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Mangalyaan's mission, which was originally scheduled to last six months, completed Tuesday five years of orbit around Mars and is expected to last a bit longer, said ISRO chief K. Sivan.
Over the past five years, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), the first Indian interplanetary company, has helped the Indian space agency prepare a Martian atlas based on images provided by the orbiter, Sivan said. "It works and sends images continuously. There is still time to go.
Asked about Mangalyaan 2, he replied that the work was continuing and that no decision had yet been taken on it.
The Mars orbiter has sent thousands of photos totaling two terabytes, said an official of the Indian Space Research Organization (IRSO).
Phobos and Deimos, the two moons of Mars, were also closely photographed by Mars Color Camera (MCC). The MOM is the only Martian artificial satellite capable of imaging Mars' complete record in a single frame and imaging the hidden face of Deimos, said ISRO.
MOM data has produced 23 publications in peer-reviewed journals, he added.
An important conclusion of the mission was the conclusion that the dust storms on the Martian can reach hundreds of kilometers, added the predecessor of Mr. Sivan, A.S. Kiran Kumar.
The success of Mangalyaan, praised for being cheaper than the Hollywood movie Gravity and much cheaper than NASA's Maven Orbiter, stems from ISRO's setback in the Chandrayaan 2 mission. The Maven Orbiter was similar to India's Mars mission.
Mangalyaan is India's first attempt to successfully cross Earth's orbit. Launchers, spacecraft and the earth segment cost 450 crores of rupees.
Fuel economy
A critical parameter for the life of a spacecraft, under nominal orbit conditions, is the availability of the fuel required to maintain its orbit and orientation. In the case of the mom, the scientists said that there was reserve booster. "The orbiter can continue another year," said Kumar.
Mr. Kumar explained in detail how fuel was saved for "non-nominal performance" of various segments during mission planning.
"Depending on this, we are assigning some type of fuel to rectification to overcome these non-nominal purposes," said Kumar.
As the launch was perfect, he said, the mission has taken full advantage of the "fuel segments".
"It was the first time we passed the earth's gravitational field. During this time, you may encounter an unusual situation that may have required correction and ensure that some repeat operations would be required.
"We were able to complete all the steps without any problem and we managed to reach the orbit of Mars without additional fuel consumption. The insertion also went very smoothly, which saved fuel, "Kumar added.
There were cases where the fuel was consumed for correction purposes to prevent the orbiter from coming into contact with comet dust. "It also shows good management of the mission," said Krishna Murthy Y.V.N., former ISRO Scientific Secretary.
Mr. Murthy explained that the precise location of the satellite by the ground station helped to save fuel. In addition, effective control management has also helped to extend the life of the MOM.
Citing another example of a life-sustaining ISRO satellite, Murthy said Cartosat-1, the first Indian remote sensing satellite capable of providing stereo imagery in orbit, was planned for three years but was running for ten years. The satellite was launched in 2005.
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