NEW DELHI – India’s low-cost mission to Mars successfully entered the red planet’s orbit on Wednesday, crowning what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said was a “near impossible” push to become the only country to complete the trip on its maiden attempt.
The Mars Orbiter Mission was achieved on a budget of $74 million, nearly a tenth of the amount the US space agency Nasa spent on sending the Maven spacecraft to Mars.
“History has been created today,” said Modi, who burst into applause along with hundreds of scientists at the state-run Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) when it was announced the mission had been accomplished.
“We have dared to reach out into the unknown and have achieved the near impossible,” said Modi, wearing a red waistcoat at the space command centre in the southern city of Bangalore. India joins the United States, Russia and Europe in successfully sending probes to orbit or land on Mars. Apart from India, none managed to succeed on their first attempt.
The mission also makes India the first country in Asia to reach Mars, after an attempt by regional rival China failed to leave Earth’s orbit in 2011.
Isro successfully ignited the main 440 Newton liquid engine and eight small thrusters that fired for 24 minutes and trimmed the speed of the craft to allow smooth orbit. A confirmation of orbit entry was received at around 8am (0230 GMT).
After completing the 666 million kilometre (414 million miles) journey in more than 10 months, the spacecraft called Mangalyaan — meaning Mars craft in Hindi — will now study the red planet’s surface and scan its atmosphere for chemical methane. It will not land on Mars.
Isro scientists will operate five scientific instruments on the spacecraft to gather data, the space agency’s scientific secretary V Koteswara Rao told Reuters.
The expected life of the craft is six months, after which it will run out of fuel and the agency will not be able to maintain its orbit.
Modi has said he wants to expand the country’s five-decade-old space programme. The technological triumph is fortuitously timed for him — he will be able to flaunt the achievement on a trip to the United States starting on Friday.
