Nearly a decade after its launch in 2013, India’s Mars Orbiter mission has run out of fuel and will be grounded. The mission, which was the first mission to Mars by an Asian country, demonstrated a different approach to planetary science by building and launching it with a much smaller budget than is typical for Mars missions from larger space agencies such as NASA or the European Space Agency.
In an update shared this week, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) praised the mission’s accomplishments, writing that “despite being designed for six months as a technology demonstrator, the Mars Orbiter mission has lived for about eight years in Mars orbit with a whole series of important science results.” On Mars as well as on the solar corona, before losing contact with the Earth station, as a result of the long eclipse in April 2022.”
In discussions at a national ISRO meeting, scientists there announced that the mission would run out of propellant, and so it wouldn’t be possible to steer the spacecraft, according to Digitartlends.
“The spacecraft has been declared unrecoverable, and has reached the end of its lifespan,” ISRO wrote. “The mission will be seen as a remarkable technical and scientific achievement in the history of planetary exploration.”
Launched for just $73 million, the mission is pretty cheap for a Mars mission, even in an orbiter. It is generally cheaper to design and launch an orbiter than a rover or a probe, but even budgets for an orbiter mission on Mars are usually in the hundreds of millions.
ISRO was able to launch its low-cost mission by reducing testing, simplifying design, and adopting a modular approach to hardware.
There were also long work days expected from scientists and engineers, and a focus on scheduling to prevent costly delays, according to an interview with Forbes by Koppillil Radhakrishnan, the head of ISRO who oversaw mission development.
Some of the mission’s scientific achievements include revealing information about the composition of Mars’ atmosphere, as well as learning more about the possible causes of atmospheric escape through which Mars loses its atmosphere over time. The mission was also able to take pictures of the entire face of Mars due to its elliptical orbit, which sometimes took it far from the planet’s surface.
However, one of the mission’s big goals, to understand more about methane in the Martian atmosphere, was overlooked because the spacecraft’s methane sensor did not work.
The mission was groundbreaking and there are already plans for a follow-up mission, Mars Orbiter Mission 2, planned for launch in 2024.