New Delhi November 5 : India launched its first mission to Mars this afternoon from the Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh.
It is a 300-day journey to study the Martian atmosphere.
Mangalyaan, which means “Mars craft” in Hindi, is scheduled to begin orbiting Mars by September, checking out for methane and signs of minerals.
The satellite is golden in colour and was carried by a rocket much smaller than American or Russian equivalents.
Lacking the facility power to fly directly, the 350-tonne launch vehicle will orbit Earth for nearly a month, building up the necessary velocity to break free from our planet’s gravitational pull.
It will only then begin the second stage of its nine-month journey which will test India’s scientists to the full, five years after they sent a probe called Chandrayaan to the moon.
The total cost value of the project is Rs. 450 crore, one-sixth of the cost value of a Mars probe set to be launched by NASA in 13 days.
Only the United States, Europe, and Russia have sent probes that have orbited or landed on Mars.
K. Radhakrishnan,(chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization) said that, “This is a technology demonstration project, a mission that will announce to the world India has the capability to reach as far away as Mars, “.
