Prompt action by ISRO saves Mangalyaan from sure death

Prompt action by ISRO prevented what would have been the end of India's Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft and added three years to its life. This was because the Mangalyaan was in the path of an upcoming eclipse which would have lasted for more than eight hours. If not checked in time, the eclipse would have drained the spacecraft's battery and the battery supports virtually all its operations.
If that happened, it would have been the end of the orbitor.
Fortunately, engineers of ISRO prevented the catastrophe.
This has been reported in telegraphindia.com dated 8 February 2017.

It was an operation was remotely executed by ISRO engineers in Bangalore who activated on-board thruster rockets to tweak the spacecraft's orbit and avoid the problem.
During eclipse, the shadow of Mars falls on the spacecraft its solar panels do not receive any sunlight and stops to function. At such times, the on-board battery takes over to run all the spacecraft's electronics and instruments. However, the battery's storage capacity is only for an hour and 40 minutes and, at some point during the eight-hour eclipse, the battery would have run out.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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