Mars Bible — Organisations
ISRO, the Indian space agency
Born in 1969 of Vikram Sarabhai’s vision, the Indian agency put its Mangalyaan probe into orbit around Mars in 2014, at the first attempt. Planned for six months, the mission lasted nearly eight years.
formed August 15, 1969 — headquarters in Bengaluru
- Formed
- August 15, 1969 (after INCOSPAR, 1962)
- Headquarters
- Bengaluru
- Mars mission
- Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan), 2013-2022
- Orbit insertion
- September 24, 2014, at the first attempt
- Mission cost
- 450 crore rupees
3 chapters and 3 appendices: about 1,000 words, or about 5 minutes of reading. Every fact comes from verified sources, listed at the end of each chapter.
Part One
The agency
1962 – 2012
Chapter 1 · 1962 – 2012 An agency born of a vision
The Indian Space Research Organisation, ISRO, was born of Vikram Sarabhai’s vision. It would take more than forty years before it aimed for Mars.
INCOSPAR, then ISRO
In 1962 the Government of India set up the Indian National Committee for Space Research, INCOSPAR, as envisioned by Vikram Sarabhai. On August 15, 1969, the Indian Space Research Organisation, ISRO, superseded it. In 1972 India set up a Department of Space and brought ISRO under it. ISRO’s Chairman is also Secretary of the Department and Chairman of the Space Commission.
A distributed agency
ISRO’s headquarters are in Bengaluru. Launch vehicles are designed at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram; satellites at the U R Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru; they are integrated and launched at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota. Other centres develop liquid and cryogenic stages, sensors and applications, and receive remote sensing data. The agency’s launch vehicles are called PSLV and GSLV.
Sources: ISRO, “Profile” page (INCOSPAR set up in 1962 as envisioned by Vikram Sarabhai, ISRO formed on August 15, 1969, Department of Space in 1972, governance, headquarters in Bengaluru, the centres and their roles, PSLV and GSLV).
Part Two
Mangalyaan
2013 – 2022
Chapter 2 · 2013 – 2022 Mangalyaan, first time
For its first interplanetary mission, India sent a small orbiter to Mars. Planned for six months, it worked there for nearly eight years.
Departure
The Mars Orbiter Mission, nicknamed Mangalyaan, was first of all a technology demonstrator: the aim was to design, build and launch an orbiter able to operate with sufficient autonomy during the journey, to enter orbit around Mars and to work there. It targeted the November 2013 launch window, one of the minimum-energy transfer opportunities that recur about every 780 days. On November 5, 2013, a PSLV-C25 rocket launched it from Sriharikota. The spacecraft was first placed in an elliptical parking orbit around Earth; six firings of its main engine gradually raised that orbit until it was sent onto a departure trajectory. It left Earth’s sphere of influence 918,347 kilometers from the surface.
September 24, 2014
After about three hundred days of interplanetary travel, on September 24, 2014, the spacecraft fired its engine to brake and was captured by Mars. India achieved this complex mission at its first attempt; ISRO became the fourth space agency to put a spacecraft in orbit around Mars. The mission cost 450 crore rupees, that is 4.5 billion rupees.
Eight years in orbit
The spacecraft carried five instruments: a color camera, a thermal infrared imaging spectrometer, a methane sensor, a photometer and an analyzer of the upper atmosphere’s composition. Planned for six months, until March 23, 2015, it operated for nearly eight years. It measured the composition of several gases in the Martian exosphere, discovered “suprathermal” argon-40 atoms suggesting a mechanism of atmospheric escape, observed a dust storm, lee-wave clouds above the southern wall of Valles Marineris and changes in the polar ice caps; it photographed the far side of the small moon Deimos for the first time and produced a color atlas of Mars. More than 7,200 users, about 400 of them from 50 countries, downloaded its data.
In April 2022, during a long eclipse, contact was lost. ISRO believes the propellant was exhausted and the spacecraft could no longer hold the attitude needed to generate power. On September 27, 2022, it declared the spacecraft non-recoverable: the mission was over.
