planetary · Completed
Mars Orbiter Mission
Mangalyaan reached Mars on the first attempt, something no other space agency had managed, on a budget smaller than the film Gravity.
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The Mars Orbiter Mission was designed as a technology demonstrator, which is the polite way of saying nobody promised it would work. Reaching Mars orbit on a first attempt had defeated the Soviet, American, European and Japanese programmes at least once each.
PSLV-C25 could not send it to Mars directly, so the spacecraft raised its own orbit around Earth over six manoeuvres before the trans-Mars injection burn: a slower path chosen because it fit the vehicle available.
Its five instruments totalled 15 kg. The Mars Colour Camera returned full-disc images of the planet that few missions capture, because most Mars orbiters fly too low to see the whole thing at once. Contact was maintained until 2022, eight years past a six-month design life.