India's first interplanetary mission, launched by ISRO in November 2013 and placed in orbit around Mars in September 2014, making India the first Asian nation to reach Mars orbit and the first country to do so on its maiden attempt.
By 2012 ISRO had demonstrated deep space capability with Chandrayaan-1, which orbited the Moon in 2008–09. The Mars Orbiter Mission was announced in August 2012 and built in about fifteen months, a short timeline driven by the favourable alignment of Earth and Mars that occurs roughly every 26 months. Because India's heavier launcher was not yet ready for such a mission, ISRO used the PSLV, which could not send the spacecraft directly towards Mars. Instead, the spacecraft was placed in an elliptical Earth orbit and its orbit was raised step by step through engine firings, before a final burn sent it on a nine-month journey to Mars.
On 24 September 2014, the main engine, which had been idle for about ten months, fired successfully to slow the spacecraft and place it into Mars orbit. The success drew global attention because earlier Mars attempts by several space agencies had failed, and because the mission's cost was far lower than comparable missions. The spacecraft operated for about eight years until contact was lost in 2022, likely after its batteries were drained during a long eclipse.
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