Bangalore: ‘Mangalyaan', India's first Mars-bound spacecraft, on Wednesday morning scripted history when it entered successfully into the orbit of the Red Plant.
The insertion operation of the spacecraft was performed at 07 hours 17 minutes and 32 seconds.
A team of 200 space scientists was busy round the clock to make the mission a success.
Scientists fired the 440 Newton Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) engine, the main engine of the spacecraft, along with eight smaller liquid engines for about 24 minutes.
The confirmation about its insertion into the orbit was received at 8.15 am.
The insertion was carried out automatically by commands loaded onto the spacecraft after its velocity was slowed down from 22.1 km per second to 4.4 km per second to be captured by the Martian orbit. At the time of MOM's orbital insertion, its signals took about 12 minutes and 28 seconds to travel to Earth for reception by NASA's Deep Space Network Stations in Canberra and Goldstone that relayed the data in real time to ISRO's station here.
The first sign of success in the final moments came when ISRO announced that burn of engines on India's Mars orbiter had been confirmed. "All engines of Mars orbiter are going strong. Burn confirmed," said ISRO signalling that history was in the making.
The orbiter will keep moving in an elliptical path at least for six months with its instruments sending their gleanings back home.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi also witnessed the crucial Mars Orbiter Insertion at the Spacecraft Control Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in Bangalore.
"MOM has met Mangal," Modi said announcing the mission's success, after nerve-wracking final moments at the command centre of ISRO.
On Monday afternoon, scientist at the ISRO came one step closer to its cherished dream of landing on Mars when they successfully test-fired the LAM engine -- which was in sleep mode for the last 300 days.
With the success of Rs 450 crore mission, India has now become the first country to enter the Mars orbit on a maiden mission. India has also become the first Asian country and ISRO the fourth space agency to send a satellite to the Red Planet. European, US and Russian probes have managed to orbit or land on the planet, but after several attempts.
The 1.3-tonne Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) was launched on November 5, 2013 by India's workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from the spaceport of Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.
On a 666 million km journey, the spacecraft escaped the earth gravity pull on December 1, 2013.
It should be noted that probes to Mars have a high failure rate. Of the 51 missions so far, only 21 have succeeded. In November 2011, a Russian mission carrying the Chinese satellite, Yinghuo-1, to Mars failed. Japan also failed in a similar effort in 1998.
The success of Mars Orbiter Mission will indeed boost India's global standing in Space.
