Mission Mars: Short Thriller about India’s Mangalayaan (Video)

India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) or Mangalyaan will go down in the history of space journeys as the most daring, innovative and mind-boggling undertaking.  After Roscosmos, NASA, and the European Space Agency, ISO was the fourth agency to achieve this mission of reaching Mars and that too on the first attempt.

On November 5, 2013 the probe lifted off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket C25. It entered the Mars orbit on 24 September 2014 after a 298 days journey!

Because ISRO used in-house technology, simpler yet innovative design, it was able to achieve the whole project at a cost of ₹450 Crore (US$73 million).  Just to get a context – the Hollywood movies about space cost more.  For example Interstellar cost $165 million, Gravity’s budget was $100 mn, “The Martian”‘s cost was $108 mn!

This rover that orbits Mars will come very close to the surface of the planet and capture some amazing scenes and information from there.

During your orbit’s closest approach, some 300 kilometers above the surface, we may drift over Olympus Mons, three times higher than the Himalayas’ Mount Everest, or Valles Marineris, a canyon longer than India itself that cuts up to four miles into the red planet’s surface. Then we’ll swoop out to the farthest point of your elliptical orbit, some 71,000 kilometers away. From this distance, you are in a unique position to capture Mars as a full globe—the planet resembles a cup of tea we share, a touch milky where clouds have gathered, resting upon a sugar-sprinkled black tablecloth. (source)

This amazing work of science shown below will do what no human mission has been able to do in space at that cost and effort.  And in that lies the story of India’s innovation!

How we have a movie to celebrate this achievement.

The Movie

Mission Mars is a short film dedicated to India’s most inspiring story of progress. When Mangalyaan entered the Mars orbit on September 24, 2014, India made history when in the arena of interplanetary space.  This movie sponsored by Johnnie Walker, directed by Imran Khan includes a small but stellar cast and crew comprising Imran Khan, Karan Johar, Punit Malhotra, Prakash Belawadi, Abhishek Saha and Sonali Sachdev.

Here is the movie for all of you to enjoy.