“Their hard work has made country proud”: Amit Shah congratulates scientists for successful lunar mission

New Delhi [India], August 23 (ANI): Lauding India’s successful lunar mission, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday congratulated the scientists and said that their hard work has made the country proud.
"I extend my heartiest congratulations to the 140 crore people on this big achievement in the space sector in this Amrit Kaal. I also congratulate Team Chandrayaan as their hard work has made India proud...,” Amit Shah said while talking to ANI.
The union minister further hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said, “PM Modi brought in a new space policy, under which 55 spacecraft missions were launched in the last decade.”
The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Chandrayaan-3 mission landed successfully after a 40-day journey starting from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota.
India's success in landing the spacecraft on the Moon's south pole comes days after a Russian probe Luna-25 crashed in the same region.
Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft put down the Vikram lander on the lunar surface, descending and tilted to a horizontal position ahead of landing.
Union Minister and BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhan also lauded the landing of ISRO’s ‘Chandrayaan-3’ and called it a great achievement in India’s ‘Amritkal’.
“I congratulate the scientists of India, ‘Chandrayaan-3’ is a great achievement in India’s ‘Amritkal’. Prime Minister Narendra Modi rightfully said – ‘the moon is ours now, it is no longer far from us.’ Our dreams have been fulfilled today,” the minister said.
“The entire country is celebrating the victory today. The Prime Minister is a citizen. As he said, no matter where he is, his heart belongs to India. Even though he is abroad he congratulated us. In return, we are grateful to him,” he added.
"India is on the moon!" Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is currently attending the 15th BRICS Summit in Johannesburg said. He watched the live telecast and as soon as the touchdown happened he sported a big smile and waved the tricolour.
ISRO had been releasing a series of up-close images of the moon, assisting the lander module in determining its position (latitude and longitude) by matching them against an onboard moon reference map.
The spacecraft was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota on July 14. A GSLV Mark 3 (LVM 3) heavy-lift launch vehicle was used for the launch of the spacecraft that was placed in the lunar orbit on August 5 and since then it was through a series of orbital manoeuvres been lowered closer to the moon’s surface.
Ever since the July 14 launch, ISRO had been maintaining that the health of the spacecraft remained “normal”. On August 5, Chandrayaan-3 was successfully inserted into the lunar orbit with multiple key manoeuvres thereafter.
Then on August 17, the mission marked another giant leap in its lunar quest as the 'Vikram' lander module of the spacecraft successfully separated from the propulsion module on Thursday. The Chandrayaan-3 mission's lander is named after Vikram Sarabhai (1919–1971), who is widely regarded as the father of the Indian space programme. (ANI)