According to a reporter in New Delhi, on October 2, officials from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced that the Mars Orbiter Mission 2, informally named Mangalyaan-2, will carry four instruments to conduct research on interplanetary dust, the atmosphere, and the environment of Mars. These instruments are at various stages of development.
ISRO becomes the fourth space agency in the world to send a spacecraft into orbit around Mars.
In this second mission, India plans to conduct Mars Orbital Dust Experiment (MODEX), Radio Occultation Experiment (RO), Energy-Weighted Ion Spectrometer (EIS), and Langmuir Probe and Electric Field Experiment (LPEX). The research results could help explain the dust flow on Mars, whether there are any rings (as hypothesized) around Mars, and confirm whether the dust is interplanetary or sourced from Phobos or Deimos (the two moons of Mars). Research on dust may also help clarify the results of the RO experiment. Meanwhile, the RO experiment is being developed to measure the configuration of electron and neutral density. This instrument essentially functions as a microwave transmitter operating in the X-band, which can help understand the behavior of Mars’ atmosphere.
ISRO researchers are also developing EIS to describe solar energetic particles and superthermal solar wind particles in the Martian environment. This instrument will measure high-energy charged particles.
LPEX will allow the measurement of electron number density, electron temperature, and electric field waves, all of which will provide a clearer picture of the plasma environment on Mars.
On November 5, 2013, India launched the Mangalyaan spacecraft to explore Mars, which took 11 months—arriving in orbit around the planet on September 24, 2014. The spacecraft carried five scientific instruments to study the surface characteristics, morphology, minerals, and atmosphere of Mars.
With the success of this mission, ISRO became the fourth space agency in the world to place a spacecraft into orbit around Mars and the first to achieve this in its inaugural launch. Although designed to last six months, the spacecraft completed a seven-year mission in orbit by 2021 before “retiring.”
