India's Mars mission enters last leg

The final leg of putting India’s Mangalyaan into the Martian orbit began early Wednesday morning.

The operation began at 4.17 am with the Orbiter switching over to medium gain antenna for receiving and emitting radio signals.

In the final action, the orbiter has to be slowed down from 22.1 km per second to 4.4 km per second in relation to the red planet to be captured by the Martian orbit.

After rotating the Orbiter towards Mars at 6.57 am, the main engine will be fired 24 minutes from 7.17 am to 7.41 am to enter the Martian orbit, which will be about 500 km from its surface and 215 million km away from the Earth in radio distance.

If all goes well, the Indian Space Research Organisation's inter-planetary spacecraft will enter the Martian orbit to study the mysterious planet's atmosphere and search for life-sustaining elements.