ISRO's maiden mission to Mars, Mangalyaan, on Thursday successfully completed 100 days in the orbit of Earth's next door neighbour. Mangalyaan had entered Mars orbit on September 24, 2014 after travelling for over 10 months to cover the the distance of 666 million km to reach the destination.
This mission has made India the first country in the world to successfully launch its mission to Mars on the very first try. Mangalyaan cost Rs 450 crore making it the cheapest inter-planetary mission ever. It was completed in just 15 months.
NASA with its Curiosity and Maven, European Space Agency with its Mars Express are the only two other members of the elite club of successful Martian explorers. On the other hand, China, Japan, and former Soviet Union have failed to reach Mars. Mangalyaan has expected life of 6 months. Its 5 solar-powered instruments are collecting data about the works of Martian weather and what happened to the water that is believed to have once existed on the planet.
The Mars Orbiter was also lucky to capture the coma of comet 'Siding Spring' with the a colour camera on board for over 40 minutes as it made an appearance near the Red planet on October 19 last year.
The 1,350kg weighing (on Earth) craft has also taken pictures of one of the two Martian moons -- Phobos, while it was travelling west to east over Mars in its typical orbit.
Some of the pictures it took include the regional dust storm activities over northern hemisphere of Mars, full disc image of the planet, showing Elysium - the second largest volcanic province on the natural satellite. The first set of pictures of Mars sent by the orbiter from space was presented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a day after the spacecraft entered the Martian orbit.
The spacecraft is now circling the red planet in an orbit whose nearest point to Mars (periapsis) is at 421.7 km and farthest point (apoapsis) at 76,993.6 km. In this orbit, the spacecraft takes 72 hours 51 minutes 51 seconds to go round the Mars once.
It is equipped with five instruments, including a sensor to track methane or marsh gas, a colour camera and a thermal imaging spectrometer to map the surface and mineral wealth of the red planet. MOM was also adjudged one of the 25 innovations made in 2014 by 'TIME' magazine, which described it as a technological feat that will allow India to flex its "interplanetary muscles."
"Nobody gets Mars right on the first try. The US didn’t, Russia didn’t, the Europeans didn’t. But on September 24, India did. That’s when the Mangalyaan …went into orbit around the Red planet, a technological feat no other Asian nation has yet achieved," the magazine said about Mangalyaan, calling it "The Supersmart Spacecraft".
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