Sources: ISRO, “Mars Orbiter Mission Spacecraft” page (launch on November 5, 2013 on PSLV-C25, fourth agency in Mars orbit, first attempt, 450 crore rupees, objectives, five instruments); ISRO, “Mission profile” (November 2013 window, minimum-energy transfers about every 780 days, elliptical orbit, six burns, 918,347 km); ISRO, “FAQ Mars Orbiter Mission” (Mangalyaan, India’s first interplanetary mission, Sriharikota, September 24, 2014, planned life until March 23, 2015); ISRO, national meet of September 27, 2022 (about three hundred days of travel, nearly eight years in orbit, loss of contact in April 2022, propellant exhausted, “non-recoverable,” science results, users). The conversion of 450 crore into 4.5 billion rupees is ours (one crore is ten million).
Epilogue
ISRO and Mars
Chapter 3 · The lesson What ISRO brings to Mars
With Mangalyaan, India showed that a Mars mission is not reserved for the biggest space powers. Three lessons emerge.
Aim true rather than big
A modest orbiter, five instruments, a mainly technical goal: the mission was sized to succeed. The first steps of a human presence will also gain from starting simply.
Last beyond the plan
Planned for six months, the spacecraft worked for nearly eight years, until its propellant ran out. On Mars, equipment will also have to serve far longer than it was designed for.
Share the data
Thousands of users in fifty countries used Mangalyaan’s data. Knowledge of Mars is a common good built together.
This lesson is a reflection by the author of this book, based on the facts reported in the preceding chapters, where their sources are given.
Appendices
Further reading
Appendix Understanding the Indian mission
A few ideas, explained simply, to follow this book.
Minimum-energy transfer
The trajectory that takes the least fuel to go from Earth to Mars. It is only possible when the two planets are well placed, about every twenty-six months.
Sphere of influence
The region around a planet where its gravity dominates the Sun’s. On leaving it, a spacecraft is no longer held by Earth.
Orbit insertion
The braking, by an engine firing, that lets a spacecraft arriving at high speed be captured by Mars’s gravity instead of flying past.
The exosphere
The highest layer of the atmosphere, so thin that atoms can escape into space. Studying it helps to understand how Mars lost much of its atmosphere.
The crore
An Indian unit of count equal to ten million. 450 crore rupees is therefore 4.5 billion rupees.
These explanations are general notions. The sphere of influence and minimum-energy transfer follow ISRO’s “Mission profile” page.
Appendix Timeline
The key dates of ISRO and its Mars mission.
1962. INCOSPAR set up.
August 15, 1969. ISRO formed.
1972. Department of Space set up.
November 5, 2013. Mars Orbiter Mission launches.
September 24, 2014. Enters orbit around Mars.
March 23, 2015. End of planned life.
April 2022. Contact lost.
September 27, 2022. End of mission declared.
Sources: those of the chapters.
Appendix Sources and method
This book tells the story of the Indian space agency and its Mars mission from ISRO’s official pages. This appendix shows where the facts come from and what the sources do not allow us to establish.
The main sources
This book replaces an earlier page of about 76,000 words that covered the whole Indian space program; here we keep to Mars. It draws on ISRO’s pages on its profile, the Mars Orbiter Mission, its mission profile, its FAQ and the national meet of September 27, 2022.
What the sources do not say
The pages consulted give neither the spacecraft’s mass, nor the date of the trans-Mars injection, nor the duration of the arrival burn. Nor do they mention any future Indian Mars mission; we therefore do not discuss one.
Length
This book runs to about one thousand and fifty words. The goal set for this collection was one hundred thousand. We did not reach it, and we prefer to say so. India has so far carried out only one mission to Mars; we keep to documented facts.
The illustration
The image at the top of this book is an illustration whose exact provenance we were unable to verify.
Online sources
- ISRO, “Profile”
- ISRO, “Mars Orbiter Mission Spacecraft”
- ISRO, mission profile
- ISRO, “FAQ Mars Orbiter Mission”
- ISRO, national meet on the mission (2022)
Facts checked against these sources on October 11, 2026.
Go further
Mars Library
This book extends the page with a complete settlement architecture. The dossier above remains deliberately self-contained: Arcadia is optional further reading, not a prerequisite for understanding it.
Arcadia — Master Plan of the First Martian City