As the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) entered into the Mars on Wednesday, India successfully crafted history in its very first attempt. With this country's space agency, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has demonstrated its mastery over making the spacecraft and indigenous technology to 'think and act on its own'.
ISRO has already released the first picture of Mars on Thursday, taken by its spacecraft, Mangalyaan, soon after reaching the orbit of the Red planet. The orbiter aims to hunt whether life ever existed on Mars, which is a look a like of Earth. Let us have a look at the top 10 facts about MOM.
- India becomes the first country in the world to successfully enter into Mars' orbit in its maiden attempt, putting India into exclusive club with US, Russia and European Space Agency
- First Asian country to send its spacecraft to the red planet
- ISRO is the fourth space agency in the world to enter the planetary mission capability
- ISRO took just 15 months to complete Mangalyaan, while NASA took 5 years to complete its “Maven” Mars Orbiter
- Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) aims to study Mars' surface, mineral composition, and scan its atmosphere for methane, a gas strongly tied to life on Earth
- The MOM costs Rs 450 crore ($73 million), roughly a tenth of NASA's Mars mission Maven that successfully entered Mars orbit on September 21, making the cheapest mission ever
- Key elements of orbiter includes Mars colour camera, Thermal infrared imaging spectometer, Methane sensor, Mars exospheric neutral composition analyser, and Lyman alpha photometer
- Spacecraft 'Mangalyaan' took 322 days to travel from Earth to Mars
- The expected life of the craft is six months, after which it will run out of fuel and will not be able to maintain its orbit.
- It is ISRO's first-ever launch outside the Earth’s sphere of influence
