Mangalyaan
Official ISRO Trajectory Design — Earth Parking Orbit (EPO) → Spacecraft Trajectory (MTT) → Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI).
Earth Parking Orbit (Departure 01-12-13)
The real journey
323 days from Earth to Mars
India became the fourth space agency to reach Mars, and the first in the world to succeed on its maiden attempt. The animation above is modelled on a Hohmann transfer orbit and paced to the mission's real timeline — not a literal physics simulation, but a faithful picture of how Mangalyaan actually got there.
Launch vehicle
PSLV-C25
Total transit
323 days
TMI delta-v
648 m/s
Orbit-raising burns
6
Timeline
November 5, 2013
Launch
PSLV-C25 lifts off from Sriharikota, placing the Mars Orbiter Mission into an elongated Earth parking orbit.
Nov 7–16, 2013
Earth-bound manoeuvres
Six engine burns progressively raise the spacecraft's orbit from 247 × 23,550 km to 600 × 192,000 km — building up the speed for departure, since PSLV alone couldn't reach escape velocity.
December 1, 2013
Trans-Mars Injection
A 1,328-second burn of the Liquid Apogee Motor adds 648 m/s of velocity, sending the spacecraft out of Earth's orbit and onto its transfer trajectory toward Mars.
Dec 2013 – Sept 2014
Interplanetary cruise
A roughly 298-day coast along a Hohmann-like transfer orbit around the Sun, with periodic trajectory correction manoeuvres to stay on course for Mars.
September 24, 2014
Mars Orbit Insertion
The engine — unfired for 300 days — restarts on command and burns for 24 minutes, capturing the spacecraft into Mars orbit on the very first attempt.