India celebrates putting satellite into orbit around Mars

India triumphed in its first interplanetary mission, placing a satellite into orbit around Mars on Wednesday morning and catapulting the country into an elite club of deep-space explorers Scientists broke into wild cheers as the Mars Orbiter Mission, affectionately nicknamed MOM, manoeuvred into its designated place around the red planet in an operation described as "flawless". The success marks a milestone for India's space program in demonstrating that it can conduct complex missions and act as a global launch pad for commercial, navigational and research satellites. India was particularly proud that MOM was developed with homegrown technology and for a bargain price of about US$75 million. Nasa's much larger Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, or Maven, which reached its position around the red planet on Sunday, cost nearly 10 times as much at US$671 million.