R.I.P Mangalyaan: ISRO chief ends speculation, confirms India's Mars Orbiter Mission is 'non-functional'

India’s first interplanetary probe, which cost India $74 million, was designed for only six months but lasted a good eight years, leading Prime Minister Modi to famously remark that the mission was cheaper than the $100 million production budget of the Hollywood movie Gravity.

Ending all speculation on the fate of India’s maiden interplanetary mission the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) or Mangalyaan, Dr S Somanath, the chief of the country’s space agency Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), said the unmanned spacecraft had entered the end of its lifecycle.

“There is no speculation around MoM. We had put out a statement saying that it has almost run out of fuel and is no longer controllable. Its battery has drained,” he said while speaking exclusively to Business Today on the sidelines of the Indian Space Conclave organised by the nodal space body, the Indian Space Association (ISpA) in New Delhi on Monday.

“Although it is still in the [Mars] orbit and its electronics may be healthy, it cannot be operated any longer. So, we have declared it as non-functional,” added Dr. Somanath.

Launched using the ISRO workhorse, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket on November 5, 2013, the spacecraft was put in Martian orbit on September 24, 2014, after completing a 298-day journey. Since the medium-lift PSLV could not put the 1,350-kilo probe on a direct trajectory, ISRO scientists put power thrusters on the spacecraft to successively raise its orbit over four weeks till it broke free of Earth’s gravity.  

On October 2, reports emerged that the probe had lost contact with Earth after entering a seven-hour-long eclipse period in April. The following day ISRO put out a statement declaring that “the spacecraft is non-recoverable, and attained its end-of-life. The mission will be ever-regarded as a remarkable technological and scientific feat in the history of planetary exploration.”

However, there was intense conjecturing around whether the probe had lost power or realigned its Earth-facing antenna during automatic manoeuvres. ISRO chief’s clear guidance should, therefore, help put all speculation to rest.

Dr. Somnath further told BT that the intimation was issued as part of India’s international commitment under the Outer Space Treaty of 1967.

“As there is an object in outer space and other satellites are orbiting Mars, there is a potential for collision. We have, therefore, informed all international users that though the satellite is around Mars but it is not in our control capability,” informed Dr. Somanath.

The MOM mission, which cost India $74 million, was designed for only six months but lasted a good eight years. This led prime minister Narendra Modi to famously remark that the mission was cheaper than the $100 million production budget of the Hollywood movie Gravity.

The instruments onboard the probe included a colour camera, a thermal infrared sensor, an ultraviolet spectrometer to study deuterium and hydrogen in the red planet’s upper atmosphere, a mass spectrometer to study neutral particles in its exosphere and a methane sensor.

The probe sent some of the most stunning images of the Martian surface and other valuable data that was also shared with the US space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under an agreement.

Also read: EXCLUSIVE: 22 million NavIC-supported smartphones shipped in India between Jan 21-June 2022

Also read: Indian start-ups to soon launch Space satellites, try their rockets: Govt