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 The Mars Orbiter Mission was achieved on a budget of $74 million,
almost 10 times less than the amount the U.S. 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 Organisation (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 center in the southern city of Bangalore.
India joins the United States, Russia and Europe in successfully
sending probes to orbit or land on Mars.
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 8 a.m. India time (10:30 p.m. EDT on
Tuesday).
After completing the 666 million km (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
program. 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.
Modi also holds the additional charge as India's minister of space,
and has endorsed the low-cost of the project, saying it cost even
less than the budget of 'Gravity'. The Hollywood blockbuster cost
about $100 million to make.
NASA, which helped India with communications on the mission,
congratulated ISRO. The Mangalyaan and the NASA's Maven, built at a
cost of $671 million, are simultaneously orbiting the red planet.
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INDIA IN SPACE VS OTHERS
India's space program was launched in the early 1960s and the
country developed its own rocket technology after Western powers
imposed sanctions for a nuclear weapons test in 1974.
Still, the country remains a small player in the global space
industry that grew to $314 billion in revenues and government
budgets in 2013, according to Colorado-based Space Foundation.
Experts say Mars mission success can help change that.
"ISRO will now hopefully attract a lot of business," said Mayank N.
Vahia, a scientist at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.
"We will now attract more international attention and international
trade for satellites."
Two-thirds of the craft's parts were made by Indian companies such
as Larsen & Toubro LART.NS and Godrej & Boyce.
With 30 Indian and 40 foreign satellite launches so far, its nearest
cheap competition would be China, which is armed with bigger space
launchers. ISRO signed an agreement with China National Space
Administration on Friday to cooperate in research and development of
various satellites.
Despite its success, India faces criticism for spending on space
research as millions go hungry.
(In this corrected version, reference in paragraph five to no
previous maiden Mars mission having succeeded has been deleted, as a
multinational European craft did enter orbit successfully in 2003;
and in paragraph two, 'nearly a tenth of' has been changed to
'almost 10 times less than')
(Additional reporting by Devidutta Tripathy in MUMBAI and Andrew
MacAskill in NEW DELHI; Editing by Jeremy Laurence and Frank Jack
Daniel)
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