India's satellite "Mangalyaan" has successfully entered orbit around Mars, making India the fourth nation to be capable of such a feat as well as the first Asian nation to make it to the Red Planet. According to BBC News, only the US, Russia, and Europe have previously sent missions to Mars, and India has succeeded on its first attempt - an achievement that has never been done before.

The chances of reaching Mars are not high to begin with - of the 51 past attempts to reach Mars, only 21 have succeeded. In 1999, Japan tried and failed, and in 2012, China did the same.

 Furthermore, the mission was also one of the cheapest interplanetary missions ever. At a budget of $74 million, the mission cost less to complete than the filming of the Hollywood movie "Gravity."  The New York Times reports that NASA's simultaneous mission with the Maven spacecraft cost $671 million.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was beaming with pride Wednesday morning, and hailed the event as "a shining symbol of what we are capable of as a nation." In a televised news conference, Modi stated, "The odds were stacked against us...when you are trying to do something that has not been attempted before, it is a leap into the unknown. And space is the biggest unknown out there," conveying the difficulty of the mission.

Mr. Modi also made sure to congratulate the scientists that made the mission possible. He stated, "Today, all of India should celebrate our scientists. Schools, colleges should applaud this. If our cricket team wins a tournament, the nation celebrates. Our scientists' achievement is greater," further urging his country to congratulate the achievement.

C. Uday Bhaksar, an analyst for the Society for Policy Studies in New Delhi, commented, "Our success on Mars is a crucial marketing opportunity for low-cost technological know-how, which is what we do really well...India's space program spent peanuts, and they got it done." It seems that India has won the Asian space race.