Countdown begins as India prepares odyssey to Mars

A day prior to the historic moment of launching its Orbiter to Mars, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has undertaken the propellant filling operation of Second Stage (PS2) in the spacecraft, which will carry Mangalyaan to Mars and hardware checks on the mission computers have commenced.

Meanwhile, Isro said that the launch will not be impacted due to a cyclone warning, which was given for the southern coast of Tamil Nadu.

"Early morning, cloudy and low probability of rain, no severe weather expected. During launch window - partly cloudy weather and no rain is expected. Looks like we are heading towards a bright and sunny day for the launch," said Isro.

On Sunday, at 6.08 am at Sriharikota, the final 56-and-a-half-hour countdown for the launch of India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) started. The Rs 450-crore Mars mission is slated for a lift-off at 2.38 pm on November 5 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, located on the island of Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. On November 1, Isro's launch authorisation board had given the final green signal for the launch of the MOM.

India will be the sixth country, after the US, Russia, China, Japan and the European Union, to launch a Mars mission.

Once launched, the satellite is expected to take more than 40 minutes to get injected into the Earth's orbit.

The orbiter will remain in the Earth's orbit till December 1 when it starts its 300-day voyage to Mars.

It is expected to reach the orbit of the red planet on September 24, 2014, after traversing 400 million km.

Isro officials said that Mars has drawn more space missions than the rest of the planets in our solar system.

However, historically, only a third of all the missions to the red planet have tasted success.

Locking horns with this red dot in the skies is excruciatingly challenging in terms of the technological mettle required in the domains of navigation, propulsion system design, deep space communication systems, ground segment and thermal and radiation management.