India's Mars Orbiter is Successful Yet Inexpensive: How it Was Done

Other space faring nations may want to take a page out of the Indian Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) playbook. The Indian spacecraft Mangalyaan successfully inserted itself into orbit Wednesday morning. Stunningly, the nation did this at a tenth of the cost of a NASA or European mission, causing some to question just how they did it.

According to the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), they are only the fourth nation to get a satellite to orbit Mars and the first Asian nation to do so, adding the Indian bid into a space-race to the Red Planet that may one day do more than just earn accolades.

As things stand, the Mangalyaan, which simply translates to "Mars-Craft," serves as a "technology demonstrator," showcasing the efficiency and determination of the space organization, which is still very much a fledgling group compared to NASA or Roscosmos. (Scroll to read on...)

And so far, it seems to be truly serving its purpose, gaining international attention simply for the fact that the entire mission, from creation to launch to successful entry, cost a mere 4.5 billion rupees ($74m USD). As BBC News reports, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was even found joking how India's real-life "Martian adventure" was costing less than the fictional Hollywood film "Gravity." For comparison, NASA's Maven, which entered Martian orbit a mere three days before the Mangalyaan, cost the US space agency a whopping $671 million. And stunningly, the two orbiters have similar goals - to measure components in the atmosphere of the Red Planet. However, it's important to note that MAVEN boasts a wide host of international cutting edge and expensive technologies, focusing on how much gas from Mars' atmosphere has been lost to space and what processes drove that loss. The Mangalyaan, on the other hand, is there to really just compliment this work.

The MOM is focusing specifically on measuring methane gas emissions to determine if microbial bugs could potentially be living deep underground on the Red Planet, contributing to a diverse gas cycle. This would be a huge discovery on its own, as scientists have never before been able to rule out this possibility.