NEW DELHI: India launches its first mission to Mars today, aiming to become the only Asian nation to reach the Red Planet with a programme designed to showcase its low-cost space technology. A rocket carrying a 1.35-tonne unmanned probe will blast off at 2:38pm (0908 GMT) from the Sriharikota spaceport off the southeast coast, beginning a 300-day journey to study the planet. “The countdown is progressing well, as scheduled,” said Deviprasad Karnik, spokesman for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). “The weather is normal. Slightly cloudy but no problem.”
The Mars Orbiter Mission, known as “Mangalyaan” in India, was announced 15 months ago by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shortly after a Chinese probe flopped when it failed to leave earth’s atmosphere. The timing led to speculation that India was seeking to make a point to its neighbour, despite denials from ISRO.
“We are in competition with ourselves in the areas that we have charted for ourselves,” ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan said last week. AFP
