India Launches Their First Mars Mission

On November 5, 2013 at 2:38PM IST (Indian Standard Time) the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully launched the first Indian mission to the red planet. The spacecraft, named "Mangalyaan", successfully made it into orbit. From there, the spacecraft will go through a series of burns which will increase the eccentricity of its orbits around Earth until the final burn will send the craft into a hyperbolic trajectory away from Earth and towards Mars. The spacecraft should arrive at Mars on September 24, 2014. The objectives of the mission are fairly straightforward: (1) Provide a technology demonstration that highlights ISRO's ability to send craft to Mars. (2) Explore Martian land features and atmosphere from orbit. You can follow the mission on its web-page here.