September 24, 2019 (Tuesday) marks five Earth years in the Martian Orbit for Isro's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), bringing subdued cheer at the space agency, amid a lull caused by an unsuccessful attempt at soft-landing Vikram, Chandrayaan-2's lander on Moon .

That MOM was designed for just six months around Mars makes its long life a feat for Isro, which had failed to achieve this with Chandrayaan-1, its first mission to Moon, in 2008. The lunar orbiter died before it's life, but not before a probe it dropped discovered presence of water ice.

The Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, however, is expected to live for seven-and-a-half years, much more than the one year Isro initially estimated its life to be.

Carrying five payloads, including a Methane Sensor for Mars (MSM) and the Mars Colour Camera (MCC), MOM had sent in more than 1TB (one terabyte) of data from the Red Planet in its first year.

Elusive Methane

And, it should have sent in at least 5TB of data by now, but the space agency is yet to officially announce anything on the detection of Methane at Mars, which was one of MOM's principal objectives.

"All the instruments are fine and are still sending in data. We cannot comment on the methane sensor at this moment as the data is still being analysed," an Isro official said, requesting anonymity.

Sivan K, chairman, Isro had told TOI earlier that the orbiter is expected to live on for many more years and continue sending data. "The payloads are healthy and there is sufficient fuel," Sivan said.

While multiple officials TOI spoke with said that MOM has provided the scientific community a treasure of data about the planet that has been the most exciting for Earthians, none wished to comment on methane.

A team at Byalalu (in the outskirts of Bengaluru), and scientists from the Isro Space Application Centre in Ahmedabad, which developed majority of the payloads are all working on deciphering the data, an official said.

Joint Studies

Among the major studies the mission is conducting is the joint morphological studies using the Mars Colour Camera (MCC) and the high resolution mineralogical data with the Nasa’s Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) data.

The joint work with Nasa will enable identification of different minerals like sulphates and ferrous based compounds on the surface of Mars. Also, MOM has completed comprehensive imaging of the two moons of Mars—Phobos and Deimos—which has revealed new details.

2.5 Martian Years

While MOM had completed five Earth years around Mars, it only amounts to two-and-a-half Martian years, MOM project director Arunan S had told TOI earlier.

Unlike Earth, Mars actually take more than the double of 365 days to revolve around the Sun. It takes more than 680 Earth days for Mars to complete one revolution around Sun.

