Launch of Mars Orbiter Mission

India’s first Mars orbiter was successfully placed in orbit by an Indian rocket on November 5, 2013 in  a copy book style, becoming the first Asian country and the fourth in the world going for a mission to the red planet, a staggering 408 million km away.

Exactly at 2:30 p.m., the rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle–C-25 (PSLV-C25) standing at Sriharikota around 44 metres tall and weighing around 320 tonnes rose from its launching pad slowly, and then gathered speed as it climbed into the skies on  a tail of orange frames.

The expendable rocket, costing around ` 110 crore, had a single but important luggage, 1,340 Mars Orbiter costing around ` 150 crore. Around ` 50 crore have been  spent on augmenting the ground support tracking system.

India began its space journey in 1975 with the  launch of Aryabhatt, using a Russian rocket and till date it has accomplished over 100 space missions. In 2008 India expended its space exploration with its maiden Moon mission-Chandrayaan-1. The mission led to the discovery of water on the Moon. The country is planning another Moon mission in two years’ time.

According to Indian Space Research organisation (ISRO) officials, the Mars orbiter will orbit the Earth till Nov. 30 and then its motors will be fired to push it towards the red planet. For nearly 300 days the motor will be off while the spacecraft floats through the inky void towards Mars. When the space craft near Mars, the motors will be restarted and fired again to carry out manoeuvres to put it in Marlian mission orbit around September 2014, following that, the on-board instruments would carry out their job.

The Mars mission blasted off from the first launch pad at the Satish  Dhawan Space Centre here, around 80 km from Chennai, and went up amidst the cheers from ISRO-scientists and the media team assembled at the rocket port.

Space scientists at ISRO mission control room were glued to their computer screens watching the rocket escaping the Earth’s gravitational pull. At round 44 minutes into the flight, PSLV-C25 spat out the Mars orbiter.