Isro's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) bid a 15-day farewell to ground stations as a result of what is known as Mars conjunction -a phenomenon during which the Sun disrupts communication between spacecraft in the Martian orbit and Earth.
This is the first time since its launch on November 5, 2013, that MOM will be cut off completely from ground stations for such a long period, making it a challenging period for the MOM team. On Monday , the spacecraft completed 259 days in Martian orbit. The communication blackout is likely to remain till June 22. However, Isro said it can be extended till July 1.
MOM will operate autonomously till then. Simulations carried out earlier have made the Isro team optimistic that there will be no problems. All commands were pre-loaded in it in preparation for the blackout. The spacecraft has about 37 kg fuel in reserve.
To prevent the spacecraft from receiving garbled commands that could be misinterpreted or prove harmful, ground control stopped transmitting them. In fact, MOM's entry into the blackout phase kicked off on May 27 when it was telemetering data only for three hours a day .
An Isro official said that the five MOM payload operations have been suspended. “Whatever signal from MOM the antenna is acquiring at Byalalu deep space network is extremely noisy , indicating that they contain no useful data. This is not communication,“ he said.
The pause does not mean scientists at the mission operations complex in Bengalaru, who have been monitoring MOM since its launch, are on a holiday . “They will be attending to tasks related to other spacecraft,“ he said.
This is the first time since its launch on November 5, 2013, that MOM will be cut off completely from ground stations for such a long period, making it a challenging period for the MOM team. On Monday , the spacecraft completed 259 days in Martian orbit. The communication blackout is likely to remain till June 22. However, Isro said it can be extended till July 1.
MOM will operate autonomously till then. Simulations carried out earlier have made the Isro team optimistic that there will be no problems. All commands were pre-loaded in it in preparation for the blackout. The spacecraft has about 37 kg fuel in reserve.
To prevent the spacecraft from receiving garbled commands that could be misinterpreted or prove harmful, ground control stopped transmitting them. In fact, MOM's entry into the blackout phase kicked off on May 27 when it was telemetering data only for three hours a day .
An Isro official said that the five MOM payload operations have been suspended. “Whatever signal from MOM the antenna is acquiring at Byalalu deep space network is extremely noisy , indicating that they contain no useful data. This is not communication,“ he said.
The pause does not mean scientists at the mission operations complex in Bengalaru, who have been monitoring MOM since its launch, are on a holiday . “They will be attending to tasks related to other spacecraft,“ he said.
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