BENGALURU: With the mars orbiter mission’s (MOM) expected life of 6 months around Mars concluding on Tuesday, Isro released fresh pictures of the Red Planet and a senior scientist also confirmed to TOI that its life will be extended by another six months.
TOI had reported on February 9 that MOM is likely to have an extended life and that Isro was likely to make an official announcement on the same.
On Tuesday, the official confirmation was made, but the scientist however said the spacecraft living out its new lease of life will depend on how it handles the solar eclipse expected to occur in the Martian Orbit sometime in April-May 2015.
The control over MOM’s fuel usage and use of the payloads is currently with the ground stations personnel where know how much fuel to expend and whether or not a manoeuvre is needed and so on. However, during the eclipse, MOM will get into an autonomous mode and scientists will have no control over it.
“…The solar panels on MOM currently power a lot of sub-systems and fuel is only being used for small auto-corrections.During the eclipse, MOM may expend fuel to turn the panels to position it towards the sun, or even use some up for re-positioning itself in the orbit and so on, we really cannot guess how much fuel it may use,” the scientist said.
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