Click to play videoBangalore: The Chandrayaan mission is a grand success with the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) of the spacecraft landing on the moon Friday evening.
Exactly at 2231 hours IST, MIP touched down on the moon surface, making India the fourth nation in the world to land on the moon.
"We have given the moon to India,” chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation, Dr G Madhavan Nair beamed.
As planned, at 2206 Hrs IST, the MIP detached from mother spacecraft Chandrayaan-I. Twenty five minutes and a hundred km later, it touched the moon's soil.
The tense faces at the ISRO command station in Bangalore broke into smiles.
Former president Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, the man behind the MIP, was also there to witness the history being created in the field of Indian space science.
“I am sure, ISRO chairman will see to it that in 15-50 years, our astronauts will land on the moon and walk on its surface. Not just that, they will walk on the surface of Mars," Kalam said.
Soaring high above, Chandrayaan filmed every minute of the MIP's descent and relayed it to the command station back home.
ISRO's top scientists celebrated victory over moon with thunderous applause.
While many would think that scientists can now heave a sigh of relief, but the work at the command station has only just begun. With all the experiments getting ready to extract more information about the moon, new frontiers are all set to be conquered.
“We are going to have a satellite called Aditya for studying the effect of solar radiation on Earth's atmosphere and Ionosphere. We are in the process of implementing that. Within two years, it will be on,” Dr Madhavan says.
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