India’s Mars Orbiter Mission after positioning itself successfully into the orbit, took some images of the red planet. The image reflected the planet’s crater-marked surface. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) circulated the images across its network via its facebook page. Pictures containing orange surface with dark holes were taken at a height of nearly 4,536 miles.
ISRO’s lead researcher V. Koteswara Rao confirmed that the spacecraft is working absolutely fine and that it has been able to click couple of pictures of the surface and its surroundings. Soon enough, the camera will take pictures of Phobos and Deimos, the two moons of Mars and beam them back to the observatory.
After this successful demonstration, India became the first nation across Asia to reach the red planet. After a journey of 10 months, the unmanned Mangalyaan spacecraft touched the periphery of Mar’s orbit on the 24-Sept-2014. It is noteworthy to mention that the entire operation was done with an extremely small budget. Success of this mission became one of the most prized moment for the nation as it won the race of space travel with the rival Asian countries that is, leaving China, Japan and South Korea behind.
Despite of having billions of dollars at the disposal, China’s similar space programme didn’t go as expected in 2011. On the other hand, India’s attempt, which was backed up by just $74 million met with a huge success. The amount didn’t even touch the approximated $100 million budget of Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity.
With this India, has fall into the league of nations like the United States, Russia and Europe who have successfully ventured into the world of Mars, quite a proud moment indeed!
Source: afp.com
