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Mars Orbiter completes a year around red planet

The Rs 450-crore mission was launched on November 5, 2013, through the PSLV C25 from the Sriharikota space station

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T E NarasimhanGireesh Babu Chennai
Last Updated : Sep 25 2015 | 1:02 AM IST
The Mars Orbiter spacecraft, India’s first interplanetary mission, on Thursday completed a year around the Red Planet. The Rs 450-crore mission was launched on November 5, 2013, through the PSLV C25 from the Sriharikota space station. On September 24, 2014, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) successfully inserted its Rs 450 crore spacecraft ‘Mangalyaan’ into the Mars orbit.

While a large set of data has already been acquired by the five payloads of the Mars Orbiter Mission, the Isro now expects the mission’s life to stretch several years, against the initial estimate of six months.

The five scientific payloads are being used to study the atmosphere, surface mineralogy and topography of the Red Planet.

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To mark the completion of a year of orbiting Mars, the Isro Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad has brought out a Mars Atlas, a compilation of images acquired by the Mars Colour Camera (MCC), as well as other findings.  

Isro officials have said during the past year, the mission has recorded various achievements, including surviving long communication outages. All systems had worked well, said Isro Chairman A S Kiran Kumar, adding all the five payloads onboard continued to send data. The spacecraft has transmitted data relating to dust storms in Mars, as well as 3D portrayal of the terrain there. The payloads have also helped study the chemicals present on Mars, searched for the presence of methane.

Images captured by the MCC have provided information on Mars at varying spatial resolutions.

High-resolution images captured during periapsis (when an orbiting object is closest to the centre of the entity it is orbiting) throw light on various morphological features on the surface of Mars. Some of these have been showcased in the Mars Atlas.

One of the primary objectives of the first mission to Mars is the development technologies required to design, plan and manage interplanetary missions. Others include technological objectives, including the design and realisation of a Mars orbiter, with the capability to perform various manoeuvres.

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First Published: Sep 25 2015 | 12:35 AM IST

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