Little things about India's Mangalyaan

India just witnessed a proud moment - the country's first

mission took off from from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh today. If things go well,

will be the fourth space agency to sent spacecraft to Mars.

Mangalyaan got its very Indian name from its destination planet - Mangal Grah (Mangal means Mars and Grah means planet). And the mission took off on Mangalvaar (Tuesday).

The spacecraft will take over 10 months (300 days) to reach Mars orbit. As speculated, it will enter Mars orbit in September 2014.

The spacecraft is powered by solar energy and it will map the surface of Mars, collect data about the weather system and presence of different gases, mainly Methane.

The successful mission will complement the work done by NASA on the planet.

The government of India approved the project on August 2012 and the entire project cost around 450 crore.

The spacecraft's on-orbit mission life is between six and ten months and its propulsion hardware configurations are similar to Chandrayaan 1, India's first successful robotic lunar probe that operated from 2008 to 2009.

OneIndia News

(With agency inputs)