Mangalyaan completes 100 days in Mars orbit

New Delhi, Jan 2: India's ambitious space project -- Mangalyaan has completed 100 days around Mars.

The Mars Orbiter launched on November 5, 2013 onboard ISRO's PSLV C25 from Sriharikota entered the Martian orbit on September 24, 2014 after a nine-month long odyssey, making India the first country in the world to succeed in such inter-planetary mission in the maiden attempt itself.

Since then, the spacecraft has been sending data, including pictures of the terrain of the Red planet to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which are being received at Bangalore and being sent to Space Application Centre and Physical Research Laboratory, both located at Ahmedabad for analysis.

With successful Mars mission, India created history as the country became the first Asian country to make it to Mars orbit and India is the fourth nation or geo-bloc to put a satellite into orbit around Mars. Only the US, Russia and Europe have previously sent missions to Mars, and India has succeeded on its first attempt - an achievement that eluded even the Americans and the Soviets.

Mangalyaan, which means "Mars craft" in Hindi, took off from the island of Shriharikota, off India's eastern coast. The 3,000lb (1,350kg) device first headed for an elliptical orbit around Earth, after which a series of manoeuvres and short burns of its rocket engines sent it on towards Mars.

The expected life of Mangalyaan is six months, after which it could run out of fuel and may not be able to maintain its orbit.

OneIndia News