By Fakir Balaji and V. Jagannathan

The Indian Space Research Organisation has already made a name for itself by sending up satellites at one-tenth the cost in western countries - just Rs.3.86 billion ($78.5 million). It has carried 11 sets of scientific instruments into orbit 100 km above the surface of the moon; five of those are built in India, again at a fraction of what they would have cost to build in the west.

With the country excited by the successful launch of the moon mission and ISRO declaring it will send a man to space by 2015, the sky is no longer the limit for Indian explorers.

A perfect launch sent the Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 (literally moon craft) on an epic voyage of discovery to the moon Oct 22, marking a giant scientific leap for India.

After the specially designed 44.4-metre-tall 316-tonne Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, the PSLV C11, took off from the southern Andhra Pradesh coast and placed Chandrayaan-1 in its designated orbit, the spaecraft has been progressively moved further and further from the earth till it entered the lunar orbit Nov 8.

During its two-year odyssey, Chandrayaan-1 will map the moon, prospect for helium-3, an important potential fuel for nuclear fusion, and also look for signs of water.

India is now the sixth country to have sent lunar missions, joining the US, former Soviet Union, Europe, China and Japan. The US has returned to lunar exploration aboard Chandrayaan-1, which is carrying two NASA instruments among the 11 in its payload.

"India has started its journey to the moon," a jubilant G. Madhavan Nair, the chairperson of ISRO, said minutes after the successful launch.

The 1,380-kg Chandrayaan-1 has been behaving perfectly, sending signals down to the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) near Bangalore, according to M.G. Rajasekharan, deputy director of ISTRAC.

Once Chandrayaan-1 is in orbit around the moon just 100 km above it, the spacecraft will drop its Moon Impact Probe (MIP) which will land on the lunar surface carrying India's flag, among many scientific instruments. After that, the spacecraft will also activate its cameras and other instruments on board.

Apart from the two payloads from NASA and five of its own, Chandrayaan-1 also carries three from the European Space Agency (ESA) and one from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

"Chandrayaan-1 aims to achieve its objectives through high resolution imaging of the moon in the visible, near infrared, microwave and x-ray regions of the electromagnetic spectrum," mission director M. Annadurai said.

A three-dimensional atlas of the lunar surface and chemical mapping of the entire lunar surface are the other objectives of the mission.

The successful launch is already making many Indian space scientists working abroad think of returning home for a promising career in ISRO, a top official said.

"Our moon mission has aroused tremendous interest in the scientific community the world over. The launch has made many overseas Indian space scientists think of returning and working in our organisation to further their career prospects," the official told IANS.

Enquiries for job prospects in the space agency had started since the Oct 22 launch of Chandrayaan-1. Many persons of Indian origin (PIOs) currently working in NASA, the European Space Agency or at Kourou in French Guiana began their careers in ISRO.

The 36-year-old ISRO, headquartered in the southern city of Bangalore, with multiple locations across the country, has a total workforce of 16,500, including about 10,000 scientists and engineers.

To ensure a steady stream of skilled manpower to its various departments, ISRO has started a university at Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala state, this academic year where about 150 students with science background are offered a five-year course in space technology and applications.

ISRO is also starting an institute to train astronauts for its planned first manned space mission by 2015. "Bangalore is our chosen destination to set up a state-of-the-art institute to train astronauts for our manned space mission," Nair said while showing the media around the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) at Byalalu, about 40 km from Bangalore.

With all this, American magazine Newsweek said in the wake of the Chandrayaan-1 launch: "The United States and Europe may have beaten ISRO to the moon, but India's vision might just show the way for mankind's next giant leap."