ISRO seeking scientific proposals for Mars Orbiter Mission-2 following Mangalyaan's success

Mars Orbiter Mission

New Delhi: The government on Friday said that the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is seeking scientific proposals for Mars Orbiter Mission-2 (MOM-2) to expand inter-planetary research.

Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office that looks after the Department of Space, said in a written response to a question in Rajya Sabha, that the configuration, objectives and scientific experiments of MOM-2 is yet to be formulated.

"A call for proposals through an Announcement of Opportunity (AO) has been made within India to seek proposal for scientific experiments for Mars Orbiters Mission-2," Mr Singh said.

After the successful launch and orbit of Mars by its first probe Mangalyaan, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), ISRO had said announced their plans to return to the Red Planey with the second mission.

Mangalyaan, which is India's first interplanetary mission, was successfully inserted into Mars orbit on 24 September 2014 after a 298-day transit to the Red Planet.

The Indian Mars probe has completed 25 months in orbit and is presently functioning satisfactorily.

If all goes according to plan, ISRO will launch Mangalyaan-2 to Mars by 2020, which will consist of an orbiter, and may include a lander and a rover.

(With PTI inputs)