India has blasted off on its first mission to Mars as it bids to become the only Asian nation to reach the Red Planet.
The rocket carrying the unmanned probe took off at 9.08am GMT from the Sriharikota spaceport off the southeast coast.
Ahead of launch, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said everything was "progressing well" and that the weather was "normal".
The Mars Orbiter Mission, known as Mangalyaan, was announced 15 months ago by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, shortly after a Chinese probe flopped when it failed to leave Earth's atmosphere.
The timing led to speculation that India was seeking to make a point to its militarily and economically superior neighbour, despite denials from ISRO.
The probe is about the size of a small car "We are in competition with ourselves in the areas that we have charted for ourselves," ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan said last week.
"Each country has its own priorities."
The gold-coloured probe, which weighs 1,350kg, is about the size of a small car and is being carried by a 350-tonne rocket much smaller than American or Russian equivalents.
Lacking the power to fly directly, it will orbit Earth for nearly a month, building up the necessary velocity to break free from its gravitational pull.
Scientists prepared the probe at a facility in Bangalore Only then will it begin the second stage of its nine month journey which will test India's scientists to the full.
The project comes in at just 4.5bn rupees (£45.5m) but India has still been criticised over the cost. The country still has millions of people living in poverty.
UK financial aid to India, worth about £200m, is currently being phased out and will end by 2015.
More than half of all Mars projects have failed, including China's in 2011 and Japan's in 2003. Only the US, Russia and the European Union have successfully reached the planet.
Nasa, which will launch its own probe to study Mars on November 18, is helping ISRO with communications. Two ships stationed in the Pacific will also assist with monitoring.
India has had some success with space missions and sent its Chandrayaan probe to the moon in November 2008.
However, it lost contact with the probe the following year.
Reaching the Red Planet is considered a far tougher challenge as its orbit means its distance from Earth varies between 31 and 249 million miles.
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