Journalism of Courage
“Howdy @MarsCuriosity ? Keep in touch. I’ll be around.” This is how the Indian spacecraft greeted NASA’s curiosity rover as it entered the orbit of Mars early Wednesday morning. As the Mangalyaan was travelling through the celestial space, back on earth, ISRO ensured that it kept every bit of information regarding this historical flight in public domain powered by an engaging and informative social media strategy. And micro-blogging site Twitter came handy.
On August 25, ISRO changed its twitter handle from @ISROOFFICIAL to @isro. Since then, the handle has been posting updates about the mission for its over 48,000 followers. In the build up to the crucial phase today when it entered the Martian space, it posted, “Good morning India. Are you up? Stay posted for live updates from Mission Control.”
Highlights: India reaches Mars, Prime Minister Narendra Modi showers praises on ISRO
Infographs with details of the flight path and live webcast links were key features of ISRO’s online drive for this mission. With steady flow of information from the control room in Bangalore, ISRO kept the Twitter space buzzing. Today, the top three trending topics were related to this mission. As soon as the space agency announced the successful entry of Mangalyaan in the Martian orbit, twitterati used #Mangalyaan #MarsMission #IndiaAtMars hashtags to congratulate ISRO. Led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, chief ministers of many states took to Twitter to hail the feat.
Buoyed by today’s success, ISRO set up another Twitter handle @MarsOrbiter. Its profile says, “India’s first mission to Mars. Orbiting the Red Planet since Sep 24, 2014. Explorer. Loves science, photography and long cruises.” Its first tweet – What is red, is a planet and is the focus of my orbit? – got over 8,000 retweets and 4,000 favourites.
Now that the voyage to Mars is turning out to be a reality, get ready for more conversations on Twitter between space agencies and space shuttles. Sample this. @isro Thank you MAVEN team! MT The #MAVEN team congratulates @ISRO for its #Mars arrival! @MarsOrbiter joins the missions studying the Red Planet.
And for any update, ‘We’r all ears.’
