BENGALURU: India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (
MOM
) spacecraft, which was designed to last for six months when launched on November 5, 2013, has lost communication with the ground stations, bringing an end to its life after eight long years.
Isro
is working out the details of whether the spacecraft ran out of fuel and battery power, or whether communication was lost because of an automated manoeuvre while moving out of a long eclipse changing the direction of the antenna.
However, multiple sources confirmed that it would not be possible to recover the spacecraft. Isro’s UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC) director on September 27 communicated the same and Isro will officially announce it soon, a scientist said.
Another senior scientist told TOI: “There was a really long eclipse in April 2022. The satellite had been designed with autonomous functions to come out of eclipses and it has done it in the past too. While recovering from the eclipse, the fuel may have been exhausted
