Dubai: India began its first mission to Mars, seeking to beat China to the red planet and showcase the South Asian nation’s push for technological development.
The Mars Orbiter Mission blasted off from the southeastern coast at around 2:38pm from southern Andhra Pradesh, with the satellite scheduled to start orbiting Mars by September, searching for methane and signs of minerals.
The rocket carried a satellite that Indian scientists plan to put into orbit around Mars, a feat only the US, Europe and Russia have achieved. The journey of about 680 million kilometres will take almost a year, according to the Indian Space Research Organisation.
“In September 2014 we expect this spacecraft to be around Mars, and the challenge then is to precisely reduce the velocity and get into the orbit,” ISRO’s Chairman K. Radhakrishnan said after the launch. He has called the mission would a turning point for the country.
Mangalyaan, which means “Mars craft” in Hindi, is orbiting the Earth initially before heading to the red planet to investigate the Martian surface and atmosphere.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has rebuffed critics who say a poor country such as India can ill-afford the project’s 4.5 billion-rupee (Dh268 million) price tag, arguing that technological advances bolster development prospects.
About half of the more than three dozen missions to Mars over the last five decades have failed, according to Nasa.
The mission aims to map the Martian surface, study the atmosphere and search for methane gas, a sign that the planet can support life, according to the ISRO, a government agency.
Radhakrishnan said there would be a “trickle down” of technology from the research and design of the orbiter that will benefit the economy.
Congratulating the ISRO scientists on the successful launch of the Mars orbiter, U.R. Rao, a former ISRO head, said the country can afford the spend.
“India spends around four billion rupees on Diwali purchases and four and a half billion rupees to reach Mars is affordable,” he said.
In all, India spends about $1.1 billion a year on its space programmes, compared with $17.9 billion in the US. Japan failed in its 1998 bid to send a satellite to orbit Mars. China’s probe failed about two years ago.
Two-thirds of India’s 1.2 billion people live on less than $2 a day. The country has the world’s highest percentage of malnourished children except for East Timor, according to the 2012 Global Hunger Index.
The nation launched its first space rocket in 1963 and its first satellite in 1975. An unmanned mission to the moon that ended in 2009 showed water formation there may be ongoing.
India and China have become competitors in the space industry over the past decade. China has taken the lead, putting its first woman astronaut into space as it strives toward goals such as establishing a manned space station. India’s satellites form one of the largest communications systems in the world.
While few officials will admit it, there is a race for “space-related power and prestige” in Asia and India is concerned about China’s rise, according to James Moltz, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
The probe's 4.5 billion rupee price tag is a fraction of the cost of Nasa's Maven mission, also due to launch in November. Analysts say India could capture more of the $304 billion global space market with its low-cost technology.
The Mars mission is considerably cheaper than some of India's more lavish spending schemes, including a $340 million plan to build the world's largest statue in the state of Gujarat, including surrounding infrastructure.
Even so, it has drawn criticism in a country suffering from high levels of poverty, malnutrition and power shortages and experiencing its worst slowdown in growth in ten years.
India has long argued that technology developed in its space programme has practical applications to everyday life.
"For a country like India, it's not a luxury, it's a necessity," said Susmita Mohanty, co-founder and chief executive of Earth2Orbit, India's first private space start-up. She argued that satellites have broad applications from television broadcasting to disaster management.
India's space programme began 50 years ago and developed rapidly after Western powers imposed sanctions in response to a nuclear weapons test in 1974, spurring scientists to build advanced rocket technology. Five years ago, its Chandrayaan probe landed on the moon and found evidence of water.
With input from agencies
