Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) is ISRO’s first interplanetary mission to planet Mars with the 1350 kg spacecraft designed to orbit Mars in an elliptical orbit of 372 km by 80,000 km. The primary driving technological objective of the Rs450 crore mission is to design and realize a spacecraft with a capability to reach Mars (Martian transfer Trajectory), then to orbit around Mars (Mars Orbit Insertion) which will take about nine months time. Yet another technological challenge is to realize related deep space mission planning and communication management at a distance of nearly 400 million km.
The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV C-25) will be used to inject the spacecraft from SDSC, SHAR, Sriharikota in Nellore district, sometime between Oct 21-Nov 7 2013. This satellite will also carry compact science experiments, totalling a mass of 15 kg, as listed below :
| Payload | Primary Objective |
| Lyman Alpha Photometer (LAP) | Escape processes of Mars upper atmosphere through Deuterium/Hydrogen |
| Methane Sensor for MARS (MSM) | Detect presence of Methane |
| Martian Exospheric Composition Explorer (MENCA) | Study the neutral composition of the Martian upper atmosphere |
| MARS Colour Camera (MCC) | Optical imaging |
| TIR imaging spectrometer (TIS) | Map surface composition and mineralogy |
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