India’s Chandrayaan-3 makes soft landing on moon; ISRO Chief S Somnath says it was a lesson learnt from failure, and today we succeeded
India has created history as it became the first country to land on the South Pole of the lunar surface. The Vikram lander had a flawless touchdown at a site close to the lunar south pole. This important breakthrough has broken the barrier in space exploration for India.
The anxiety was palpable in the Command centre for 20 minutes before landing, ISRO initiated the Automatic Landing Sequence (ALS). It enabled the Vikram Landing Module to take charge and use its onboard computers and logic to identify a favourable spot and make a soft landing on the lunar surface. After the successful touch, there was jubilation everywhere. The ISRO team celebrated by shaking hands and by thumbs-up gestures. ISRO Chairman S Somnath thanked everyone for their support. He said that it was a lesson learnt from failure and today they succeeded. He added that they are looking forward to the next 14 days from now for the Chandrayaan-3 lander and Rover on the lunar surface. The Chairman has informed that Rover Pragyan will roll down after reviewing the data availed from the lander.
The Project Director of Chandrayaan 3 mission P Veeramuthuvel thanked the entire Project Chandrayaan 3 team for the success today. He said that the lander had flawless touchdown and India had demonstrated its capabilities of soft landing on the Moon.
The Associate Project Director of Chandrayaan 3 mission Kalpana said that it was the most memorable moment for her and her team and she would never forget this moment which has come after four years of hard work.
The Mission Director M Sreekanth thanked the entire team of ISRO for achieving this difficult task of softlanding on the lunar surface.
After soft landing of Vikram lander on Moon, ISRO command centre has established the communication link between the Chandrayaan-3 Lander and MOX-ISTRAC, Bengaluru. After this, it obtained the images from the Lander Horizontal Velocity Camera taken during the descent. The pictures of lunar surface at close proximity are tweeted by ISRO.