KUALA LUMPUR, October 2- India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM),Mangalyaan, that had successfully entered the orbit around planet Mars on Sept 24, costs the South Asian country only US$74 million, according to High Commission of India, here.
In a statement, it said that the amount is much lesser compared to the costs of US$671 million used for the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Mars spacecraft, Maven.
The High Commission said that India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was present at the Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in Bangalore to witness the important event.
With the success of India’s first interplanetary mission, the country became the first nation to successfully send a satellite into Mars orbit on its first attempt besides being the first Asian country to do so, the statment said.In addition, the success also meant ISRO was the fourth space agency to successfully sent a spacecraft to Mars orbit.
According to the High Commission, the events related to the Mars Orbit Insertion progressed satisfactorily and the spacecraft performance was normal,and was now circling Mars in an orbit that took 72 hours 51 minutes and 51 seconds to go around the planet.
It said that the MOM was launched on-board India’s launch vehicle Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) on Nov 5, 2013 and travelled over 650 million km over 10 months before it reached the destination.It added that in the coming weeks, the spacecraft will be thoroughly tested in the Mars orbit and the systematic observation of that planet using its five scientific instruments would begin.
The spacecraft is currently being monitored from the Spacecraft Control Centre at ISTRAC with support from Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antennae at Karnataka, India.The project is expected to provide the scientific community better opportunities in planetary research.
-BERNAMA
