India now has a spacecraft in orbit around Mars, too
It must be getting a little crowded in the Martian atmosphere. Two days after the U.S. spacecraft MAVEN entered orbit around the Red Planet, India successfully followed suit early Wednesday with its first deep-space satellite, Mangalyaan, formally called the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM). MOM's entry into orbit was flawless, Indian scientists in Bangalore said, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India has now "gone beyond the boundaries of human enterprise and innovation."
India's Martian mission places it in a rarified club — only the U.S., Russia, and Europe have successfully sent a spacecraft to Mars — and has a few other notable features: It was remarkably cheap, with a reported price tag of $74 million, and it makes India the first nation to reach Mars on its first attempt. NASA welcomed the Indian Space and Research Organisation (ISRO) into the club:
MOM launched from India's Bay of Bengal last November.
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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