Mangalyaan 1 and 2 Missions
India’s Mars exploration program, spearheaded by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), represents a massive leap in the country’s interplanetary capabilities. The program began with the historic Mangalyaan-1 orbiter and is now evolving into a much more ambitious Mangalyaan-2 mission featuring a rover and a helicopter. Here is a detailed breakdown of both missions. Mangalyaan-1 (Mars Orbiter Mission) Launched on November 5, 2013, aboard a PSLV-C25 rocket, Mangalyaan-1 (MOM) was India's maiden interplanetary spacecraft. When it successfully entered Martian orbit on September 24, 2014, it made India the first Asian nation to reach Mars, and the first nation in the world to do so on its very first attempt. Cost-Effectiveness: MOM is famously known for its incredibly low budget of approximately $71 million (compared to NASA's MAVEN mission, which cost around $671 million). Scientific Payloads: The orbiter carried five instruments: a Mars Color Camera (MC...