India scripts history with Chandrayaan-3: Know what joyous scientists had to say

India scripted history on Wednesday in the space exploration, as it attained the reputation to be the only nation in the entire world to mark physical presence on the south polar region of the moon. It was at around 6.03 PM on August 23 that ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft made a historic landing flawlessly on the south pole of the lunar surface. 

India’s crucial Chandrayaan-3 mission has brought a momentous stride in the country's space odyssey. As the meticulously crafted rover rolls down on the lunar surface, it rolls bearing the monumental responsibility to resonate with the essence of India by leaving behind imprints, etching the nation’s emblem that too being far away from the planet. 

Chandrayaan-3 symbolises India's unwavering commitment to space exploration

This success symbolises India's unwavering commitment to scientific advancement and tremendous efforts put up by the scientists. As the country and the world celebrates the feast, let us know what the scientists, who carried out the mission said, while talking exclusively to Republic. 

S Somanath, ISRO Chief

It happened as per plan, and so we are extremely happy. We actually captivated what we wanted from the mission. It was never a terror for us at any point of time as we had gone through lots of discussions, calculations, studies and reviews, so that we could make the mission a complete success. The entire team worked day and night to make it happen. 

Global scientists community has always been helpful in any space programme and without them, this wouldn’t have been possible. We are really excited to take up challenges in the coming days with a lot more enthusiasm. 

Nilesh Desai, Director, Space Applications Centre (SAC)

The high precision cameras for Chandrayaan-3 were developed at the Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad. Advanced technology has been used to make the cameras. We have mounted four lander cameras on all four sides of the rover. This will ensure that the rover can regularly feed us from all the four sides from any position, so that we can achieve an all round feed from the lunar surface. The two-level mechanism has successfully operated since the landing and the rover rolling down from the ramp on the lunar surface starts its experiments. 

V Narayanan, Director, LPSC (Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre)

A national community was constituted for failure analysis and I was lucky to be the chairperson to think about the failure of the mission. We analysed and figured out the errors and also recommended all the improvements. Now, together we achieved success today and all are very happy and proud about that. In the next few days, lots of scientific inventions will be carried out by India, which will be further shared with the world as well. Today, we have secured 100 out of 100. 

Next, ISRO is working on Aditya-L1, which is a mission to the Sun, India’s manned space mission Gaganyaan-1, Mangalyaan, so there are a lot more programmes on which we are working. 

M Sankaran, Director, UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC) 

I thank everyone who supported and encouraged us in achieving this dream. We thank everyone, who directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally helped us in this project. Even the unintentional and casual remarks at an unintended point, helped in igniting our thoughts to achieve the target and touch the height. We welcome such remarks and criticism, which will definitely help in minimizing the loopholes and achieve many more successes in space exploration. 

ISRO today’s success has put the bar and responsibility higher than before, where nothing less than this will inspire. This happened because the entire team behind the mission kept living, eating, sleeping and thinking about the Chandrayaan for the last four years. We are further working to put the spacecraft on Mars, on Venus and also working on manned missions to space.

Kalapana K, Deputy Project Director, Chandrayaan-3

This will remain to be the most memorable and happiest moment for the entire Chandrayaan-3 team. We have achieved our goal flawlessly. Starting from rebuilding and reconfiguration of the mission to successfully landing on the south pole of the moon, it was a breathe-in and breathe-out for our team. I thank each one, who lent minutest of the help from any departments in achieving the feat.