When ISRO blasted off Mangalyaan or Mars Orbiter Mission into the sky on November 5, 2013, it marked an ambitious step for India's indigenous space research capabilities.

In fact, when ISRO's Mangalyaan finally reached Martian orbit and started spinning around the Red Planet on September 4, 2014, it was only supposed to last for six months.

But the Mars Orbiter Mission, India's pride as far as deep space exploration and research is concerned, has successfully completed over 4 years earlier this week. Not only is it going strong, it's also sending critical data about Mars which is helping us demystify the secrets of our solar neighbour.

ISRO

One of the reasonss why the indigenously developed ISRO Mars Orbiter has been able to survive so long is because it was built with full autonomy capability. That's right, Mangalyaan frequently goes into hibernation to conserve power, but comes back online to send images whenever it finds something interesting report.

During its four years around the red planet Mangalyaan has broken several records, but so far it has been the only Mars satellite that’s been able to capture the planet’s whole disc in a single frame, as well as the far side of its moon Deimos.

Mangalyaan photo of Mars

ISRO Mars Orbiter Mission so far has captured over 890 images of the red planet and its neighbours so far, helping Indian scientists map out the surface for the Mars Atlas initiative.

Here's wishing our beloved Mangalyaan several successful years of exploration ahead!