In 2014, the India Mangalyaan mission succeeded in entering Mars’s orbit. India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), widely known as mission Mangalyaan, was the country’s first interplanetary mission in its history. ISRO- Indian Space Research Organisation created history by nailing the mission in their first attempt, receiving praises from all around the world. Want to know more? Proceed further to know about Mangalyaan achievements, the facts and figures about Mangalyaan and the mission’s future. Is Mangalyaan mission still active? Are there plans as to when will Mangalyaan 2 launch? Read ahead to find images of Mars as well.
India Mangalyaan Mission – Country’s First Journey to Mars
India Mangalyaan mission, applauded as Asia’s pride, finally entered the orbit of its designated planet on 24th September, 2014, about a year later from its launch on 5th November 2013. One of the facts and figures about Mangalyaan is that its budget was too less that scientists had to keep all the important things at the minimum cost making it one of the Mangalyaan Achievements. Read more.
Mangalyaan Achievements
Built entirely in India, the interplanetary India Mangalyaan mission was launched on a budget that is even lesser than a blockbuster movie, approximately about 73 million US dollars. Achieving this feat, Mangalyaan became the world’s cheapest Mars mission.
Also, the orbiter was a success in its maiden attempt, which was another first in the history of the world’s space endeavours. After a year, in 2015, the Space Pioneer Award was won by the brilliant team behind Mangalyaan, awarded by the American National Space Academy.
While collecting the firsts of the world, India became the fourth country to have positioned an orbiter on Mars and the first to do so in the Asian continent. These Mangalyaan achievements have helped Indian space research works to hold a stronger ground among the world’s other big space organisations.
Images Of Mars From Mangalyaan
As soon as the orbiter left planet Earth, it started sending a lot of picturesque captures of the Indian subcontinent and other places of the home planet. However, as it is meant for the great Red Planet, we started receiving its pictures soon after. Here are some of the images published by ISRO for public viewing:
This was the first image of Mars sent by the orbiter, Mangalyaan.
A full picture of the Red Dot planet as seen by the spacecraft’s diligent and superior quality cameras.
This is an image of the Martian volcano.
An image sent by India’s pride, on Independence day.
Wondering is Mangalyaan Mission still active?, let’s read below.
Is Mangalyaan Mission Still Active?
ISRO had expected the MOM to last only for six months. But to everyone’s astonishment, the orbiter is still very much healthy and revolving around Mars’s orbit while keeping in touch with Earth at certain intervals. The latest prominent image received by Mangalyaan was on 18th July, 2021, of the full disc of Mars.
Also Read- Facts And Contribution Of Vikram Sarabhai – Father Of Indian Space Program
Facts And Figures About Mangalyaan
Here are some interesting facts and figures about Mangalyaan mission are:
- The scientific payload mass of the Mars orbiter mission or the India Mangalyaan mission is only 15 kilograms.
- It carries five scientific instruments, namely- Mars colour camera, thermal infrared imaging spectrometer, methane sensor for Mars, Mars exospheric neutral composition analyser and Lyman Alpha Photometer (LAP).
- With an overall cost of approximately ₹450 Crores, this is the cheapest Mars mission to date.
- The primary mission of the orbiter was to develop premium indigenous devices and management plans required to carry out such interplanetary missions in the future.
- Secondarily, Mars Orbiter Mission was mainly sent to study the Martian surface.
- The main source of energy of Mangalyaan is its three solar panels that generate a power of 840 Watts.
- It also has three levels of antennas- low gain, mid gain and high gain.
- Although built for a space life of six months, Mangalyaan has outperformed itself and still going on after 8 years.
Also Read- NASA Space Pictures – View James Webb Space Telescope Images
Future Endeavours: When will Mangalyaan 2 launch?
Wondering when will Mangalyaan 2 launch? In February 2021, the chairman of ISRO said in an interview that there is a possibility of sending a follow-up mission to the current Mangalyaan, named Mangalyaan 2 or MOM 2.
The expected time of launch is somewhere in the year 2025, as planned by ISRO. It will have more scientific payload and advanced systems to station at an altitude much beneficial for scientific research.
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