India has launched its first mission to Mars on Tuesday at 02:38pm (0908 GMT) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre here in Andhra Pradesh. 

 

The spacecraft was carried onboard the indigenous PSLV-C25 rocket which will inject it into Earth's orbit after 40 minutes from lift-off

The Mars Orbiter Mission, informally known as "Mangalyaan", was announced 15 months ago by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shortly after a Chinese probe flopped when it failed to leave earth's atmosphere. 

The timing led to speculation that India was seeking to make a point to its militarily and economically superior neighbour, despite denials from ISRO. 

"We are in competition with ourselves in the areas that we have charted for ourselves," ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan said last week. "Each country has its own priorities." 

The 350-tonne launch vehicle will orbit earth for nearly a month, building up the necessary velocity to break free from our planet's gravitational pull. 

Only then will it begin the second stage of its nine-month journey which will test India's scientists to the full, five years after they sent a probe called Chandrayaan to the moon. 

More than half of all Mars projects have failed, including China's in 2011 and Japan's in 2003. Only the United States, Russia and the European Union have successfully reached there. 

The total cost of the project is just 4.5 billion rupees ($73 million), a fraction of foreign equivalents. 

There have been recent setbacks for India, however, including when Chandrayaan lost contact with its controllers in 2009 and when a new larger launch vehicle blew up after take-off in 2010. 

India has never before attempted an inter-planetary journey which has required the development of technology enabling the probe to run autonomously. Communication signals take 12 minutes to travel between Earth and Mars. 

"The biggest problem is to understand the navigation issue from the earth's orbit to the Martian orbit," ISRO chief Radhakrishnan said. 

ISRO said that its technology has helped with economic development through satellites which monitor weather and water resources, or enable communication in remote parts of the country. 

The Bangalore-based organisation and its 16,000 staff also share their rocket technology with the state-run defence body responsible for India's rapidly evolving missile programme. 

The United States is the only nation that has successfully sent robotic explorers to land on Mars, the most recent being Curiosity, a nearly one-tonne vehicle which touched down in August 2012. 

One of its discoveries appeared to undercut the purpose of the Indian mission which is to find evidence of methane which would lend credence to the idea of Mars supporting a primitive form of life. 

A study of data from Curiosity published in September found that the rover had detected only trace elements of methane in the Martian atmosphere. 

"Remember that it (Curiosity's methane reading) is for a single spot. One point doesn't make it a story for the whole planet," said Goswami, who was lead scientist for the moon mission. 

NASA, which will launch its own probe to study Mars on November 18, is helping ISRO with communications. Two ships stationed in the Pacific will also assist with monitoring. 

The Mars Orbiter is expected to reach Mars' orbit on September 14, 2014. (ZEE News)