India's Mars satellite successfully enters orbit, bringing country into space elite | Science | The Guardian

India's Mars satellite successfully enters orbit, bringing country into space elite | Science | The Guardian: "India has become the first nation to send a satellite into orbit around Mars on its first attempt, and the first Asian nation to do so.

Mission control in the southern Indian city of Bangalore received confirmation of the success at 7.41am Wednesday, local time. The satellite Mangalyaan had entered the orbit of the red planet 12 minutes earlier, but the message needed to traverse the 400m miles (650m km) to Earth.

India now joins an elite club of nations who have successfully carried out interplanetary space missions, and has scored a significant point in its rivalry with China.

The prime minister, Narendra Modi, who won power in May in a landslide victory, was in Bangalore with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) watching the operation.

“We have gone beyond the boundaries of human enterprise and innovation,” Modi said, as scientists celebrated.

“We have navigated our craft through a route known to very few,” Modi said, congratulating the ISRO team and “all my fellow Indians on this historic occasion”."



'via Blog this'