Beating China, India may have changed the space race

India’s low-cost mission to Mars successfully entered the red planet’s orbit on Wednesday, crowning what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said was a “near impossible” push to become the first nation to complete the trip on its first try. India joins the United States, Russia and Europe in successfully sending probes to orbit or land on Mars, but did so on an astonishingly small budget - $74 million. That’s almost 10 times less than the amount the U.S. space agency NASA spent on sending the Maven spacecraft to Mars.

We kept it low cost, high technology. That is the Indian way of working.

Sandip Bhattacharya, assistant director of B.M. Birla Planetarium

The mission also makes India the first country in Asia to reach Mars, after an attempt by regional rival China failed to leave Earth’s orbit in 2011. The New York Times notes that India won the “Asian Space Race” by cobbling together a a small rocket, a modest 3,000-pound spacecraft and a plan to slingshot around the Earth to gain the speed needed to get there.

History has been created today … Modern India must continue to be a world guru.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi

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