India’s Mars Orbiter ‘Mangalyaan‘ was inserted into a highly elliptical orbit around Mars on 24th September, 2014. This makes India the first country in the world to successfully undertake a mission to Mars in its first attempt.
India is only the fourth country to successfully send a satellite to Mars. The others being US, Russia and the European Union. What makes this an even bigger achievement is the fact that it was successful in its first attempt and cost a fraction of the cost of other missions. For instance, the current US mission, MAVEN, cost $671 million over 9-times the cost of Mangalyaan, which is a mere $74 million.
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