All the five payloads of Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) — India’s maiden spacecraft to Mars — have started operating after entering the Red Planet’s orbit.
“All the payloads have been activated and checked. We have also started getting the data. While the laboratory matching has been done, we have to yet interpret the data,” an Isro official said.
India had entered an elite space club when its spacecraft entered Mars’ orbit on September 24.
The 1,350 kilogram orbiter spacecraft carries five payloads for gathering scientific data that may shed light on Martian weather systems as well as what happened to the water that is believed to have existed once on Mars.
None of the instruments will send back enough information to answer these questions definitively, but experts say the data will help them better understand how planets form and what conditions might make life possible.
While the scientific instruments will work for 6 months, there is a possibility of its life span exceeding beyond that.
Meanwhile Isro is gearing for the launch of IRNSS-IC on October 10 at 0156 hours .