From Isro's Mangalyaan to Nasa's Curiosity: Successful Mars missions till date

India’s Mars Orbiter craft Mangalyaan has successfully been inserted into the gravitational orbit of the Red planet early Wednesday morning with Isro’s control room jumping into celebratory cheer at a little before 8 am. On Tuesday, Isro scientists were quiet confident after they successfully ‘woke up’ the main liquid engine of the Mars craft that had been dormant for almost 300 days. The odds stacked against it were quite high. Only 21 of the 51 missions to Mars so far have been successful. No country had managed a successful Mars mission on its first try, and no Asian country had managed the feat either. [caption id=“attachment_1725853” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The first successful Mars mission[/caption] But what are the successful Mars missions so far? The first was in 28 November 1964 by Nasa when it launched the Mariner 4 flyby. The US in fact dominated the Mars missions until 19 May 1971 when the Soviet Union launched its own orbiter, which was mostly successful. Europe’s ESA joined the party in 2003 with its own orbiter. Asian countries have not had much luck. The first Chinese mission to Mars, the Yinghuo-1 failed in 2011 alongside the Russian Phobos-Grunt mission with which it was launched. Japan’s first Mars orbiter, Nozomi launched in 1998, but was lost after it ran out of fuel. India’s is now the first country to successfully launch a Mars mission in its maiden mission, and the only country in Asia to do so.