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India Joins The Elite Global Space Club Of Mars Explorers

By Kamal Nayan | Update Date: Sep 24, 2014 08:41 AM EDT

India's indigenously made unmanned spacecraft entered the orbit of Mars on Wednesday.  With this successful mission, India became the first Asian nation to reach the Red Planet. 

Also, India is the first nation in the world to successfully reach Mars on its first attempt. 

 The spacecraft dubbed "Managalyaan" was launched last November. 

Over an hour after reaching the orbit, the space agency received the first photographic data of the red planet's terrain which were transmitted via an antenna located in Canberra, Australia, reported Washington Post.

"Mars has found MOM (Mission Orbiter Mars) today," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his short address. "When this mission's short name became MOM, I was convinced that Mom never disappoints. History has been created today. India is the only country to have succeeded to reach the Red Planet on its first attempt."

Officials at the Indian space agency 'ISRO' said that for the past two months, scientists worked more than 12 hours a day, tackling every problem while coming ip with exhaustive recovery options. 

MOM has built-in intelligence, autonomy and a stand-by control system to prevent a breakdown in communication, said M. Pitchaimani, deputy director of the control center at the Indian Space Research Organization(ISRO).

"Many countries have failed in their first attempt. India got success the first time itself," said Pitchaimani in a telephone interview. "But this has come after intense study of others' failures and the reasons for failure, and building our satellite accordingly. We also had gained from their accumulated knowledge about the gravity field of the planet and we built robust instruments based on that data."

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