Timeline: Tracing Mangalyaan's journey from Sriharikota to Mars

India today became one of the few nations in the world to complete a mission to Mars as the nation’s Mangalyaan aka Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) entered the Red Planet’s orbit. This feat is even more special given that India is the only Asian nation to have made the achievement and is also the only country in the world, who managed to send a spacecraft into the Mars orbit on their very first mission. India is now the fourth space power after the United States, Europe and Russia to orbit or land on the red planet. Interestingly this is also the cheapest mission to Mars. At approximately $74 million, ISRO’s mission cost roughly a tenth of NASA’s Mars mission Maven that successfully entered Mars orbit on Sunday. You can check out info graphic on how the cost of Mangalyaan compares to other missions here. The Mars Mission began with the launch of the Mangalyaan in November 2013 last year. ISRO’s PSLV C25 was the one that launched the Mars Orbiter Mission into space on 5 November from Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. [caption id=“attachment_1727869” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Image from ISRO’s Twitter feed.[/caption] We’ve done a dedicated timeline showcasing how each event took place. Check it out on top. If you’re on mobile, you can view our timeline here. India’s MoM left the Earth’s orbit on 1 December and the Earth’s Sphere of Influence of 9.25 lakh km radius on 4 December. In June 2014, this year a second course correction manoeuvre was executed for Spacecraft. On 22 September, MoM entered Mars’ Gravitational Sphere of Influence and today it reached the orbit around Mars. As far as instruments go, Mangalyaan is carrying five instruments to study Martian surface, atmosphere and mineralogy. Check out our info graphic on that  here.