India launched a Red Planet-bound spacecraft into sky today; if the mission is successful it will make the nation only the fourth in the world to reach Mars.
Space Center employees called the Nov. 5 takeoff a "textbook launch," USA Today reported.
"Capturing and igniting the young minds of India and across the globe will be the major return from this mission," mission director P. Kunhikrishnan said from the launch site, USA Today reported.
The craft is expected to travel for 300 days, and should reach Mars by 2014, the BBC reported.
Some believe the launch of MOM, also known as Mangalyaan (Mars-craft), is part of a space race going on in Asia.
"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," Professor Andrew Coates, of the University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory, told the BBC.
Members of the Indian Space Research Organization have their fingers crossed the craft will reach its destination. The craft is expected to slowly raise up in short burns before it "slingshots" to Mars, USA Today reported.
"The biggest challenge will be precisely navigating the spacecraft to Mars," K. Radhakrishnan, chairman of the Indian Space and Research Organization, said. "We will know if we pass our examination on Sept. 24, 2014."
The cost of the mission ($72 million) has been criticized, since there is a widespread hunger problem in India, but the country's space researchers have argued the program actually creates jobs.
"These missions are important. These are things that give Indians happiness and bragging rights," Raghu Kalra of the Amateur Astronomers Association Delhi, told USA Today. "Even a poor person, when he learns that my country is sending a mission to another planet, he will feel a sense of pride for his country, and he will want to make it a better place."
WATCH:
