Week 40, 2022: India's First Mission to Mars Officially Ended

Artist's impression of Mangalyaan-1 in orbit around Mars

On October 2, 2022 it was reported that the Mars Orbiter Mission, also known as Mangalyaan-1, has ended its 8-year mission to the Red Planet. Sources at ISRO state that the mission ended after completely running out of propellant and discharging its battery after a lengthy eclipse event in April 2022, which led to loss of contact months later on September 27, 2022

Mangalyaan was launched in Nov 2013 onboard PSLV-C25 as the first interplanetary mission from India, making ISRO the fifth space agency in the world to launch such a mission to the Red Planet (after NASA, Roscosmos, ESA, and JAXA) upon arrival in Sept 2014. The spacecraft was a demonstration mission aimed at establishing that India could design, launch and operate a mission on another world.

You can download the Mangalyaan-1 addon to view India's first interplanetary mission orbiting Mars on Celestia

Source: India Today

Open in Celestia