Four years after launching its maiden Moon mission, India has plans to launch a small unmanned satellite to Mars. Science writer Pallava Bagla reflects on what this means for India and the world.
After its successful unmanned Chandrayaan mission to the Moon in 2008 that brought back the first-ever clinching evidence of the presence of water there, India is headed for the Red Planet.
India's mission to Mars will be launched in November 2013 from its space port at Sriharikota on the coast of the Bay of Bengal using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket, which has undertaken 21 successful flights, including the Chandrayaan and Moon Impactor lunar probes.
The government has allocated about$41m for the mission - the total costof the mission will be more than$100m.
Critics of the mission believe the government is being profligate at a time when the country is recovering from two massive power failures and is facing a drought due to weak monsoon rains.
A top government official who prefers anonymity said: "We have heard these arguments since the 1960s about India being a poor country not needing or affording a space program.
"If we can't dare dream big it would leave us as hewers of wood and drawers of water! India is today toobig to be just living on the fringes of high technology."
The government says the satellite which will be placed in an orbit around Mars will be able to carry nearly 25kg of scientific payload on board.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) suggests that the tentative objectives of the mission will be to focus on remotely assessing "life, climate, geology, origin and evolution and sustainability of life on the planet".
"This is technology demonstration project, a mission that will announce to the world India has the capability to reach as far away as Mars,"an Isro officia
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