India’s ‘Mangalyaan’ is the 1st Asian spacecraft to reach Mars

Costing 10 times less than NASA’s MAVEN mission, India’s Mangalyaan spacecraft reaches Mars on its maiden voyage.

India’s low-cost mission to Mars successfully enters the red planet’s orbit on Sept 24, crowning what Prime Minister Narendra Modi says was a “near impossible” push to become the only country to complete the trip on its maiden attempt. The Mars Orbiter Mission was achieved on a budget of US$74 million, almost 10 times less than the amount the US space agency NASA spent on sending the Maven spacecraft to Mars.