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#20 by savuporo on 30 Dec, 2014 18:38
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I think the title of this thread strongly indicates that the Great Galactic Ghoul is still digesting Beagle 2.
This is an awesome accomplishment from India, now lets see Chandrayaan-2 make it to 2016 !
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#21 by Kosmos2001 on 21 Jun, 2017 12:00
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Quote
ISRO's Mars Orbiter outlives original lifespan of 6 months, completes 1000 days in orbit
India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) completed 1000 earth days in its orbit which is beyond its designed mission life.
Indian Space Research Organisation's maiden interplanetary mission was designated to last only for six months but it outlived its lifespan. MOM was launched on November 5, 2013 by PSLV-25 and it entered the Martian orbit on September 24,2014.
The mission's success received applause from across the world as it was able to enter the red planet's orbit in its first attempt and was cost-effective when compared to missions launched by NASA and the European Space Agency.
[…]
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/isro-mars-orbitor-mom-outlives-lifespan-six-months-completes-thousand-days/1/982246.html
Congratulations to ISRO and all the team for this fantastic achievement. -
#22 by TheVarun on 30 May, 2018 16:16
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Mangalyaan has now( as of May 30/2018) been in orbit for 3 years, 8 months and 6 days. Not bad for something that was originally projected to last 6 months! Question for those with more detailed knowledge: Is the orbit of Mangalyaan novel i.e is this the first time a Mars satellite has been in such an orbit. I do remember reading somewhere that almost all Mars missions placed their respective satellites in a polar orbit, whereas Mangalyaan is in an ellipitical or equatorial path. And it thereby can provide full disk images of the planet.
And with the alteration of the orbit because of the eclipse, is this new orbit( more tilted toward the Sun, I believe) also quite different, with images that are rare, if not novel? -
#23 by Phil Stooke on 30 May, 2018 16:46
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Most other Mars orbiters had the role of mapping Mars at higher resolution than global full-frame images allow, and needed a near-polar orbit to provide global coverage. You are right that this low inclination orbit is rare. The Hope mission from UAE will also have a low inclination orbit. The global-scale images, planet in a single frame, could still be obtained from a near-polar orbit if the periapsis is large (USSR's Mars 3). MOM's images of the whole planet are beautiful and probably useful for mapping cloud and dust activity, though we have MARCI on MRO for that as well.
Easy access to MOM images:
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2017/1003-mom-mcc-data-release-2.html
which links to:
https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/data/mom/mom_mcc.html -
#24 by TheVarun on 31 May, 2018 13:25
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Thank you Phil Stooke! Nice to see well informed comments on the Mangalyaan. What prompted my query was reading some hideously awful messages from years gone by on the Mars Orbiter. There are small, petty, jealous people out there who are belittling or dismissing the achievement of ISRO using specious and silly arguments. A few, mercifully not many, are even Indian!
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#25 by Don2 on 13 Jun, 2018 23:12
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The Indian orbiter should be in a good orbit for getting pictures of the current global dust storm. They might be better than the NASA ones because they are taken from a higher altitude. However, the pictures from this spacecraft seem to be quite infrequent and there is a long delay before release.
What is the chance that the Indians have taken a good picture of this storm? Will they wait a couple of years to release it? -
#26 by abhishek on 24 Sep, 2018 01:12
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Mangalyaan completes four years orbiting MarsQuote
India’s rendezvous with the red planet continues as its Mangalyaan (also known as Mars Orbiter Mission) completed four years in orbit on Sunday and in the process captured the seasonal variations of the planet for two Martian years. For a mission which was originally conceived for only six months, it is an achievement that all the five payloads of it is still functioning well.
https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-affairs/240918/mangalyaan-completes-four-years-orbiting-mars.html -
#27 by TheVarun on 24 Sep, 2018 05:20
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^Thanks Abhishek! I was about to post a message about 4 exact years in orbit for Mangalyaan/MOM. What an achievement. I wish they had shown some more recent pics of Mars, the last one publicly shown was in March. It's about time for a new series!
