India Mars probe has entered the orbit of the Red Planet on Wednesday, as reported by the Indian Space Research Organization or ISRO. It was a shoestring-budget Mars Orbiter Mission or MOM spacecraft that was unmanned.
The India Mars probe, which is also known as Mars craft or Mangalyaan in Hindi, is actually the first spacecraft sent by an Asian country to ever launch to Mars. It will be joining other already existing spacecraft that are already orbiting Mars today, such as the Mars Express from the European Space Agency and the recently arrived MAVEN from NASA. Plus, NASA has already previously launched the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, which are both operating on the Red Planet's surface.
Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister, was quoted by Reuters during a visit to the mission command center of ISRO in Bangalore. According to the report, "History has been created today. We have dared to reach out into the unknown and have achieved the near impossible."
Apart from the fact that the India Mars probe has changed the nation's history by being the first Asian country to launch an orbiter for Mars, another highly celebrated achievement of the MOM mission is the fact that it was achieved despite a very low cost.
According to a report from Reuters, the Mangalyaan spacecraft cost only $74 million, which is just a "fraction of the $671 million NASA spent on its newly arrived MAVEN Mars mission." Moreover, it has also been reported that the India Mars probe also costs a lot less than the reported $100 million budget for the 2013 space thriller named Gravity.
The India Mars probe, which was actually launched on the 5th of November 2013 from the Satish Dhawan Space Center that is located Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, actually traveled 414 million miles to Mars before it started on its orbiting duties.
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