India's spacecraft orbits Mars successfully - and it cost less to send it there than Hollywood spent on making Gravity
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India's low-cost mission to Mars successfully entered the red planet's orbit on Wednesday, crowning what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said was a 'near impossible' push to complete the trip on its maiden attempt.
The Mars Orbiter Mission cost £45million or about three-quarters of the amount to make the Oscar-winning movie Gravity about astronauts stranded in space.
'History has been created today,' said Modi, who burst into applause along with hundreds of scientists at the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) when it was announced the mission had been accomplished.
Thumbs up: India's low-cost mission to Mars successfully entered the red planet's orbit on Wednesday. Pictured are Indian staff from the Indian Space Research Organisation celebrating the success of the mission
Jubilant: Indian PM Narendra Modi is seen on a screen as he addresses scientists alongside a graphic of the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, after the spacecraft successfully entered into the Mars orbit, at the Indian Space Research Organisation's Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network in Bangalore on Wednesday
MARS-VELLOUS FACTS
On average, it lies 141.6 million miles from the sun.
With a diameter of 4,222 miles, it's around half the size of the Earth and has an average temperature of -85F (-65C).
Gravity is much less powerful - slightly less than 40 per cent of ours.
The atmosphere is desperately thin – one per cent of Earth's pressure – and 95 per cent of it is carbon dioxide.
It boasts the solar system's biggest mountain – Olympus Mons, a dead volcano.
It measures 335 miles across and rises to a height of 88,000ft, which is almost three times higher than Everest.Mars has two cosmic sidekicks – the moons Deimos and Phobos.
Mars's red colouring comes from the iron oxide that coats its surface.
Mars has huge amounts of ice at its polar caps.If they melted, it would cover the whole planet in water 11-metres deep, according to Nasa.
'We have dared to reach out into the unknown and have achieved the near impossible,' said Modi, wearing a red waistcoat at the space command centre in the southern city of Bangalore.
Modi has said he wants to expand the country's five-decade-old space programme.
With a spacecraft around Mars, India joins a small group of nations - the United States, Russia and Europe - that have successfully sent probes to orbit or land on Mars. Others, however, failed several times initially.
ISRO successfully ignited the main 440 Newton liquid engine and eight small thrusters that fired for 24-minutes and trimmed the speed of the craft to allow smooth orbit insertion under Mars' shadow. A confirmation of orbit entry was received at around 8 a.m. India time.
After completing the 666 million km (414 million miles) journey in more than 10 months, the spacecraft called Mangalyaan will now study the red planet's surface and scan its atmosphere for chemical methane. It will not land on Mars.
It will also be in the company of NASA's spacecraft Maven that slipped into an orbit around Mars on Sunday with an aim to scan the planet's upper atmosphere. Maven cost $671 million, roughly 10 times the Indian mission's stated cost.
The technological triumph is fortuitously timed for Modi - he will be able to flaunt the achievement on a trip to the United States starting on Friday that includes an address to the United Nations.
'The success of our space programme is a shining symbol of what we are capable of as a nation. Our space programme has been an example of achievement,' said the nationalist prime minister.
Nasa's Curiosity Rover Twitter account tweeted a congratulations message to ISRO's Mars Orbiter, to which it replied 'Keep in touch. I'll be around'
This graphic reveals the trajectory and plans for India's Mars Orbiter Mission
The mission makes India the first country in Asia to reach Mars, after an attempt by regional rival China failed to leave earth's orbit in 2011.
Modi also holds the additional charge as India's minister of space, and in June endorsed the low-cost of the project, saying it cost even less than the budget 'Gravity'. The Hollywood blockbuster cost about $100 million to make.
The country's space programme was launched in the early 1960s and India developed its own rocket technology after Western powers imposed sanctions for a nuclear weapons test in 1974.
Vigilant: Indian scientists and engineers from the Indian Space Research Organisation monitor India's Mars Orbiter Mission
Keen minds: Indian scientists and engineers of Indian Space Research Organization look at a model of the Mars Orbiter Mission at the tracking centre in Bangalore
Having a blast: A rocket carrying the Indian Mars orbiter taking off from the east-coast island of Sriharikota, India, on November 5, 2013
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