Two days after the Diwali rockets was fired in this part of the country, "the big one" blasted off from the first launch pad in SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota on Tuesday afternoon, firing the ambition of a nation, and the imagination of many others. After 45 minutes, the first phase of India's first Mars mission was pronounced a success.
"I am happy to announce that the Mars orbiter mission first phase is a success," said Indian Space Research Organisation chairman K Radhakrishnan soon after the rocket injected the spacecraft into an Earth orbit about 45 minutes of flight. About 90 minutes after a drizzle raised minor concerns about weather among lay people, the 44.4m PSLV-C25 carrying in its head India's first Mars orbiter, lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at 2.38pm.
The nail-biting, spine chilling, incredible - phase came soon after the third stage of the rocket burned out, and the blip on the tracking screens disappeared. As Isro chairman K Radhakrishnan had explained earlier, the rocket would be on a coasting phase for almost 28 minutes, 10 minutes of which will be a "total blind phase." The mission control witnessed some silent moments during this period. And, when mission director P Kunhikrishnan reported that the first of the two ships in the South Pacific Ocean had picked up signal from the rocket, the scientists lit up.
The Indian space agency's Mars Mission, launching on November 5, is the cheapest by any nation to the red planet! And there are attributes unique to ISRO that enable it to practise frugal engineering at the cutting edge time and again.

When the mission blasted off, it carried a Rs 450-crore price tag way below what NASA, the European Space Agency-ESA, Japan and China spent on their journey to Mars.
One of the cheapest Mars Mission held so far!!!!
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