India's maiden Mars mission has completed its journey as Mangalyaan ran out of fuel.

    On November 23 , 2008, the Indian Space Research Organization ( ISRO ) announced its first deep space exploration mission. After preliminary studies, the operation was approved on 3 August 2012. Indian engineers were able to build the spacecraft in record time as they decided to use the same model of Chandrayaan- 1 with minor changes for this mission.

    Of the aircraft's total mass of 1,337.2 kg, 852 kg was fuel and oxidizer. These use the main rocket engine generating a thrust of 440 newtons and 8 smaller rocket engines in the reaction control system generating a thrust of 22 newtons. The main engine is used for Mars's orbit entry, orbit changes, etc. and the spacecraft is rotated in different directions by the reaction control engines.

    The aircraft contained a 7.56 square meter solar panel capable of providing up to 860 watts of electrical power. The aircraft also contained 3 radio antennas to communicate with Earth. The main antenna was 2.2 m in diameter and communicated via S-band (2-4 GHz) radio waves. The Indian Space Research Organization does not have a strong communication network. Therefore, the help of NASA's Deep Space Network communication network is essential.

    The aircraft named Mangalyaan, which was completed in 15 months of development, was targeted for launch at the end of the 2013 launch. It was initially planned to be launched by the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, the most powerful rocket owned by the Indian Space Research Organization, but due to the problems that had arisen, it was decided to launch it by the less powerful Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket. But this rocket does not have the ability to launch this after seeing it. Therefore, the final velocity must be achieved by the engine of the aircraft. Acceleration of the aircraft with a single engine burn is not fuel efficient due to its low thrust. Therefore, it was decided to increase the ellipticity of the orbit by several engine combustions and finally enter a polyhedral orbit toward Mars.

    The PSLV-XL rocket carrying Mangalyaan lifted off from India's Satish Dhawan Space Center on 5 November 2013. After burning solid fuel booster 6 and rocket stage 4, the spacecraft entered an Earth orbit of 264.1 km x 23,903.6 x 19.20º. The spacecraft's solar panels and antennas were then opened and the orbital lift engines were ready to burn. After that, the aircraft's engine burned for a month to raise the orbit and on December 1, it was able to reach the required speed to go to the west.

    At the end of the 10-month journey, the plane was nearing Mars. Then on September 24, 2014, the spacecraft entered Mars's gravitational field with an engine burn of 1388.67 seconds. The spacecraft first entered a highly elliptical orbit. This orbit was 421.7 x 76,993.6 km with a period of nearly 73 hours. At the end of all these engine burns, only 40 kg remained of the nearly 1 metric ton of fuel/oxidizer that was there when launched from Earth. After this, main engine combustion is limited, which mainly consumes a lot of fuel. What is often done is the engine combustion of the reaction control system, which uses very little fuel.

    A comet was approaching Mars while the craft was entering orbit around Mars. This comet called Siding Spring was supposed to pass as close as 140,500 km to the west on October 19 and the Mangalyaan spacecraft changed its orbit on October 14 to minimize the problems faced by the comet. This engine burn, which consumed 1.9 kg of fuel, lowered the craft's lowest point in its orbit to 72,000 km, and the craft remained on the other side of the comet as it passed close to the comet.

    After this, the spacecraft carried out scientific observations and on 24 March 2015, the primary mission period of 6 months was completed. At that time, 37 kg of fuel was left, so the Indian Space Research Organization decided to continue the mission.

    As the plane moves around Mars, sometimes the Mars covered sunlight. During such solar eclipses, the aircraft's batteries provide electricity for the operation of the aircraft. But the aircraft's batteries are enough for only 100 minutes. If there is a more solar eclipse, the orbit of the plane will be changed before it and the plane will not be disabled. On January 17, 2017, such an engine burn was performed. This engine combustion, which consumed about 20 kg of fuel, changed the speed of the aircraft by about 97.5 meters per second.

    The spacecraft, which was planned to operate for 6 months, will complete 1,000 days in Mars's orbit on May 19, 2017. By now, the plane had completed 388 orbits around Mars and the aircraft's equipment was in good condition.

    But in April 2022, the spacecraft encountered a prolonged solar eclipse, after which radio contact with the spacecraft was lost. Engineers think that this may have been caused by the batteries running out of power during the eclipse or the aircraft's fuel supply running out, causing it to fail to turn its solar panels towards the sun at the end of the eclipse. After several months of efforts, the Indian Space Research Organization announced the official end of the Mangalyaan mission on October 2.

    India, the fourth country to successfully enter Agaharu's orbit, made its first Mars mission a huge success. Even now Mangalyaan 2, which is to be launched in 2024, is being developed and scientists found a lot of new information about mars from the data sent by Mangalyaan.