India's Mars Orbiter Mission -Mangalyaan- successfully launched through PSLV C 25 at 2.38 pm this afternoon from the first launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.. The 44 metre tall PSLV C25 in its XL configuration carried the 1337 kg MARS orbiter into elliptical orbit which is 23,500 km from the earth.
The S band sea borne terminals Nalanda and Yamuna are set to capture the critical telemetry data during flight in the non visibility zone.

Forty five minutes after take off and after four stages of ignition, the Mars orbiter will be separated to take its course and will be placed in the elliptical orbit.For every 100 million seconds, there will be an update on the trajectory path at the ground stations at India. It will take twenty five more days for Mangalyaan to depart from the earth orbit to the trajectory path and after 300 days on 24th September, the satellite is expected to reach Mars orbit.

The purpose of this mission is to develop technologies required for design,planning,management and operations of an interplanetary mission. The mission will find about the Martian atmosphere, the presence of gases, water, ice, biological possibilities and presence of craters and volcanoes.

The spacecraft to Mars uses the least amount of fuel or a minimum energy transfer orbit functioning of the satellite. Our correspondent reports that it is a matter of pride for every Indian and a sense of achievement for every scientist at ISRO to witness the take off of PSLV C 25 on its Mangalyaan Mission.

More than hundred media fraternity from all over the world have gathered at Sriharikota for the launch. ISRO which had ensured successful flights of more than 100 rockets including 23 successful missions of PSLV has to its credit sending Chandrayaan and also injecting 35 rockets of 16 other countries including UK,Germany, France, Israel, Italy,Japan and Korea.