Satellite from India orbits Mars, program passes China, Japan
The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), locally named as the Mangalyaan, entered Mars’ orbit on Wednesday morning, prompting celebrations all over India and parts of the world.
The 650 million miles journey began after its initial launch in Sriharikota, Bay of Bengal on November 2013 and now is confirmed over the Mars surface.
Cross Map writes that “The Indian Space Research Organization’s command center in Bangalore received confirmation after probes’ engines completed 24 minutes of burn time before moving to its designated orbit. This interplanetary triumph grants them the title of being the first Asian country to do reach the Red Planet, and the first country in the world to be successful in their maiden attempt.”
Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister, congratulated mission scientists on live television. The spacecraft was designed to show the best of the country’s abilities in designing technology for deep-space mission.
Modi expressed his compliments to Indian engineering after a “nearly impossible” accomplishment, further adding, “We have gone beyond the boundaries of human enterprise and human imagination.”
India now joins the United States, Russia and the European Space agency as the fourth country in Martian explorations, moving past China and Japan in “terms of space objectives,” the article noted.
“Japan’s futile attempt of Nozomi in 1998 and in 2011, China and Russia partnered to launch the satellite, Yinhuo-1, but failed and fell back on Earth. This orbiter mission was also one of the cheapest to be launched, with a budget of over $74 million. A far cry from NASA’s MAVEN Spacecraft that cost $671 million.”
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