Bengaluru: It was intended to last six months, but as the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) completes a year with its eyes transfixed on the Red Planet, Indian space scientists are delighted as the orbiter would not only keep going for a long time, but also beam mounds of exciting details about the god of war!
MOM, which entered its niche around Mars on September 24, 2014, has sent home some interesting facts like the level at which dust storms take shape on Martian soil, and many striking pictures. That’s not all.
For more than a month (end of May to July 1, 2015), it worked well without any commands sent from ground stations during a rare celestial event. The upshot: everyone at Isro is confident that the spacecraft would survive for a long time.
“It is a great achievement. All the systems have worked well and so has the unique characteristic of autonomy built in a spacecraft for the first time (the capability to manage on its own during such blackouts). All the five payloads (instruments) onboard are continuing to send data,” Dr A.S. Kiran Kumar, Chairman, Isro, told the Deccan Chronicle.
The celebrations to mark the first birthday of MOM, however, would be low-key and restricted to release of a collage of pictures of Mars, beamed by Mars Colour Camera (MCC) onboard the orbiter, in Bengaluru on Thursday by Dr Kiran Kumar. Reason: space scientists are busy because three satellites—ASTROSAT, GSAT-15 and IRNSS-IE are scheduled for launch. In fact, half the team who assembled MOM would be away in Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota Range, on Thursday to attend a review meeting.
