The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) today performed the last of the five orbit-raising manoeuvre on its Mars Orbiter in the early hours, raising the apogee of the spacecraft to over 1.92 lakh km. In a statement ISRO said, after the successful completion of these operations, the Mars Orbiter mission is expected to take on the crucial event of the trans-Mars injection around 12.42 AM on December 1. It will reach the orbit of the red planet by September 24, 2014 after taking on a voyage of over 10 months.

The Mangalyaan spacecraft began its journey towards the red planet on the fifth of this month. The 450 crore mission was to carry out observation of the physical features of Mars and to do limited study of the MARTIAN atmosphere. It has five payloads to measure the gases available in the planet, the methane concentration, to analyse the details with the available photographs, to take photos on surface features, to learn about the weather changes and finally to observe the presence of minerals and soil types in the planet.