It has been four years since India launched its first interplanetary mission, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM). In what is considered one of the biggest accomplishments of the hard-working scientists at ISRO, the indigenous Mars Probe launched by them has completed four successful years in the orbit of the red planet.
The indigenous Mars Probe was launched on November 5th, 2013 and had successfully placed itself in the orbit of Mars on September 24th, 2014. This had been achieved in the very first attempt, not only saving valuable taxpayer’s money but also proving the efficiency of Indian scientists to the world.
There exists a twitter handle for our indigenous Mars Probe that tweeted “It’s been four years since I am around! Thank you for the love and support,” There was also a picture of Olympus Mon, the largest known volcano of the solar system attached to the tweet. This was one of the several pictures that the orbiter has sent back.
The launch of the project had invited a lot of debate on whether a country like India can afford to spend crores on space missions. The scientists of ISRO were, however, one step ahead of the situation and had completed the project in an amount that was less than what one blockbuster movie makes. It was the most economical space project the world had ever seen.
The indigenous Mars Probe did not stop there when it came to astonishing the world. MOM was designed or a mission life of just six months. The probe has, however, continued to send back data for the past four years and shows no sign of stopping even now.
The color camera attached to the probe has sent back almost a thousand images and has helped scientists successfully prepare a global atlas of the planet. The indigenous Mars Probe is the only artificial satellite which could image the entire disc of Mars in one view frame as well as image the far side of the planet’s moon, Deimos.
The indigenous Mars Probe is the pride of India and the citizens could not be more proud of its success as an orbiter.
