With drained battery and no fuel, ISRO's Mars Orbiter craft bids silent adieu after 8 years

Chennai: After an extended eight year performance that exceeded beyond expectations, ISRO's Mangalyaan/Mars Orbiter Mission has gone into oblivion due to lack of fuel and drained out battery.

In an update on the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) at a National Meet organised by ISRO recently on completion of its eight years in the Martian orbit, it was discussed that despite being designed for a life span of six months as a technology demonstrator, the MOM has lived for about eight years in the Martian orbit with a gamut of significant scientific results on Mars as well as on the Solar corona, before losing communication with the ground station, as a result of a long eclipse in April 2022.

During the national meet, ISRO deliberated that the propellant must have been exhausted and therefore, the desired attitude pointing could not be achieved for sustained power generation.

"It was declared that the spacecraft is non-recoverable and attained its end-of-life", ISRO said today. The mission will be ever-regarded as a remarkable technological and scientific feat in the history of planetary exploration, it added.

At the meeting, Shantanu Bhatwadekar, Scientific Secretary, ISRO, in his prelude address, said the MOM was launched on November 5, 2013, and after completing 300 days of interplanetary journey, it was inserted into the Martian orbit on September 24, 2014.

Equipped with a suit of 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. (UNI)