INDIA: Mangalyaan, India’s first expedition to Mars, has reached its final point more than ten years after its launch.
It has been reported that the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) has run out of propellant, making it challenging to resurrect it in the orbit of the Red Planet.
This recent revelation is fueling rumours that the mission has successfully concluded. The spacecraft circling Mars is operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which has not yet commented on the possibility of the probe being revived.
According to sources, there is no fuel left in Mangalyaan and the satellite’s battery is empty.
When the project was originally planned for a six-month orbital flight around Mars, it had already surpassed expectations because it was in operation for more than eight years.
Mangalyaan was launched in 2013 on PSLV-C25, making ISRO the fourth space agency in the world. It was the first interplanetary mission from India.
The mission served as a proof-of-concept to demonstrate India’s capacity to organize, launch, and oversee a mission to another planet.
India’s Mars mission is one of the most economical extraterrestrial missions ever created. It costs only Rs 450 crore.
In the coming years, India has been planning to launch a second mission to Mars, which is most likely going to be an orbiter. During his tenure as ISRO’s former director general, K Sivan stated that Mangalyaan-2 would not be launched until after Chandrayaan-3, India’s upcoming moon mission.
He continued by noting that the space agency had asked the scientific community for suggestions for new experiments and was already getting them.
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