[28] On 2 October 2022, it was reported that the orbiter had irrecoverably lost communications with Earth after entering a seven-hour eclipse period in April 2022 that it was not designed to survive.

[34] The MOM mission concept began with a feasibility study in 2010 by the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology after the launch of lunar satellite Chandrayaan-1 in 2008.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh approved the project on 3 August 2012,[35][36] after the Indian Space Research Organisation completed ₹125 crore (US$14 million) of required studies for the orbiter.

[14][38] The satellite costs ₹153 crore (US$18 million) and the rest of the budget has been attributed to ground stations and relay upgrades that will be used for other ISRO projects.

[39] The space agency had planned the launch on 28 October 2013 but was postponed to 5 November following the delay in ISRO's spacecraft tracking ships to take up pre-determined positions due to poor weather in the Pacific Ocean.

[41] The mounting of the five scientific instruments was completed at Indian Space Research Organisation Satellite Centre, Bengaluru, and the finished spacecraft was shipped to Sriharikota on 2 October 2013 for integration to the PSLV-XL launch vehicle.

[43] Despite the US federal government shutdown, NASA reaffirmed on 5 October 2013 it would provide communications and navigation support to the mission "with their Deep Space Network facilities.".

[44] During a meeting on 30 September 2014, NASA and ISRO officials signed an agreement to establish a pathway for future joint missions to explore Mars.

One of the working group's objectives will be to explore potential coordinated observations and science analysis between the MAVEN orbiter and MOM, as well as other current and future Mars missions.

[45] On 2 October 2022, it was reported that the orbiter had irrecoverably lost communications with Earth after entering long eclipse period in April 2022 that it was not designed to survive.

At the time of communications loss it was unknown whether the probe had lost power or inadvertently realigned its Earth-facing antenna during automatic maneuvers.

[49] The low cost of the mission was ascribed by ISRO chairman K. Radhakrishnan to various factors, including a "modular approach", few ground tests and long working days (18 to 20 hours) for scientists.

[50] BBC's Jonathan Amos specified lower worker costs, home-grown technologies, simpler design, and a significantly less complicated payload than NASA's MAVEN.

[26] The secondary objective is to explore Mars' surface features, morphology, mineralogy and Martian atmosphere using indigenous scientific instruments.

[52] The main objectives are to develop the technologies required for designing, planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission comprising the following major tasks:[53]: 42 The scientific objectives deal with the following major aspects:[53]: 43 The mission would also provide multiple opportunities to observe the Martian moon Phobos and also offer an opportunity to identify and re-estimate the orbits of asteroids seen during the Martian Transfer Trajectory.

[68] The South African National Space Agency's (SANSA) Hartebeesthoek (HBK) ground station is also providing satellite tracking, telemetry and command services.

[90] Waiting for the new batch of rockets would have delayed the MOM for at least three years,[91] so ISRO opted to switch to the less-powerful Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

[89] On 19 October 2013, ISRO chairman K. Radhakrishnan announced that the launch had to be postponed by a week for 5 November 2013 due to a delay of a crucial telemetry ship reaching Fiji.

[3][93][94] Its main engine, a derivative of the system used on India's communications satellites, uses the bipropellant combination monomethylhydrazine and dinitrogen tetroxide to achieve the thrust necessary for escape velocity from Earth.

[72][73] The third orbit raising manoeuvre was performed on 8 November 2013 at 20:40 UTC, with a burn time of 707 seconds, resulting in an apogee of 71,636 km (44,513 mi).

[72][74] The fourth orbit raising manoeuvre, starting at 20:36 UTC on 10 November 2013, imparted a delta-v of 35 m/s (110 ft/s) to the spacecraft instead of the planned 135 m/s (440 ft/s) as a result of underburn by the motor.

Weekly mean apparent albedo data over Syrtis Major Planum was recorded in a period of solar longitudes 205 to 282 (October 2014) during which dust activities are significant.

A surge in mean albedo from the usual 0.2 to an erratically higher near 0.4 was recorded on solar longitude 225 which was possibly due to the local injection of dust into atmosphere.

This measurents were taken from four orbits which were closest to Mars with a periapsis which varied from 262–265 km during the evening time or close to sunset terminator hours to attain moderate solar activity conditions.

[115][117] Radio occulation experiments were performed using S-band downlink signals from the spacecraft during the May–June 2015 (post-maxima of solar cycle 24) period when the Sun was between Earth and Mars along a line in the same elliptical plane.

[118][116] The experiment was conducted in a closed-loop one-way format at a sampling frequency of one hertz and the occultation geometry was such that the proximate ray path from the spacecraft to Earth covered a range of 5−39 degree heliolaltitudes.

From observations with radio signals from the spacecraft, it is found that the turbulence power spectrum at larger heliocentric distances greater than 10 R☉ (18.17 R☉ on 28 May), the curve steepens with a spectral index of around 0.6−0.8.

[125] On 4 March 2015, the ISRO reported that the MSM instrument was functioning normally and are studying Mars' albedo, the reflectivity of the planet's surface.

ISRO extended the mission by an additional six months; the spacecraft has 37 kg (82 lb) of propellant remaining and all five of its scientific instruments are working properly.

[130] In March 2016, the first science results of the mission were published in Geophysical Research Letters, presenting measurements obtained by the spacecraft's MENCA instrument of the Martian exosphere.