars orbit on September 24, 2014.
The orbiter created history for India which became the first country to successfully enter the red planet’s orbit on its first attempt. At a cost of only Rs 450 crores, it is regarded as the world’s cheapest space mission. As stated on IBNLive, Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Department of Space, says that MOM has reserve fuel of 37kg and since its critical components are all functioning properly, it will continue orbiting Mars for 6 more months.
This will help in gathering additional scientific details for ISRO’s research on the red planet in different seasons. The payloads (instruments) onboard the orbiter have already sent valuable data and wonderful images of the planet during the last 6 months. Pictures taken by MOM’s Mars Color Camera (MCC) can be browsed by any space enthusiast on ISRO’s Facebook page or website. The full gallery includes three dimensional photos of canyons, craters and dust storms.
Also see: After Mangalyaan success, ISRO wins Indira Gandhi Prize for this year
Based on the information on ISRO’s layman-friendly website, the data collected includes methane concentration in the Martian atmosphere, images and information about the features and composition of the Martian surface and data about the Martian moons – Phobos and Deimos. Information was also gathered on the relative abundance ratio of the elements deuterium and hydrogen (to understand the loss process of water from Mars), mass spectrometry details to quantitate the neutral composition and thermal emission data to study soil composition and mineralogy of the red planet.
The scientists at ISRO are now going to face the challenge of a 15-day of blackout period in June 2015, during which no communication will be possible with the orbiter.