NEW DELHI: After watching live telecast of moon landing of Vikram lander, President Droupadi Murmu conveyed her congratulatory message to ISRO and everyone associated with Chandrayaan-3 mission.
Taking to Twitter President Droupadi Murmu said, "There are days when history is made. Today, with the successful moon landing of the Chandrayaan-3 mission, our scientists have not only made history, but also remade the idea of geography! It is truly a momentous occasion, the kind of event that happens once in a lifetime, making all Indians proud. I congratulate ISRO and everybody involved in this mission, and wish them greater accomplishments ahead."
President Droupadi Murmu further wrote, "The success of Chandrayaan, I believe, is also a major achievement for the whole of humankind. It shows how India has harnessed its rich traditional knowledge base along with modern science in the service of humanity." India has become the fourth country- after the US, China and Russia – to have successfully landed on the moon’s surface, it has earned a place in record books as the first to touchdown on the south side of Earth’s only natural satellite. India's success in landing the spacecraft on the Moon's south pole comes days after a Russian probe Luna-25 crashed in the same region.
Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft put down the Vikram lander on the lunar surface, descending and tilted to a horizontal position ahead of landing.
"India is on the moon!" Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is currently attending the 15th BRICS Summit in Johannesburg said. He watched the live telecast and as soon as the touchdown happened he sported a big smile and waved the tricolour. ISRO had been releasing a series of up-close images of the moon, assisting the lander module in determining its position (latitude and longitude) by matching them against an onboard moon reference map.
The spacecraft was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota on July 14. A GSLV Mark 3 (LVM 3) heavy-lift launch vehicle was used for the launch of the spacecraft that was placed in the lunar orbit on August 5 and since then it was through a series of orbital manoeuvres been lowered closer to the moon’s surface. Ever since the July 14 launch, ISRO had been maintaining that the health of the spacecraft remained “normal”.
On August 5, Chandrayaan-3 was successfully inserted into the lunar orbit with multiple key manoeuvres thereafter.