India Mars mission to be launched between 2013 and 2015

NEW DELHI, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- A day after its lunar mission was abandoned, India's state-run space agency Monday said that it will launch its first mission to Mars sometime between 2013 and 2015.

"We have given a call for proposal to different scientific communities. Depending on the type of experiments they propose, we will be able to plan the mission. The mission is at conceptual stage and will be taken up after Chandrayaan-2. Once in two years you get an opportunity for the mission," Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman G. Madhavan Nair told local media in Panaji, capital of the western state of Goa.

India Sunday formally called off the Chandrayaan-1 moon mission, with the ISRO losing its radio contact with the craft.

"There was no possibility of retrieving it. (But) it was a great success. We could collect a large volume of data, including more than 70,000 images of the moon. In that sense, 95 percent of the objective was completed," Nair said when announcing the formal abandoning of the mission.