Did anyone else miss the India Mars Orbiter?

I read the news frequently, and somehow never noticed that India launched a Mars Orbiter in 2013, it reached Mars in 2014, and is sending back lots of great pictures. www.cnet.com...

Has there been much news about this? Or is it just me...

I remember seeing it mentioned when it sent the first photos, but I suppose the low resolution (in comparison with what we are now used to) made people ignore this great achievement.

most reports about probes and anything else to Mars lost 'connection' under mysterious or unexpected occurences, if they still sending detailed pics from surface would be surprising

a reply to: ArMaP

But is it really a great achievement if it's been done better before? The images the Indian orbiter is sending back are nothing anywhere near what NASA has been getting out of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (which has good enough resolution to actually pick up the tri-petal landers used by Spirit and Opportunity). These are barely better than Viking I was sending back in 1976. This just comes across as ego-stroking by India.

Just for comparison, take a look at the Indian images of the Ophir Chasma region next to the astounding images of Valles Marineris that the HiRISE sensors on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are taking.

a reply to: StanFL

No, not the finest quality image and data, but....the more the merrier!

originally posted by: ShadeWolf
But is it really a great achievement if it's been done better before?

Yes, as the situations are not the same, one of the differences being that Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter costed 10 times more than the Indian version.

Just because someone did something it doesn't mean that nobody should try to do their own version, as different minds have different ideas to solve common problems, so everybody gains something from it.

Just for comparison, take a look at the Indian images of the Ophir Chasma region next to the astounding images of Valles Marineris that the HiRISE sensors on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are taking.

I don't need to look, as I have been following all the 364 (if I'm not mistaken) weekly releases from the HiRISE team since it reached Mars and have hundreds of its photos on several DVDs.