Count Down Begins for India's Mars Orbiter Mission

US,Russia,China,Japan and now India is launching its inter-planetary satellite to Mars.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 and now Indian Space Research Organization of India is launching its first satellite to mars this mission is named as Mars Orbiter Mission(MOM).

India’s ambitious mission to Mars moved ahead smoothly on Sunday with the 56.5- hour countdown beginning at 6.08 a.m. at the Sriharikota spaceport.The 44.4 meter tall rocket has been mounted on the pedestal of the First Launch Pad at the spaceport, covered by a 76 meter tall Mobile Service Tower, designed to withstand a wind speed of 230 km per hour. If the countdown progresses without any “hold,” the four-stage Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C25) will lift off from the first launch pad at 2.38 p.m. on Tuesday (November 5) and put the 1,350-kg Mars Orbiter in a long, elliptical earth-orbit.It is expected to reach the orbit of the red planet on September 24, 2014, after traversing 400 million km.The vehicle tracking stations at Port Blair, Bylalu near Bangalore, Brunei and sea-borne terminals on board Shipping Corporation of India's vessels SCI Nalanda and SCI Yamuna positioned at South Pacific Ocean have also been kept on alert, ISRO sources said.


ISRO has previously stated that it has ambitions to launch a manned mission by 2016, so this is just the beginning for its loftier spaceflight goals.It means now we can dream of having a cappuccino sitting  in the luxurious house of ours built on mars..Can't we?? ..  ;-)