India successfully placed its spacecraft in orbit around Mars, becoming the first country in the world to succeed in such an inter-planetary mission in the maiden attempt itself.
Watch the live coverage of the 'Mars Orbit Insertion'.
There was, however, no official word from the country's national space agency, headquartered in Bengaluru.
India's Mars orbiter craft has completed eight years in its orbit, well beyond its designed mission life of six months. Plans on a follow-on 'Mangalyaan' mission to the Red Planet, however, are yet to be firmed up.
In a crucial manoeuvre ahead of India's Mars orbiter's entry into the final destination on September 24, the main liquid engine on the spacecraft was on Monday successfully test fired and its trajectory corrected.
In a major boost to the Indian scientific community, the Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan), on its maiden tryst with the red planet, has completed 300 days of its journey in space and is just 23 days away from reaching its intended orbit.
Nail-biting moments gave way to celebratory mood at the command centre of Indian Space Research Organisation in Bangalore on Wednesday, as its Mars Orbiter Mission or Mangalyaan entered the red planet's orbit.
On Monday, ISRO scientists will run a test of the Mars orbiter satellite's main engine and make a small course correction. This is crucial because the engine has been idle for nearly 10 months. T E Narasimhan reports
Ahead of India's Mars orbiter's scheduled rendezvous with the red planet on September 24, ISRO is all set for the crucial fourth trajectory correction manoeuvre and test fire of the main liquid engine on the spacecraft on Monday.
After having successfully completed three orbit raising manoeuvres, ISRO's Mars Orbiter mission on Monday suffered a glitch as it failed to achieve the targeted apogee (farthest distance from Earth) of one lakh km during the fourth orbit raising operation in the early hours.
Two weeks after India successfully launched its maiden Mars mission, America's National Aeronautics and Space Administration has launched a new spacecraft to orbit the red planet to probe how it lost its atmosphere and abundant liquid water.
With the Indian Space Research Organisation set to launch the Mars Mission on November 5, Chairman K Radhakrishnan, in an interview with Praveen Bose, talks about the complexities, the challenges and the benefits of the Rs 450-crore mission.
"Indeed, a satisfying feeling," K Radhakrishnan who as the then Chairman of Indian Space Research Oranisation (ISRO) led the Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan) team said on achieving the milestone.
Having reached the Red Planet, ISRO can now focus on getting humans in space and secure the resources to do it
"The odds, were stacked against us. Of the 51 missions, attempted across the world so far, a mere 21 had succeeded. But we have prevailed. With today's spectacular success, ISRO joins an elite group of only 3 other agencies worldwide to have successfully reached red planet," Modi said.
Indian Space and Research Organisation's Mars Orbiter Mission and American National Aeronautics and Space Administration's orbiter mission Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution or MAVEN will share data concerning the upper atmosphere of Mars.
After the historic success of its Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is going full throttle with its plans to send Indian astronauts for the first time to the Moon by 2040, ISRO Chairman S Somanath said.
It has already tasted success with the moon mission and Mangalyaan. Is man in space the next frontier for ISRO?
The four astronauts are -- Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair, Angad Prathap, Ajit Krishnan, and Shubhanshu Shukla -- Modi said at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) at Thumba near the Kerala state capital.
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