23.9.15

Mangalyaan update

India's flagship space project Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), which completes a year in the Martian orbit on Thursday , “will survive for a longer period than estimated“, Isro chairman A S Kiran Kumar has confirmed.
On September 24, 2014, India became the first country to insert a spacecraft into the Martian orbit in the first attempt. The feat drew accolades from world space agencies such as Nasa and European Space Agency . Even Pakistani nuclear scientist A Q Khan praised it.
MOM's initial mission span after entering the orbit was six months (till March 24, 2015), which was extended by another six months. It had 37kg of fuel left then. “A year later,“ the Isro chairman said, “it has 35kg of fuel on-board.“
Kiran Kumar said that initially , “the spacecraft's operation will be extended by a year (till September 24, 2016), but we are confident it will survive for a longer period. In fact, we are expecting it to survive for several more years as it has not faced any serious problem“.
“We will be getting in touch with Nasa's deep space network regarding extending the operations,“ he said. Nasa's communication facilities at Goldstone in California, Canberra in Australia and Madrid have been supporting MOM.
“To mark the first anniversary , a Martian atlas containing images taken by the colour camera, will be released,“ Kiran Kumar said. The camera has taken more than 400 images till date.
He said that on November 5, 2015, on the second anniversary of MOM's launch, a book named “From A Fishing Village To Mars“, will be released.

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