India launches spacecraft to Mars

[vostok]

Congratulations!

 

[chhota bheem]

congrats to all .....

 

[CBM1981]

Hi! First post for me.. and what a wonderful day to do this...

Wish all the scientists the very best for next 1 year - getting onto Helio orbit and finally onto the destined orbit in Mars..

Hope it works well and the next GSLV launch next month

Kudos to ISRO

 

[third eye]

Hi! First post for me.. and what a wonderful day to do this...

Wish all the scientists the very best for next 1 year - getting onto Helio orbit and finally onto the destined orbit in Mars..

Hope it works well and the next GSLV launch next month

Kudos to ISRO

Let me be the first to thank you on your 1st post.

 

[Jade]

Already there...


India sends rocket to Mars to show off its 'technological ability' as part of its $1billion a year space programme (but country will still receive British aid until 2015)

• Aim is to see if India has the ability to explore the solar system
• No country has been fully successful on its first mission to the Red Planet
• More than half the world's attempts to reach Mars have failed
• Government criticised for giving British aid to India which will end in 2015

By TARA BRADY and WILLS ROBINSON

PUBLISHED: 14:15, 4 November 2013 | UPDATED: 11:03, 5 November 2013

India's launch of a space craft is proof it no longer needs British aid, campaigners have claimed.

Delhi’s orbiter mission – part of a £600million space programme – blasted off this morning with an orbiter which will survey Mars.

But the TaxPayers’ Alliance said it was wrong for a country to explore other planets while receiving UK aid, in India’s case £280million a year until 2015.

Lift off: A screen grab of live footage taken from Indian television channel NDTV during its coverage of the launch

Soaring: The rocket, which is also called Mangalyaan's Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, is seen in the first part of its flight from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the country's east coast

From a distance: A photographer captures the 1,350-kilogram (3,000-pound) orbiter as it heads into space










‘It’s atrocious that taxpayers are still handing money to a country rich enough not just to have its own space programme, but one that is blasting off to Mars,’ said Jonathan Isaby, the group’s political director.

‘If India can afford this kind of expenditure then it does not need a penny of British taxpayers’ money, especially when departments back home rightly have to cut their spending.

‘It’s difficult for taxpayers to believe the Department for International Development uses their cash wisely when they see it spent helping launch spacecraft to the red planet, rather than going to the world’s poorest.’

Ministers are committed to increasing overall aid spending by 30 per cent to £11.3billion this year and are expected to hit their target of spending 0.7 per cent of national income on aid.

Anticipation: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman Koppillil Radhakrishnan (right) watches the launch from mission control in the island of Sriharikota

Nerves: Visitors to the Nehru Planetarium in Mumbai watch the live broadcast of the launch

Bystanders: Customers in a TV showroom take a break from their shopping to watch coverage of the launch



Unlike spending on policing, prisons and defence, which have been slashed to cut the deficit, the aid budget has enjoyed year-on-year increases.

By next year, the bill will be £12.6billion a year – more than the £12.1billion spent on policing.

But a recent poll found more than 60 per cent of voters believe the cash is wasted.

India spends vast sums on defence and even has its own overseas aid programme, which cost £328million a year. Under Labour, India became the biggest net recipient of British aid, receiving £421million in 2010.

Despite the country’s rapid economic development, then international development secretary Andrew Mitchell decided to approve a further £1.1billion in aid over the following four years.

Demonstrations: Guests at the planetarium look at the rocket's planned trajectory

Preparations for launch: Engineers making their final preparations before the launch

If the rocket reaches Mars, India will become only the fourth country or group to reach the red planet after Russia, U.S. and Europe

Last year his successor Justine Greening announced the outlays would end in 2015.

India’s then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee embarrassed the Government by suggesting Britain’s aid payments were ‘a peanut in our total development expenditure’.

If successful, the space mission will put India in an elite group of four, with the US, the EU and Russia, to have sent space craft to Mars. The mission follows the launch of a lunar craft in 2008.

