TRANSCRIPT
India is celebrating its successful moon landing after its Chandrayann-3 spacecraft landed in the lunar south pole region.
The Chairman of India's Space Research Organisation is Sreedhara Panicker Somanath.
“Respected prime minister greetings, sir we have achieved soft landing on the moon, India is on the moon.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is at summit in South Africa, watched a livestream of the landing.
“For this wonderful moment I want to heartily congratulate 1.4 billion countrymen. My family members, with the hard work and talent of our scientists, India has reached the south pole of the moon where no other country has ever reached."
Border security official Suresh says credit goes to the hard work of India's scientists.
"This happiness cannot be expressed in words. We are happy to our core as the hard work of our scientists has finally paid off. Today we have been successful on moon, our next target is Mars and we shall be successful there as well."
At the United Nations in New York, India's UN Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj described the successful mission as a historic moment for humanity.
''India's Chandrayaan-3 mission successfully landed its Vikram lander module near the south pole of the moon. And what is significant about this is that India has reached the south pole of the moon, where no country in the world could reach to date with the dedication and talent of its scientists. My second point, this achievement not only marks India's presence on the moon, but also symbolises the aspirations of 1.4 billion Indians. Beyond that, it's a historic moment for humanity as we venture into uncharted territory near the moon's south pole."
India's success comes just days after a Russian failure when Moscow's Luna-25 spacecraft lost control and crashed into the Moon.
One of the main objectives of India's two-week mission is to search for water-based ice which scientists say could support humans living on the Moon.
The Managing Director of SpaceTec Partners, Carla Filotico, says if mission's six-wheeled rover manages to find water, it would be a significant discovery.
"This is a very important discovery because if they manage to find it so, as you know that can be an important input to both, to generate possibly oxygen for life there that will, in turn, be also used for potential fuel as well as water for the sustainability of life on the moon but also future missions. So, it is very important. So, that's a gifted discovery that will be done and shared hopefully by India with the rest of the world, will be very important for future space exploration."
The lander and the rover have five scientific instruments which will be used to send data back to Earth
The former chairman of India's Space Research Organisation, K.Sivan says there will be worldwide interest in the data collected.
"Chandrayaan-3 science data is not only for India, it is for the global scientists. So, this data that the scientists will be using globally and they will discover some new-new things from this data. That is why there is global interest there.”
The spacecraft was launched at a cost if about $114 million dollars (6.15 billion rupees) which is far lower than what other countries have spent.
