PM pleased as India’s Mars mission makes good launch

India's ambitious mission to Mars completed its first stage after lift-off this afternoon, the scientists concerned have announced.

The launch rocket entered orbit around Earth 44 minutes after blast-off from the Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh, and "has placed the Mars Orbiter spacecraft very precisely into an elliptical orbit around Earth," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K Radhakrishnan said from the control room.

India has thus achieved a march on US space agency NASA, whose Mars probe will be launched 13 days hence. But at a cost of Rs450 crores, the Indian spending is a sixth of NASA's Mars probe budget.

"It's lift off," said commentators on television as the red-and-black rocket launched into a slightly overcast sky on schedule at 2:38pm from the southern spaceport in Sriharikota.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was quick with his congratulations. He called up ISRO chief Radhakrishnan and congratulated his team on the successful launch, while expressing positive hopes about the future of the mission.

India has never before attempted inter-planetary travel and more than half of all missions to Mars have ended in failure, including China's in 2011 and Japan's in 2003.

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 Mars Orbiter Mission, known as "Mangalyaan", was announced 15 months ago by the prime minister, shortly after China's attempt flopped when it failed to leave Earth's atmosphere.

Some 44 minutes after the lift-off, the satellite separated from the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle or PSLV, which took the Mangalyaan into an elliptical arc around the Earth. The satellite's thrusters will now begin a series of six small fuel burns, moving it into higher orbit before it slingshots toward the Red Planet.