Mars orbiter is now the farthest Indian space object

A panoramic view of Mars Orbiter spacecraft control centre during Trans Mars Injection manoeuvre.

The Indian Space Research Organisation’s Mars orbiter on Monday became the farthest object sent into space by India, according to the mission update team.

India’s first inter-planetary mission broke out of the Earth’s gravity on Sunday morning and crossed the distance of the Moon’s orbit on Monday morning, it said. (Another tracking site said this happened around 8 a.m.)

The Chandrayaan-1 lunar mission, sent up in 2008, had travelled 3.84 lakh km to the Moon.

The Mars Orbiter Mission is designed to cover 680 million km before it reaches near Mars in the middle of September next.