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Blastoff: India set to send spacecraft to
Mars
By Cheryl K. Chumley
The
Washington Times
Monday,
November 4, 2013
Photo by: Arun Sankar K.
India is
in final-countdown mode, prepping to send a spacecraft to Mars on Tuesday as a
sort of multimillion-dollar test to see if the country’s technology is advanced
enough to compete on a solar-system scale.
“We have a lot to understand about the universe, the solar
system where we live in, and it has been humankind’s quest from the beginning,”
said K.
Radhakrishnan, the chairman of the Indian
Space and Research Organization, in the Daily Mail.
If India succeeds
with the launch, it will be the fourth to reach Mars — after the United
States, Russia and
Europe.
“We want to use the first opportunity to put a spacecraft
and orbit it around Mars and, once it is there safely, then conduct a few
meaningful experiments and energize the scientific community,” he said in the
Daily Mail.
This is the first Mars
mission for India.
Moreover, none of the other countries that has made it was successful on the
first attempt. And 23 out of 40 Mars missions around the world have failed.
But India wants to get
into the group of space elites, Mr. Radhakrishnan said.
The Mars craft is set to blast off Tuesday for a planned
300-day journey around the planet.
Source: washingtontimes.com
