India aims high with Mars mission

The Soviet Unio beginning 1960, the United States beginning 1964, Japan beginning 1998, the European Space Agency beginning 2003, and China beginning in 2011, have sent space probes to Mars.

The satellite will carry out atmospheric, particle environment and surface imaging studies of Mars ... One of the satellite's projects will be to look for the presence of methane.

India's Mars orbiter cost just $70m, much less than missions launched by other countries

The underlying message to the international space community is that the country can put technology in space at an extremely competitive price.

Al Jazeera

And yet have nearly 100 million people in uber poverty... I know £70million can't solve poverty.. pretty sure it will make a good start??

Dunno, mixed feelings about this personally.

I had not thought about how going to Mars might affect people's economic well-being, but my first thought is that diverting the money to some kind of anti-poverty program would not decrease poverty.

Here in the United States, a government agency tries to count the number of poor people. The poverty rate reached a low in 1968, just before the beginning of the biggest antipoverty program in US history. Since then the poverty rate has increased a little. By almost any measure, poverty has not decreased.

Government antipoverty programs seem to make things worse, not better.

I understand, but then this is showing to the World what Indian engineering can do.
Hopefully more companies will come over and invest in India lifting more people out of poverty.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) prefers to call it the Mars Orbiter Mission, an unmanned satellite that has been conceived, designed and fabricated by Indian scientists, hoisted using an Indian rocket from Indian soil. The cost of the entire maiden Mars mission is about Rs 450 crores ($72.9 million) and about 500 scientists have toiled to fabricate it from scratch. ISRO's annual budget is about $1 billion.

Since 1960 some 51 missions have been launched, about a third of which have ended in disaster, the most recent being the Chinese failure in 2011.

The global scientific community is very excited about India's effort to send the first dedicated methane gas sensor to Mars.

and an editorial ...

So is this a giant leap or a fool hardy step by a nation that still can't provide electricity to 400 million of its population and where 600 million people still defecate in the open?

Al Jazeera

India launched a spacecraft to the Red Planet. The Mars Orbiter Mission took of at 09:08 GMT from Satish Dhawan Space Centre. The spacecraft is set to travel for 300 days before arriving around Mars.

BBC

Indian spacecraft leaves Earth orbit

The Bangalore-based Indian Space Research Organization said the spacecraft fired its main engine for more than 20 minutes, giving it the correct velocity to leave the Earth’s orbit, and that all systems were functioning normally.

Japan Times

China launched its first ever extraterrestrial landing craft into orbit en route for the moon.

The Chang'e-3 lunar probe, which includes the Jade Rabbit buggy, blasted off on board an enhanced Long March-3B carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China's southwestern Sichuan province at 1:30 am (1730 GMT) on December first.

In 2007, China launched its first moon orbiter, the Chang'e-1 - named after a lunar goddess - which took images of
the surface and analysed the distribution of elements.

The lunar buggy was named the Jade Rabbit, a folkloric reference to the goddess' pet, in a public vote.

The Long March Rocket must be named after Chairman Mao's long march. Or not?

Al Jazeera