India becomes the first Asian country to reach Mars

ISRO

Mars has become the destination of choice for ambitious space agencies and nations, and now India is among that group. After a successful maneuver, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) has entered an orbit about 420 km above the surface of Mars (MOM is informally called Mangalyaan, which is Hindi for Mars vehicle). It will soon begin to photograph the planet’s surface and analyze the atmospheric composition.

(Disclosure: As a member of two previous missions to Mars, I understand the excitement and challenges of landing, or in the case of Mangalyaan, orbital insertion. Waiting for a signal telling the ground staff about the mission’s fate must have been a nerve-wracking time for staff of the Indian Space Research Organization [ISRO].)

Attraction of the red planet

Ever since the earliest telescopic observations in the 17th and 18th centuries, Mars has shown tantalizing hints of seasons, water, and active geological processes. Over the centuries, our understanding about Mars has changed as the resolution of telescopes and spacecraft cameras and spectrometers has greatly improved.