BENGALURU: Veteran space scientist G Madhavan Nair said on Thursday the Chandrayaan-3 mission to the moon should succeed in all respects so that India can cross a major milestone in space exploration, and described the planned soft landing on the lunar surface as a very difficult and complex maneuver.

Speaking to PTI, the former Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, said the mission is an important milestone for ISRO, and noted that the national space agency had made a number of simulations and strengthened the systems to resolve the problem faced during Chandrayaan-2 lander's soft- landing, which was unsuccessful, nearly four years ago.

''This moment I can only say that this mission should succeed in all respects so that we will cross a major milestone in space exploration'', said Nair, under whose six year tenure as ISRO Chairman and Secretary in the Department of Space from 2003, as many as 25 successful missions were accomplished.

On the soft-landing which the ISRO planned to attempt on August 23 or 24, he said ''It's a very difficult maneuver, very very complex maneuver and we are doing it for the first time in an unknown territory and to that extent there is lot of anxiety, we have to wait and see.'' Nair also had a word of caution ahead of the launch of the Chandrayaan-3 mission on Friday.

''Normally nothing should go wrong. In this game, we can't say. It's a big event with so many sub-systems and components working in unison. Even if a minor glitch happens anywhere we can get into a problem, we really have to be cautious,'' he said. ''Right now, pre-launch preparations are going on. I hope they will look at all aspects carefully and don't brush aside any anomaly if at all they come across.''