Prime Minister Narendra Modi was at ISRO’s Mission Control Centre, Bangalore, in the morning of September 24, 2014, to witness the tense moments as Mangalyaan, the Indian Mars-bound spacecraft was cozily settling into a Martian orbit with clockwork precision. He profusely complimented ISRO for achieving the “nearimpossible” Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) within a short time of 15 months and on a meagre budget of Rs. 450 Crore. The ‘Mars’ and ‘Mariner’ series of spacecraft of the then Soviet Union and the USA respectively started leaving for Mars in the 1960s. There have so far been over 50 Mars missions. The success rate happens to be as low as 35% !

   Creditably, our MOM succeeded in the very first attempt itself. When Mangalyaan arrived there, were already spacecraft such as MAVEN, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey (of USA) and Mars Express (Europe) orbiting Mars. There were also two functioning US....