Successful Launch of India's First Interplanetary Probe a Major Milestone, Officials Say

With the successful launch of India's first interplanetary probe, the nation's space agency is quickly on its way to becoming the fourth to reach the Red Planet.

The Mars Orbiter Spacecraft took off Tuesday afternoon from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, Andra Pradesh, with launch officials declaring the first phase a success within 45 minutes, according to The Times of India.

"I am happy to announce that the Mars orbiter mission first phase is a success," Indian Space Research Organisation chairman K. Radhakrishnan said regarding the launch, the Times reported.

Though pleased with the event, Radhakrishnan noted it was just the first step in many to come.

"The journey has only begun," he said. "The challenging phase is coming."

The spacecraft will take an estimated 300 days to reach the Red Planet, at which point the probe will begin an analysis of the planet's surface. Topping its to-do list will be pinning down any possible methane in Mars' atmosphere -- something NASA has thus far been unable to do.

According to the AFP, President Pranab Mukherjee called the launch "a significant milestone," while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh offered his best wishes during "the delicate next steps."

"We didn't believe they'd be able to launch this early," Joe Grebowsky, the project scientist for a NASA Mars probe scheduled to launch later this month, told AFP prior to the launch. "If it's successful, it's fantastic."

Japan and China have both tried and failed to put a probe on or in orbit around Mars. China's was launched in late 2011 and lost in space after just a week, while Japan's failed when a malfunctioning valve left it without the fuel it needed to reach its planned trajectory.

Of the launch, Andrew Coates of the University of College London's Space Science Laboratory told the BBC: "I think this mission really brings India to the table of international space exploration. Interplanetary exploration is certainly not trivial to do, and [India] has found some interesting scientific niches to make some measurements in."