ISRO MOM: India's spacecraft 'on target' to reach Mars

India's Mars Orbiter Spacecraft took off from Sriharikota in November 2013 

Credit: ISRO

An Indian spacecraft is on course to reach Mars, an official said Monday, following a 666-million-kilometre voyage that could see New Delhi's low-cost space programme win Asia's race to the Red Planet.

The 350-tonne rocket carrying an unmanned probe is set to enter Mars's orbit next week after 10 months in space.

It is India's first mission to the planet to search for evidence of life.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) official Koteswara Rao said the rocket has travelled almost 666 million kilometres (413 million miles) since its launch from the southern spaceport of Sriharikota last November.

"India will be the first country in the world to insert a spacecraft into the Martian orbit in a maiden attempt if the operation succeeds," ISRO scientific secretary V. Koteswara Rao told reporters.

"And also the first Asian country to reach the Red Planet's sphere," Rao said.

Rao said the rocket's engines will be "woken up" to allow for a "course correction" on Sunday before its arrival on September 24.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)

ISRO scientists will also slow down the craft now travelling at 22.2 kilometres per second to 2.14 metres per second to allow for a smoother entry into the planet's orbit.

The cost of the project, at 4.5 billion rupees ($70 million), is a fraction of the $671 million NASA spacecraft that also launched last year and is expected to arrive within days of the Indian craft.

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

Only the United States, Russia and the European Space Agency have been successful.

The Mars Orbiter Mission was revealed only 15 months ago by the previous prime minister.

The timing and place of the announcement, in an Independence Day speech, led to speculation India was seeking to make a point to China, despite denials from ISRO.

The gold-coloured probe, the size of a small car, will aim to detect methane in the Martian atmosphere, which could provide evidence of some sort of life form on the fourth planet from the sun.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has hailed the country's low-cost technology, saying a domestically-made rocket that launched four foreign satellites into orbit in June had cost less to make than the Hollywood film "Gravity".

But the programme has also faced critics who say a country that struggles to feed its people adequately should not be splurging on space travel.

ISRO: India launches cutting-edge cryogenic rocket

India on Sunday successfully launched its first rocket using domestically produced booster technology after several previous missions had failed, taking another step forward in its ambitious space programme.

The Indian-made cryogenically-powered rocket blasted off from the southern Satish Dhawan spaceport of Sriharikota as scheduled, as Delhi tries to join an elite club of countries which have mastered the complex technology.

The 415-tonne rocket deployed a two-tonne advanced communications satellite some 17 minutes after blast-off, said Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman Dr K. Radhakrishnan.

"I am extremely proud and happy to say that Team ISRO has done it," Radhakrishnan announced at mission control in Andhra Pradesh state, sparking a roar of applause from colleagues.

"Team ISRO and the project directors all have put their heart and soul in making this proud moment for the country," he said.

Dr K. Radhakrishnan

India has for years been trying to develop its own cryogenic rocket engines that are designed to put heavier satellites into high orbits, about 36,000 kilometres (22,000 miles) from Earth.

The powerful booster technology, using super-cooled liquid fuel, is a much needed tool to help India capture a larger share of the lucrative global market for launching commercial satellites.

But the technology has only been successfully developed by a handful of countries including the United States, Russia, France, Japan and China as well as the European Space Agency (ESA).

India's project has had to overcome a string of hurdles and mishaps, including an aborted launch in August last year several hours before lift-off after fuel was found to be leaking from one of the rocket's engines.

The first India-built rocket crashed into the Bay of Bengal just minutes after take-off in April 2010 after the cryogenic engines failed to ignite.

"If we succeed this time, India will join a select club of space-faring nations with indigenous cryogenic engine capability to launch above two-tonne class satellites," ISRO director Deviprasad Karnik told reporters before the launch.

"The twin purpose of this launch mission is to flight-test once again our own cryogenic engine and put into the geostationary orbit a heavy communication satellite," Karnik added.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh congratulated the team on Sunday's mission, which cost 3.65 billion rupees ($58 million) -- 2.2 billion rupees for the rocket and 1.45 billion rupees for the satellite.

"It is yet another important step that the country has taken in the area of science and technology," Singh said.