BANGALORE: In a giant leap for India's space programme, India's third moon mission Chandrayaan-3 achieved tremendous success as lander Vikram along with the rover Pragyan touched down on the lunar south pole at 6.04 pm Indian Standard Time.

This successful mission of Chandrayaan-3 which was launched on 14 July 2023, at 2:35 pm IST from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, has propelled the country to an exclusive club of four nations including the USA, Russia and China, however, it also makes India the first country to land on the uncharted surface. 

Loud cheers and jubilation filled the command centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Mission Operations Complex in Bengaluru as it relayed the message from the Chandrayaan-3 Mission: 'India, I reached my destination and you too!' 

Moments, after the successful landing was announced by ISRO chairman Sreedhara Panicker Somanath, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, congratulated the team and the country virtually via a video transmission from Johannesburg, declaring, "India is on the moon." PM Modi said, "India made a resolve on the Earth and fulfilled it on the Moon" further adding that this was not only a success for India, but for the world. 

The mood in the command centre was palpably tensed as the powered descent occurred at around 5:45 pm IST as the box-shaped lander, with four landing legs and four landing thrusters of 800 newtons each made its way down to the lunar surface.

However, after a 19-minute powered descent from lunar orbit, it finally landed successfully and the scientist jumped with joy. 

The Vikram lander has touched down near a prime landing site at 69.37 degrees south latitude and 32.35 degrees east longitude, close to the lunar crater Manzinus U. The descent was supported by European Space Tracking (ESTRACK) deep space ground station in New Norcia in Australia.

Notably, Chandrayaan-3 achieved the desired results just less than a week after a similar Russian lander Luna-25 crashed on the surface of the moon after spinning out of control during an orbital manoeuvre.

The last moon mission in 2019, Chandrayaan-2 did not achieve the desired success as the lander was lost while attempting to land on 6th September, although the orbiter is still operational and collecting data. The orbiter from Chandrayaan-2 was synced with Chandrayaan-3 and ISRO transmitted a message, ‘Welcome, buddy!’ signifying that two-way communication had between established between the two landers.