Mumbai: India's spacecraft has beamed back its first photos of Mars, showing its crater-marked surface, as the country glowed with pride Thursday after winning Asia's race to the Red Planet. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) uploaded one of the photos onto its Facebook page, showing an orange surface and dark holes, taken from a height of 7.3 kilometres (4.5 miles).
Read: Mars Orbiter Mission success draws praise from Pakistan
ISRO also posted the photo on Twitter, with the caption "The view is nice up here." A senior ISRO official told AFP several photos have been successfully received, while a spokesman for the government agency said the spacecraft was working well.
Read: Mars Orbiter Mission Project chief Arunan’s wife wants him back on earth
India beat rival neighbour China, whose first attempt flopped in 2011 despite the Asian superpower pouring billions of dollars into its programme. At just $74 million, India's mission cost is less than the estimated $100 million budget of the sci-fi blockbuster "Gravity". It also represents just a fraction of the cost of NASA's $671 million MAVEN spacecraft, which successfully began orbiting the fourth planet from the sun on Sunday. India now joins an elite club of the United States, Russia and Europe who can boast of reaching Mars. More than half of all missions to the planet have ended in failure.
Read: To NASA’s ‘Namaste’, India’s Mangalyaan says ‘Howdy’ on Twitter
Indians, from government ministers to office workers and cricketers poured onto Twitter to show their national pride, while school students celebrated by eating traditional Indian sweets.
With 30 Indian and 40 foreign satellite launches so far, its nearest cheap competition would be China, which is armed with bigger space launchers. ISRO signed an agreement with China National Space Administration on Friday to cooperate in research and development of various satellites.
Despite its success, India has been criticised for spending on space research as millions go hungry.
The view is nice up here. pic.twitter.com/VmAjNI76lm
— ISRO's Mars Orbiter (@MarsOrbiter) September 25, 2014
