India’s space scientists have said that the country’s hugely successful Mars Orbiter Mission will continue to operate for many years to come.

The Indian Space Research Organisation or ISRO said that the probe will continue to exist without problems for many years instead of just six months as it was originally designed.Isro Chairman AS Kiran Kumar said that the mission will continue for many years as it has gone through solar conjunction and they have not experience any problems with the orbiter.

Kumar said, “We had planned it only for six months. Then we were not expecting so much fuel to remain after we completed our insertion activity.There is still a lot of fuel, all other subsystems are working fine and so far we have not had any failures.” He was speakinf on the sidelines of Prof Satish Dhawan Commemoration Lecture that was delivered by former ISRO head, Dr K Radhakrishnan. It was organised by the Institution of Engineers (India)'s Karnataka state centre in Bengaluru.

The MOM or Mangalyaanis the country’s low cost mission to the moon aimed at studying the Red planet.The mission was developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation and the project cost was just USD 74 million, which is famously lesser than a latest movie about space.

India was the first Asian country and the fourth space power after the US, Europe and Russia to send a successful mission to MARS. It also becomes the only country to get it right in the first time. ISRO is planning to mark a year of Mars Orbit Insertion by releasing an atlas with photos taken by the colour camera on board the spacecraft.