India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) just reached the Red Planet's orbit. The price tag of this record-breaking mission is less daunting than the one used to make the blockbuster movie "Gravity."
India is the latest country attempting to land in the Red Planet's orbit, and now it is the first nation to succeed on its initial attempt.
India had a lot riding on this mission. Before the objective was achieved, K Radhakrishnan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, said "India will become the first Asian country to have achieved this and if it happens in the maiden attempt itself, India could become the first country in the world to have reached distant Mars on its own steam in the first attempt."
So far, every country has failed on its initial attempt to land a spacecraft in Mars' orbit. Russia and the United States each failed on their first attempts. The first Japanese attempt failed in 1998 when it ran out of fuel. The first Chinese attempt failed in 2011.
"We are really not racing with anyone, but with ourselves to reach the next level of excellence," said Radhakrishnan.
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the accomplishment "a shining symbol of what we are capable of as a nation."
On Sept. 22, the spacecraft reached the outer sphere of Mars' gravitational pull. The engineers on Earth were successfully able to re-start the spacecraft's engine, which had been in hibernation since December when the ship left the Earth's gravitational pull. Then this morning, Sept. 24, the spacecraft entered orbit around the Red Planet.
India's MOM spacecraft weighs approximately 2,976 pounds. It was launched about 300 days ago on Nov. 5, 2013 from a port in India on the Bay of Bengal. The project's cost was $74 million. NASA's Mars mission, MAVEN, was $671 million, though it was a more involved, complicated project.
The achievement is a huge step for India in declaring itself a country with the capabilities and resources of a super technological hub. MOM will remain in orbit around Mars, reporting on weather patterns and methane levels to ground control in Bangalore.
