Soon after breaking into the Martian orbit Wednesday morning, Mangalyaan got a surprise note from a thrilled close neighbour. “Namaste, @MarsOrbiter! Congratulations to @ISRO and India’s first interplanetary mission upon achieving Mars orbit,” tweeted @MarsCuriosity. “Howdy @MarsCuriosity? Keep in touch. I’ll be around,” it tweeted back to NASA’s Curiosity Rover, roving the surface of the planet since August 2012. ISRO’s preferred medium of communication was Twitter, the tool it used to keep its followers engaged, updated and excited as its big moment arrived. On August 25, ISRO changed its Twitter handle from @ISROofficial to the shorter, easier-to-search-for @ISRO. Since then, it has been posting updates on the MOM to its followers — over 66,000 as of late Wednesday evening — gradually building up to the moment of the Orbiter’s entry into the orbit of Mars. The tweets have been distinctly sharper and wittier than ISRO’s usual dry, stodgy announcements. The build-up began on September 22, soon after ISRO announced: “#MarsOrbiter Main Liquid Engine test firing successful!”. ISRO tweeted an alert for watching Doordarshan from 6.45 am on Wednesday, complete with a smiley-wink: “Mars Orbit Insertion Live! Get up early on Wednesday to catch the action ;)” On Tuesday evening, ISRO tweeted, “India, wake up early tomorrow — History is in the making”, with the hashtag “WakeUp4MarsOrbiter”, and gave the link for the webcast. And on Wednesday morning: “Good morning India. Are you up? Stay posted for live updates from Mission Control”, followed by a picture of Mission Control and “Fingers crossed - at #MarsOrbiter Mission Control”. A tense phase followed, when ISRO’s tweets gave out details of what Mangalyaan was doing: “Forward rotation must have begun.”, “Now in the shadow of Mars”, “Burn must have started.Skip a few heartbeats and stand by for confirmation”, “Going behind Mars”, “Burn start confirmed”, “Occultation is now behind us.Telemetry must have activated. Allow it another nerve-wracking 12.5 minutes”. In between, “The chairman of ISRO has welcomed the PM”. And then, the cheeky confirmation of success through a first tweet from the Orbiter itself: “What is red, is a planet and is the focus of my orbit?” ISRO activated the handle @MarsOrbiter as soon as the spacecraft entered the Martian orbit — its bio reading, “Orbiting the Red Planet since Sep 24, 2014. Explorer. Loves science, photography and long cruises”. Its second tweet was even cheekier: “I’ll be back after breakfast. Good ol’ sunlight. It’s good for your battery.” As the tweets flowed, the top three trending topics were #Mangalyaan, #MarsMission and #IndiaAtMars. Congratulations poured in from the President, the Prime Minister, chief ministers Vasundhara Raje, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Raman Singh, Anandiben Patel and Akhilesh Yadav, and Amitabh Bachchan, and Virat Kohli — all acknowledged by ISRO.
