India's Mangalyan Mars rover has lost contact with Earth

India's "Mangalyan" Mars probe has lost contact with the ground. The probe weighs about 1.35 tons. Launched in November 2013 and entered Mars orbit in September 2014, contact was recently lost after more than eight years of operation.

On November 5, 2013, India launched the Mangalyan spacecraft from the Sriharikota launch site, thus becoming the fourth country in the world to successfully explore Mars. "Mangalyan" means "Mars spacecraft" in Hindi. In late November 2014, the probe was named one of Time magazine's 25 Best Inventions of the Year for 2014, calling it a "superintelligent spacecraft."

The Mangalyaan Mars rover is an unmanned vehicle, weighing 1.35 tons, the size of a standard refrigerator, and covered in gold reflective foil. The probe carries 5 instruments at the same time and will conduct research on the Martian surface, weather, and minerals. At a cost of 4.5 billion rupees (about 520 million yuan), the probe will be launched by a polar-orbiting launch vehicle. The data collected by the "Mangalian" will help to better understand the principles of planet formation, the causes of life, the existence of matter in the universe, and more.