Indian spacecraft Mangalyaan successfully arrived in orbit of Mars

"Our regiment arrived" - if the spacecraft could talk, it probably would have told a friend just that. The fact is that today, at 5:47 am Moscow time began the process of launching into orbit of the Martian satellite Mangalyaan. The process lasted only 24 minutes, and the satellite has successfully entered the desired orbit. When entering the orbit was burned about 250 pounds of fuel. By the way, unlike in China, with their "Jade Hare", the name of the Indian satellite less romantic. Mangalyaan means "Martian machine" - short and clear.

It is worth noting that India thanks to satellite delivered several records. Firstly, now India - the first from Asia to join the study of Mars. Secondly, the cost of the satellite was only $ 74 million (compared to US satellite Maven cost American taxpayers $ 671 million US dollars). Thirdly, India - the first country to successfully launch a Martian machine and deliver it to Mars on the first try. And fourth, for most of India's first spacecraft launched to another planet. Interestingly, just two days ago on Mars orbit successfully entered American satellite Maven .



Comparative cost Mars missions i>

The main scientific mission of the device - the study of the atmosphere of Mars, in order to determine the concentration of methane. Methane can indirectly indicate the presence of Mars in the past life. In addition, the machine will deal with mapping the surface of Mars, to map the red planet.

For India, an important goal was to show the ability of its scientists and engineers to design and send to another planet complex devices. This goal, as we can see - is achieved. How difficult can be a mission flight to Mars, the statistics show the success of the projects run: from 41 different countries on 23 projects were unsuccessful for different reasons.



And some more interesting facts about the "Indian Space»:

The budget of the Indian space program is only US $ 1 billion - a little more than 5% of the budget NASA; The average salary of a specialist space sphere (it is clear that the average temperature in the hospital, but still ) - US $ 1000; Preparing for the launch of the satellite (planning, design, implementation) took only 18 months. In other countries the term - 60 months or more; There was no satellite prototypes, everything worked praktichski from scratch.
 

Father and son looking at the model in the Mars Orbiter Planetarium Nehru. Soon there will be a model and Mangalyaan i>

Via wsj

Source: habrahabr.ru/post/237927/