AlHijjah 29, 1434, Nov 3, 2013, SPA -- Five years after it sent the cheapest-ever mission to the moon, India is set to launch a Mars mission for 80 million dollars, less than half the cost of a Boeing Dreamliner, dpa reported. Mangalyaan, the Mars orbiter mission of India's space programme, is scheduled to launch Tuesday and a successful voyage and orbit insertion - about 300 days away - would make it the first Asian nation to reach the red planet. "All systems are on go," national space agency spokesman DP Karnik said. "We are expecting that in about 280 days including course corrections we will achieve a Mars orbit insertion." Only the United States' NASA and the European Space Agency have managed to launch successful missions to Mars. About 50 per cent of all missions have ended in failure. "If India manages to insert a fully operational spacecraft into the Mars orbit, that alone would be a tremendous achievement," says Emily Lakdawalla of The Planetary Society, a US-based organisation that advocates for space research and exploration. The spacecraft will carry a 25-kilogram payload of instruments and imaging equipment to study the atmosphere and surface of Mars.
