Article Posted on : - Sep 25, 2014

WASHINGTON (PTI): Congratulating ISRO for its successful arrival at the Red Planet with the low-cost Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), NASA on Wednesday said it was an "impressive" engineering feat.

"It was an impressive engineering feat, and we welcome India to the family of nations studying another facet of the Red Planet. We look forward to MOM adding to the knowledge the international community is gathering with the other spacecraft at Mars," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said.

India on Wednesday created space history by successfully placing its spacecraft in orbit around the Red Planet in its very first attempt, catapulting the country into an elite club of three nations.

"All space exploration expands the frontiers of scientific knowledge and improves life for everyone on Earth.

We commend this significant milestone for India," Bolden said.

"We congratulate the Indian Space Research Organisation for its successful arrival at Mars with the Mars Orbiter Mission," Bolden said.

Space co-operation between India and the US is expected to be one of the major topics of discussion when Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets US President Barack Obama at the White House next week.

Earlier this month, a top NASA official told US lawmakers that the two space agencies were talking about setting up a Joint Mars Working Group.

Primarily a technology-demonstration mission, MOM includes five science instruments to study the Martian atmosphere, mineralogy and surface features.