India’s Mangalyaan mission comes to an end with no fuel and drained battery, says source

Mangalyaan, India’s first expedition to Mars, has reached its destination after it has been claimed that the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) ran out of propellant, making it challenging to revive in the Red Planet’s orbit.

This news is sparking conclusions that MOMs have completed their journey. Operated by ISRO, the space department has still not confirmed this. India’s first interplanetary mission, ‘Mangalyaan’, was launched in 2013 onboard PSLV-C25, making ISRO’s fourth space agency to do so. It has been one of the most economical extraterrestrial missions ever created, costing only $74 million.

In conversation with PTI, a source said that no fuel is left in Mangalyaan. The source further added, “Recently there were back-to-back eclipses including one that lasted seven-and-half hours. As the satellite battery is designed to handle an eclipse duration of only about one hour and 40 minutes, a longer eclipse would drain the battery beyond the safe limit.”

MOM was designed with five instruments to investigate the morphology, mineralogy, and atmosphere of the Red Planet, India Today reported. The spacecraft served as proof to show that India is capable of designing, launching, and managing an interplanetary mission.

As per ISRO’s officials, “MOM is credited with many laurels like cost-effectiveness, a short period of realisation, economical mass-budget, and miniaturisation of five heterogeneous science payloads.”

With no official statement from ISRO, former director general in 2021, K Sivan, stated that Mangalyaan-2 will be launched after Chandrayaan-3, India’s forth-coming mission. The second Mars mission is still in the planning stages.(WION)