HYDERABAD: India's Mars Orbiter Mission , also known as ' Mangalyaan ', crossed the distance of Moon's orbit on Monday morning.

"MOM is now the farthest object sent into space by India," Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) announced on Monday.

A coded ranging pulse is sent to the spacecraft to measure MOM's distance from the ground. When the spacecraft receives this pulse, it returns the pulse on its downlink.

"The distance to the spacecraft and ground station can be computed from the delay between sending and receiving this pulse," scientists explained.

The Mars Orbiter spacecraft was successfully placed in the Mars Transfer Trajectory early on Sunday morning.

During this critical manoeuvre, which began after midnight on Sunday, the spacecraft's 440 Newton liquid engine was fired for about 22 minutes providing a velocity increment of 648 meters per second to the spacecraft.

Following the completion of this manoeuvre, the Earth orbiting phase of the spacecraft ended.

The spacecraft is now on its 10-month course to the red planet.

The spacecraft is being continuously monitored from the Spacecraft Control Centre at Isro Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bangalore with support from Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antennae at Byalalu.

