ISRO chief lauds scientists for successful launch of Mars Orbiter Mission 'Mangalyaan'

Lauding the efforts of the scientists after India's first-ever Mars Orbiter Mission 'Mangalyaan' lifted off from here, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman K. Radhakrishnan on Tuesday announced that the PSLV vehicle is in good health, and added that the spacecraft has carried out the tasks that were intended to be done.

"We witnessed another excellent launch of our PSLV vehicle. The launch rocket has placed the Mars Orbiter spacecraft very precisely into an elliptical orbit around Earth .I am happy to announce that the space craft is in good health, and it has done the tasks that were intended to be done, namely crucial deployment of the solar panel, and actions are going on at Bangalore," he told media here today.

India's Mars Orbiter Mission, 'Mangalyaan', was launched through PSLV C 25 at 2.38 pm this afternoon from the first launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.

The 44 metre tall PSLV C25 in its XL configuration carried the 1337 kg MARS orbiter into elliptical orbit which is 23,500 km from the earth.

To reach Mars, the spacecraft has to enter three phases, the earth centered phase, the helio centric phase and finally the Martian phase.

It will take twenty-five more days for Mangalyaan to depart from the earth orbit to the trajectory path.

European Space Agency (ESA) of European consortium, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the US and Roscosmos of Russia are the only three agencies which have so far sent their missions to the red planet.