On November 5, 2013, India launched Mangalyaan, a spacecraft designed to travel 680 million km to reach Mars next year and study its atmosphere. The scientific world was amazed at the low cost (Rs 460 crore or $69 million) of the mission and the short time — about a year — in which it was built. Mangalyaan is now cruising towards the Red Planet and destined to reach it on September 24, 2014.
Starting in the 1960s, 46 spacecrafts have been launched to go to Mars of which two-thirds have failed. The Soviet space program, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) were the only three entities that had attempted the difficult journey, till India joined this elite club.
The Indian space authorities call it a 'technology demonstration' project, that is, it shows India's capability to build and guide spacecraft for inter-planetary travel. Scientists are expecting the Mangalyaan's instruments to check the atmosphere of Mars for traces of methane, which would indicate possibility of life, now or in the past.
Defying dengue
In May 2013, a team of Indian scientists announced that they had finally achieved a breakthrough in developing a vaccine for the dreaded dengue virus. For nearly five decades, top pharma scientists had been unable to come up with an effective vaccine.
There are four types of dengue viruses and any vaccine needs to be able to fight all four simultaneously. While other researchers were trying the usual path of using a weakened virus to develop the vaccine, scientists from the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) in New Delhi developed the first phase of a vaccine from yeast.
"These are virus like particles that trigger off the body's immune system. Unlike vaccines made from weak viruses, our vaccine is completely non-infectious," Navin Khanna, lead researcher from ICGEB told TOI. Dengue virus is transmitted by mosquitoes and over 100 million people are struck by it every year. India is one of the worst afflicted countries with over 55,000 cases reported this year only.
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Taking off: India's successful forays in 2013
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