It was the year 2014 when India achieved success in the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) or Mangalyaan. India successfully launched the space probe, the Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft. The spacecraft which took off on 5 November 2013, has been orbiting Mars since 24 September 2014.
Now, after 9 years, the Indian Space Research Organisation is gearing up to launch its second Mars Mission, the Mars Orbiter Mission 2. ISRO has planned to launch a Mars orbiter once again in the year 2024.
Lately, ISRO has been unstoppable in its ventures. ISRO recently successfully carried out the TV-D1 test flight mission for the Gaganyaan program. You can check more details about it here.
Brief History of the Mars Orbiter Mission 2:
- ISRO expressed intention for a second Mars mission on 28 October 2014 at the Engineers Conclave, Bengaluru.
- Indian Government funds the MOM 2 in its 2017 budget.
- India and France signed a letter of intent for ISRO and CNES to build the MOM 2 by 2020.
- In February 2021, ISRO confirmed that MOM 2 or Mangalyaan 2 would be only an orbiter and not an orbiter/lander/rover mission.
Present Proceedings:
Earlier on the 2nd of October 2023, reports flowed in that ISRO is making arrangements for the Mangalyaan-2 in 2024. According to reports, Mangalyaan-2 will include 4 different payloads, which are currently in different stages of development.
The 4 payloads are the Mars Orbit Dust Experiment (MODEX0, Radio Occultation (RO) experiment, Energetic Ion Spectrometer (EIS), and Langmuir Probe and Electric Field Experiment (LPEX).
Apart from this, the Mars Orbiter Mission 2 will also include a hyperspectral camera, a high-resolution panchromatic camera, a radar to analyze the surface of Mars, and much more.
