On November 5, 2013, at 4:08 a.m. EST (0908 GMT) the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota launched an ISRO Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle carrying India’s Mars Orbiter Mission. The Mars Orbiter Mission, also known as Mangalyaan (Hindi for “Mars Craft”)is scheduled to reach Martian orbit on September 24, 2014. If successful, India will become the fourth country to successfully deliver a spacecraft to Mars (the others being the United States, the former Soviet Union, and a consortium of the nations that makeup the European Space Agency). Going to Mars is difficult. Out of the fifty-one attempts to reach Mars, about two thirds have ended in failure. It should be noted, however, that most of those failures were from the USSR. USSR/Russia has made 19 attempts and succeeded twice. Japan has so far tried once and failed. The European Space Agency has tried once: the orbiter succeeded and is still functioning, but the lander failed. The United States has made twenty attempts with fourteen successes. It should also be noted that the United States remains the only nation to have successfully landed spacecraft on Mars (a total of seven times so far. Four were rovers and two of those rovers are still operating)–unless you wish to count the Soviet’s 1973 Mars 3 mission: the craft successfully landed on Mars but only returned data for 20 seconds.

Source SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration.

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