Free Republic

India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) may have finally reached the end of its operations after eight years spent orbiting the Red Planet. Ground stations operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have lost communication with the spacecraft. The precise cause isn't yet clear; the orbiter may have run out of propellant, MOM's battery may drained beyond the safe operating limit, or an automated maneuver may have cut communications, according to media reports. Having operated at Mars for eight years, MOM — also called Mangalyaan — has far exceeded its expected mission life of just six to 10 months. The...

Cool image time! The image on the right, cropped to post here, comes from a Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image that shows a massive relatively recent and dark slope streak that emanates out from a single point on the surface.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has completed its primary, two-year science phase. The spacecraft has found signs of a complex Martian history of climate change that produced a diversity of past watery environments.