An Indian spacecraft affectionately nicknamed MOM reached Mars orbit on Wednesday, beating India's Asian rivals to the Red Planet and outdoing the Americans, the Soviets and the Europeans in doing so on a maiden voyage and a shoestring budget. -- NY Times

In an attempt to save money on costly Indian engineers, India outsourced the design and execution of its space project to illegal aliens in the United States. "There is no cheaper work force than the unwelcome immigrants of the United States," explained Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "And you can pay them off the books," he added.

The illegal aliens making up the Indian Mars Orbiter Mission task force took time off from American janitorial work, babysitting, and house cleaning in order to finish the project. All of them had been highly competent aeronautical engineers in their countries of origin, Modi noted.

None of the members of the alien task force were Indian, because all of the Indian engineers living in the United States did IT work for major U.S. corporations, sources said.

Parenthetically, many U.S. engineers have been emigrating to India in order to find work. Most of them end up working in customer service call centers.