The legendary cartoonist sent three works — his last — to the space organisation as the Mars Mission was about to complete its first 100 days.

The Indian Space Research Organisation on Tuesday paid its tributes to iconic cartoonist R.K. Laxman by posting online his cartoon “common man reaching Mars”, the last of his works, which he had sent to the space agency after the success of the historic Mars Mission.

“Tribute to the Legendary Cartoonist R K Laxman. His ‘common man’ reaching Mars. R K Laxman sent this delightful gift to ISRO a couple of weeks back,” ISRO said in a post with the cartoon on its Facebook and Twiiter pages.

Tribute to a legend. >#rklaxman sent this delightful gift to ISRO a couple of weeks back. >pic.twitter.com/rvwejax4rF — ISRO (@isro) >January 27, 2015

“When I visited him in Pune in December, I requested him to draw me a cartoon for ISRO as we were about to complete 100 days of Mars Mission on January 1. Though he was not in the best of his health I gathered courage to make this request,” S. Arunan, Project Director, Mars Orbiter Mission, told PTI.

He said, “His family promised to send me a cartoon in a few days, and on December 26 I received three cartoons from him. I didn’t expect that those will be his last cartoons. He is some one I admired a lot,” he added.

India made space history on September 24, 2014 when its low-cost Mars spacecraft was successfully placed in orbit around the red planet in its very first attempt, breaking into an elite club of three nations.

The Rs. 450-crore MOM Mangalyaan is the cheapest inter-planetary mission that, at just $74 million, cost less than the estimated $100 million budget of the sci-fi blockbuster Gravity and a 10 of NASA’s Mars mission Maven that entered the Martian orbit on September 22.

European, American and Russian probes have managed to orbit or land on the planet, but after several attempts.