India launched its first mission to the moon on Wednesday, rocketing the Chandrayaan-1 into the dawn sky for a 2-year mission to redraw maps of the lunar surface.

 

“Dear colleagues and friends, it’s a historic moment as far as India is concerned. We have started our journey to the Moon, and the first leg of the journey has gone perfectly well.”

 

Today, only the US, Russia, European Space Agency, Japan and China have set missions to the moon. The launch will put India in an elite group of nations with the scientific know-how to reach the moon, while heating up a burgeoning Asian space race.

 

As India’s economy has boomed in recent years, the government has sought to convert new-found wealth built on its high-tech sector into political and military cloud and stake a claim as a world leader.

 

The Chandrayaan-1 or “Moon Craft” will join Japanese and Chinese crafts in orbit around the moon.  Among the goals of the mission are mapping the moon and scanning for mineral deposits under the surface. Of the 11 research instruments sent up on this Indian mission, NASA has two on board, including a mini synthetic-aperture radar that can search for ice under the lunar poles, an important resource for any human settlements. India plans to follow up this mission with landing a rover on the moon in 2011, and eventually, a manned space program, though this has not yet been authorized.