Jean Drèze, a leading development economist, has said: ‘It seems to be part of the Indian elite’s delusional quest for superpower status.’

A spokesman for the Department for International Development said: ‘Not a penny of British taxpayers’ aid money has gone on India’s space programme.

'India’s recent progress means that all financial grants from the UK to India will cease in 2015, after which we will focus on providing help in the form of private sector expertise and technical assistance that will also ultimately benefit British businesses and jobs.'

Nigeria – another country with a space programme – also receives UK aid, worth £300million this year alone.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-1bn-year-space-programme.html#ixzz2jm0ig4aL

 

[MohitV]

Hi! First post for me.. and what a wonderful day to do this...

Wish all the scientists the very best for next 1 year - getting onto Helio orbit and finally onto the destined orbit in Mars..

Hope it works well and the next GSLV launch next month

Kudos to ISRO

welcome in bro

 

[cloud_9]

^^ Read that title and I was like "Daily Mail not again"/

 

[Khaqan Humayun]

Good for Asia.

 

[OrionHunter]

India will be the sixth — after the US, Russia, China, Japan and the European Union—to launch a Mars mission.

But the Chinese and Japanese Mars missions were a flop!

While the Chinese Mars probe never even left Earth orbit and burned up in Earth's atmosphere, the Japanese probe failed en-route to Mars.

 

[rockstarIN]

Congrats to All..!!!

 

[IndoUS]

We still have a long way to Mars. Congratulation to ISRO, in their first step of this long journey and best of luck in the mission.

 

[cloud_9]

 

[IndoCarib]

Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh: India's first mission to Mars successfully completed its first stage on Tuesday, entering orbit around Earth 44 minutes after blast-off from the Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh.

The launch rocket "has placed the Mars Orbiter spacecraft very precisely into an elliptical orbit around Earth," the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) K Radhakrishnan said from the control room.

Mangalyaan, which means "Mars craft" in Hindi, is the size of a small car and is meant to make a 300-day journey to study the Martian atmosphere.

It is scheduled to begin orbiting Mars by September, searching for methane and signs of minerals.

The 350-tonne launch vehicle carrying an unmanned probe was monitored by dozens of scientists in the control room who face their most daunting task since India began its space programme in 1963.

The country has never before attempted inter-planetary travel.

The launch vehicle will stay in the Earth's orbit for nearly a month, building up the necessary velocity to break free from our planet's gravitational pull.

Only then will it begin the second stage of its nine-month journey which will test India's scientists to the full, five years after they sent a probe called Chandrayaan to the moon.

The total cost of the project is Rs. 450 crore, one-sixth of the cost of a Mars probe set to be launched by NASA in 13 days.

Only the United States, Europe, and Russia have sent probes that have orbited or landed on Mars. Probes to Mars have a high failure rate.

The Mission to Mars was announced only 15 months ago by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, shortly after China's attempt flopped when it failed to leave Earth's atmosphere

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/india-s-mission-to-mars-successfully-completes-first-stage-441799?

pfrom=home-lateststories 

 

[Indo-guy]

Actually it was not a Chinese mission,it was a Russia-Chinese joint mission

Infact it was not even Sino-Russian mission ....China sought free ride on Phobos Grunt mission on Russian launcher ... china only contributed mars probe ....

I am reluctant to call it a Sino-Russian mission ...

China should not be included in this particular list of privileged countries ...until it has attempted mars mission using its own launcher .... 

We will have to wait one year for the good news .......

Indeed it's like keeping finger crossed for whole 10 months ....

 

[Jade]

Infact it was not even Sino-Russian mission ....China sought free ride on Phobos Grunt mission on Russian launcher ... china only contributed mars probe ....

I am reluctant to call it a Sino-Russian mission ...

China should not be included in this particular list of privileged countries ...until it has attempted mars mission using its own launcher .... 


Indeed it's like keeping finger crossed for whole 10 months ....

Yes, you are right...doesn't China has GLSV capabilities?