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#28 by worldtimedate on 30 Sep, 2018 00:47
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ISRO releases Mangalyaan's latest dataQuote
MOM completed four years in the Martianian Orbit on September 24. On Wednesday, ISRO Chairman K Sivan released third year observations (from September 24, 2016 to September 23, 2017) to the public. According to the ISRO, the first and second year data of MOM was released to public through Bengaluru-based Indian Space Data Center (ISSDC) website while on completion of second and third year in its orbit.
More than 2100 users have registered and downloaded around 620 GB data. Mars Colour Camera has acquired more than 980 images so far. Mars Atlas is available. Twenty three publications on MOM have been published in peer reviewed journals. ISRO said that Phobos and Deimos, the two moons of Mars were imaged from close distances and MOM is the only satellite, which could image the full disc of Mars in one shot and image the far side of Deimos. -
#29 by Phil Stooke on 30 Sep, 2018 05:55
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"ISRO said that Phobos and Deimos, the two moons of Mars were imaged from close distances"
I really hope this is true, and not just referring to what I would have called the distant shots we saw several years ago. We very badly need new images of Deimos. A significant chunk of Deimos, 25 to 30% of its surface, has only ever been seen in one image (therefore no stereo... a companion image was overexposed), resulting in a poor shape model, significant uncertainty in its volume and therefore its bulk density. Believe it or not, one area near the north pole has never been seen in anything but a Mariner 9 image. -
#30 by worldtimedate on 30 Sep, 2018 06:12
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#31 by Phil Stooke on 04 Oct, 2018 21:21
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OK, now I think that there are no new close range images of the satellites, based on comments by Emily Lakdawalla. The statement about close range images is misleading. The best images are the ones already seen early in the mission, and they are only around 20 pixels across at best.
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#32 by sanman on 22 Oct, 2018 08:59
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In the spirit of the thread title, I thought I'd post this Bollywood-produced short film, funded by the Johnnie Walker company, maker of fine spirits (I think they were targeting the pub-going movie crowd with this)
This dramatized fictional depiction of events takes a lot of creative license, obviously. The fictitious space agency featured is called ISRA, however the actors used do bear decent resemblance to real-world people involved in ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission, such as K Radhakrishan, S Kiran Kumar, Nandini Harinath (although the fellow playing Mylswamy Annadurai doesn't look like him at all.)
Perhaps as India racks up some bigger space missions, and space grows in the public consciousness, then its film industries will naturally put out more space-related storyplots.
Go ISRA!
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#33 by sanjaykumar on 02 Jan, 2019 05:10
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ISRO should outsource mission live coverage to Jonnie walker / bollywood and focus on stuff they do best.
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#34 by chetan_chpd on 22 Jan, 2019 06:06
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Space History: Old Newspaper Clips: Mangalyaan launch and Mars orbit insertion
I will be showcasing here some of my old newspaper clippings for Mangalyaan mission.
(https://www.chetansindiaspaceflight.com/2019/01/space-history-old-newspaper-clips.html)
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#35 by Rondaz on 11 Oct, 2022 09:32
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Gone off the radar. What ended the Indian Mars mission
08:00 10/11/2022 (updated: 08:15 10/11/2022)
MOSCOW, October 11 - RIA Novosti, Vladislav Strekopytov. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has announced that the Mangalyan Unmanned Space Station, or MOM (Mars Orbiter Mission), which has been orbiting Mars since September 2014, has completed its work. Instead of the planned six to eight months, the mission lasted eight years. About what new things have been learned about the Red Planet during this time, as well as about the possible reasons for the loss of communication with the device - in the material of RIA Novosti.
martian ship
India's first automatic interplanetary station was named Mangalyan, which means "Martian ship" in Sanskrit. Prior to this, the USSR, Russia, the USA, Japan and the European Space Agency sent spacecraft to Mars.
