By the time you read this article, history had already been created. Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) most ambitious mission till date, the Mangalyaan (Mars Orbiter Mission probe), which is the country’s first inter-planetary space mission has been launched from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The project was announced in August 2012 to prove that India has the technological ability to get to Mars and collect data for further missions.

The 450 crore Rupees, or about US$74 million project from ISRO has been launched to reach the orbit. According to The Register, the mission will spend between 20 and 25 days in Earth orbit before being pointed at Mars to spend nine months in travel, arriving in late September 2014. The 300-day mission involves studies of both Mars’ surface and atmosphere, with a particular focus on searching for methane.

While the launch has been successful so far, the ISRO team made sure it kept Indians posted about the launch from its website and social streams. The website was showing the live progress of the historic event that has placed the country in the league of countries like America, Russia and Europe to undertake a successful Mars mission. On Facebook, while it had a Facebook app for the live launch, the page admins have been posting important updates about the launch.

The Twitter account – ISRO India has been doing the same. From sharing exclusive information to retweeting information from reliable sources.

The Twitter buzz for ISRO, #Mangalyaan and #MissionMars

It goes without saying that the historic event has been the talk of the social media audience since this morning. In fact the buzz has been building up from last few days but it has been the maximum today. The India Twitter trends has been witnessing the keyword ISRO and hashtags like #Mangalyaan, #MissionMars trending consistently throughout the day.

According to Topsy PRO, the social media analytical tool, on Twitter the keyword ISRO has seen more than 12K tweets leading to a total exposure of more than 44M being generated so far in last 24 hours. The sentiment score has been 89 with more than 4K tweets reflecting positive nature. The below screen grab shows the activity graph of ISRO on Twitter.

Some of the tweets that did most talking about the mission from ISRO are listed below:

While ISRO did the most talking on Twitter and also on Facebook, hashtags #Mangalyaan and #MissionMars have been trending too. According to Topsy, #MissionMars gained around 6K activity and #Mangalyaan has seen around 13K activity in the last 24 hours. The below screen grab gives you the activity snap shot of both the hashtags:

The tweets with the maximum buzz for the two hashtags are listed below:

Mangalyaan is a big moment for the country and wish that the mission is an out and out success for the country and ISRO.

Prasant Naidu

Founder and Editor at Lighthouse Insights.

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