India’s super cheap Mars mission has just been extended by six months

The unbelievably pennywise Mars mission that India put together has been extended by six months thanks to a surplus of fuel on board the spacecraft.

Officially referred to as to the “Mars Orbiter Mission”, it’s the first spacecraft produced by an Asian nation to have made it to the Red Planet.

Impressive, yes, but what’s even more remarkable is the fact that the mission cost just $74 million, significantly less than those put together by any of the world’s other space programs, and even less than what it takes to create some Hollywood movies about space (the George Clooney / Sandra Bullock flick “Gravity” cost $100 million to make).

“As the… Mars Orbiter has sufficient fuel to last longer than it was intended earlier, its mission has been extended for another six months,” said Devi Prasad Karnik, director of the state-run Indian Space Research Organization.

“The five scientific instruments on board the spacecraft will continue to collect data and relay them to our deep space network center here for analysis,” Karnik told the Associated Foreign Press.

This marks India’s first attempt at reaching the Red Plant. The country is trying to keep pace with its neighbor China, who has poured billions of dollars into its own space program.

In terms of the data that India’s gathering, of the five instrument’s on board, the spacecraft’s camera has been most active, capturing a plethora of images of the planet’s surface, including valleys, mountains, craters, clouds, and dust storms. 

The other instruments are tasked with conducting different experiments to study the Martian surface. This includes analyzing its mineral composition and scanning the planet’s atmosphere in search of methane gas, something that largely comes from living organisms. 

India’s scientists at mission control have confirmed that, in addition to the fuel surplus, the spacecraft and its instruments are all healthy and in good working order. 

“The health and other parameters of the spacecraft are fine and all the essential functions continue to perform normal,” Karnik concluded.

Via Phys.org