India successfully launched its first lunar mission yesterday, marking a major boost for the country’s space program and a new step in the fast-developing Asian space race.
Cheers rang out at mission control as the unmanned lunar orbiting spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 was launched with an Indian-built rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota on the southeastern coast.
Officials said the lift-off, which took place in cloudy skies at 6:22am was a “great success,” with the rocket placing the craft into a transfer orbit around the globe within 19 minutes.
PHOTO: AP
“Our scientific community has once again done the country proud and the entire nation salutes them,” Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a message from Japan, where he was on an official visit.
Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) head Madhavan Nair said it was a “historic moment” for the country.
“It has been a remarkable performance by the launch vehicle,” he said of the lift-off from the national space centre in the state of Andhra Pradesh, 80km north of Chennai.
The space organization is sending the Chandrayaan-1 on a two-year orbital mission to provide a detailed map of the mineral, chemical and topographical characteristics of the moon’s surface. It is expected to reach lunar orbit in 15 days.
The mission, which will also include the sending of a probe onto the lunar surface, will cost India US$80 million.
“Today what we have charted is a remarkable journey for an Indian spacecraft to go to the moon and try to unravel the mysteries of the Earth’s closest celestial body and its only natural satellite,” Nair said.
India is hoping the mission will boost its space program into the same league as regional powerhouses Japan and China.
Nair said ISRO was aiming at a manned space flight by 2015, with work on a two-person capsule already under way.
As well as looking to carve out a larger slice of the lucrative commercial satellite launch market, India, Japan and China also see their space programs as an important symbol of their international stature and economic development.
The launch was carried live on most Indian TV channels — with one channel using the theme from Star Wars to accompany the countdown.
Some critics, however, have questioned whether it makes sense to spend so much money on space when hundreds of millions of Indians still live in dire poverty.
India started its space program in 1963, developing its own satellites and launch vehicles to reduce dependence on overseas agencies.
But it still has a long way to go to catch up with China which, together with the US, Russia and the European Space Agency, is already well established in the commercial launch sector.
Chinese officials have spoken of a manned mission to the moon in the future, after following the US and Russia last month by carrying out a space walk and wants to establish an orbiting space lab.
Japan has also been boosting its space program and has set a goal of sending an astronaut to the moon by 2020.
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