India to Launch Mars Mission this Year, Says President

Indian President Pranab Mukherjee announced Thursday that the country will launch its first space mission to Mars this year.

"Several space missions are planned for 2013, including India's first mission to Mars and the launch of our first navigational satellite," Mukherjee said while addressing the Parliament at the start of the Budget session.

The Mars orbiter will be launched in October from the southeastern coast using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. The satellite is expected to be put into the orbit in September next year. The satellite will study the reasons for Mars' loss of atmosphere and find out clues to determine if Martian soil has ever supported microbial life. The cost of the mission is expected to be about $83 million, reports Reuters.

Besides the Mars Orbiter mission, the Indian space agency ISRO is also planning to place into orbit the first of its seven navigational satellites of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS). The system will be India's version of the Global Positioning System (GPS), according to the Press Trust of India.

With the launch of the IRNSS, India will join alongside Europe and China - countries which are working toward creating their own version of the GPS to rival the U.S. version of the system.

India's giant neighbor China has begun to offer commercial services to the public after building its own navigation system called BeiDou. The European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Union (EU) are jointly working to create Europe's global navigational system called Galileo.

India began its first space exploration in 1962. The country's first lunar mission, called Chandrayaan-1, found evidence of water on the moon's surface a few years ago. In September, the space agency launched a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, which was its 100th space mission.