The goals of the IOM were rather modest: the testing of technologies necessary for the next flights, the study of the surface and atmosphere of the Red Planet. Five scientific instruments were involved in this: a methane spectral analyzer, a photometer for determining hydrogen concentrations in the atmosphere, a thermal infrared spectrometer, a quadrupole mass analyzer for studying the exosphere, and a color camera MCC (Mars Color Camera).
The station was launched on November 5, 2013 from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on the island of Sriharikota. At an altitude of 70 kilometers, experts checked the equipment, and the camera took the first picture. The frame includes India, Tibet, the Arabian Peninsula, the eastern Mediterranean and eastern Africa. On September 24, 2014, Mangalyan entered Mars orbit and began transmitting data.
Orbital Longevity
According to the plan, the station was supposed to work in orbit for only about six months. But forty kilograms of fuel remained on board - twice as much as expected. ISRO decided to take advantage of this and extend the mission to better study the climate of Mars.
In March 2015, Indian scientists published the first results, and by September so much material had accumulated that they published the Atlas of Mars. On 120 pages - high-resolution color images that reveal the morphological features of the planet's surface, details of atmospheric processes and other data.
Thanks to the ultra-wide angle of view of the MSS camera, Mangalyan became the first and so far the only mission to be able to cover the entire surface of Mars in one frame, as well as get an image of the far side of Deimos. In addition, the second satellite Phobos was photographed against the background of the Red Planet, as well as the comet Siding Spring, which approached Mars on October 19, 2014.
The Indian mission made it possible to clarify the composition of the Martian exosphere and to determine the height at which the transition from the predominance of CO 2 to the oxygen regime takes place. The argon-40 isotope, characteristic of the Earth's atmosphere, was found in the upper layers. The device observed large dust storms, changes in polar ice caps and the albedo of the planet's surface. And based on the results of image processing using machine learning models, scientists compiled a classification of Martian landslides.
Farewell to the station
The results of the eight-year mission were summed up at the general meeting of ISRO on September 27, 2022. The station lost contact with Earth in April during an extended stay in the blackout zone. The exact reason for the ship's disappearance from radar is unknown. You may have run out of fuel needed to properly orient and control your solar arrays, or your battery may have run out of battery beyond a safe operating limit.
The station's solar array, measuring 1.4 x 1.8 meters, consists of three panels located on one side of the spacecraft. The power of 800 watts is enough to charge a lithium-ion battery, which ensures the operation of the station in the absence of light. Apparently, the blackout zone that the Mangalyan encountered in April was too extensive.
It is also possible that the automated navigation system, after leaving the blackout zone, lost its orientation and forced the orbiter to make a U-turn, due to which the Earth-facing antenna turned out to be directed in the opposite direction. It was not possible to restore communication with the station.
ISRO's "farewell" statement said: "This mission will forever be regarded as an outstanding technological and scientific achievement in the history of planetary exploration."
By the way, MOM has become the most budgetary interplanetary mission in the history of astronautics. It cost only US$74 million, cheaper than many Hollywood films.
To be continued
The Indian Space Research Organization intends to launch a second Martian mission, tentatively in 2024. We considered configurations that included an orbiter, a lander and a rover, but again limited ourselves to an orbital station, but with more complex instruments.
Mangalyan-2 will be heavier than its predecessor and will carry more payload. The central element of the configuration is the ARIS ionospheric plasma analyzer. Also, the station will be equipped with hyperspectral and panchromatic cameras of very high resolution, a radar for studying the geological structure of Mars.
MOM-2 will be followed by MOM-3 with lander and rover. The proposed landing site is the ancient lake Eridania. According to scientists, at the bottom of this reservoir 4.0-3.7 billion years ago there were hot springs in which life could originate.
https://ria.ru/20221011/mangalyan-1822802566.html
