ISRO Mangalyaan Mission :

India's maiden mission to the red planet was launched successfully yesterday at 2:38 PM with Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle C-25 (PSLV C-25).

ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) had successfully injected Mangalyaan-Mangal : Mars, yaan: aircraft- Orbiter into the Earth from Sriharikota.

The Mangalyaan Mission holds the record for the lowest mission to Mars.The cost of Mangalyaan Mission costed about 450 Crores(USD 75 Million).

The main objective of Mangalyaan would be to look for the presence of Methane gas on the surface of Mars which would be an indicator for life to exist on it.
The PSLV C-25 was launched precisely into the elliptical orbit around Earth where it would stay for around 25 days extending it's range from 250 km to 23,500 km, slowly moving towards Mars.
The probe is said to reach Mars after a 10 month journey in mid-September.

The Mangalyaan Mission is estimated to be around one-tenth of the cost of NASA's mission to Mars (671 Million USD)

If the probe successfully reaches Mars, it would make India the first Asian Country to successfully send a probe to Mars, the fourth country to successfully send a mission to Mars, after United States, Russia and Europe.

The satellite would travel a distance of over 200 Million km's to reach Mars.


Scientists at ISRO are still worried about the mission as only 21 missions of 51 missions sent to Mars have been successful.

The Probe is equipped with five instruments :
1) Lyman Alpha Photometer.
2)Methane Sensor for Mars. (To search for existence of life)
3)Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA)
4)Mars Colour Camera (MCC)
5)Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer.
On the 1st of December, 2013, the space craft is gonna leave the earth's sphere of influence.