India’s Mars Orbiter successfully arrives in Mars orbit

India’s Mars Orbiter successfully arrives in Mars orbit, for a fraction of what NASA spent. Image © ISRO

India just made Space history when Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) successfully arrived in Mars orbit on Sept. 23 EST/Sept. 24 IST.

India has broken these records: being the first Asian nation to reach Mars and being the first country to get to the red planet on the first attempt.

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, declared:

“India has successfully reached Mars!

History has been created today. We have dared to reach out into the unknown and have achieved the near-impossible. I congratulate all ISRO scientists as well as all my fellow Indians on this historic occasion.

We have gone beyond the boundaries of human enterprise and imagination. We have accurately navigated our spacecraft through a route known to very few. And we have done it from a distance so large that it took even a command signal from Earth to reach it more than it takes sunlight to reach us.”