After Chandrayaan-3 touched down on the Moon, the Congress on Wednesday said it is a collective success of every Indian and ISRO's achievement reflects a saga of continuity and is truly fantastic.
India's ambitious third Moon mission's spacecraft Chandrayaan-3 after the launch on July 14, had entered into lunar orbit or the Moon's orbit on August 5.
Only three countries (United States, Russia and China) have successfully landed spacecraft on the airless lunar surface.
This camera that assists in locating a safe landing area -- without boulders or deep trenches -- during the descent is developed by Ahmedabad-based Space Applications Centre (SAC), a major research and development centre of ISRO.
Former National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Official Mike Gold has said Chandrayaan-3's success is a triumph of Indian innovation, human capital and the capabilities that will take India even further.
The primary goal of HysIS, whose mission life is five years, is to study the earth's surface in visible near infrared and shortwave infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
India performed yet another space feat on Wednesday when the Indian Space Research Organisation launched a record 104 satellites into orbit from Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, something no other country has done before.
Indian Space Research Organisation's plan to soft land Chandrayaan-2's Vikram module on the Lunar surface did not go as per script in the early hours of Saturday, with the lander losing communication with ground stations during its final descent.
"Chandrayaan-2 is not the end of story. Our plans on Aditya L1 solar mission, human spaceflight programme are on track. A large number of advance satellite launches are planned in the coming months. SSLV will make its maiden flight sometimes in December or January. Testing of 200 ton semi-cryo engine is expected to begin shortly. Work is on to provide NAVIC signals on mobile phones, which will open the path to develop large number of applications for societal needs," he added.
Here is a glimpse of the journey of India's third lunar exploration venture has taken so far.
Aditya-L1 is the first Indian space-based observatory that will study the Sun from a halo orbit around the first Sun-Earth Lagrangian point (L1), which is located roughly 1.5 million km from the Earth.
The Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the Moon after it spun into an uncontrolled orbit, Russia's Roscosmos space agency said on August 20.
The mission objectives of Chandrayaan-3 are to demonstrate a safe and soft landing on the lunar surface, to demonstrate rover roving on the Moon, and to conduct in-situ scientific experiments.
ISRO chief's comments came after NASA said that it had found the remains of the Vikram lander by its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and credited the discovery to Chennai-based amateur astronomer and engineer Shanmuga Subramanium.
The counselling session was likely to begin in the first week of July. However, the counselling authorities had not notified any date or schedule.
Preparations are in the final stages by the Chennai-headquartered space-tech startup Agnikul Cosmos for the maiden launch of India's first-ever private launchpad and the second rocket launch by a private sector player.
On Thursday, scientists sent the 1,380 kg spacecraft to its next destination -- highly elliptical orbit of 300 km perigee and 1.6 lakh km apogee respectively. This will be followed by three more orbit-transfer exercises.
The ISRO said that 90 to 95 per cent of the mission objectives have been accomplished, notwithstanding the loss of communication with the lander.
ISRO needs next generation launchers and new facilities to manufacture and launch them.
ISRO launched 12 Indian, 22 foreign satellites and successfully flight-tested India's first winged-body aerospace vehicle.
The space agency had earlier announced that the launch is tentatively scheduled at 09:28 hrs IST on November 25, subject to weather conditions.
GSLV-MK III, which uses a homegrown cryogenic engine, has to do at least two more launches before it begins commercial operations, report Raghu Krishnan and T E Narasimhan.
Here is ISRO's SAC Director, Nilesh M Desai explains the crucial stage of soft landing.
Modi gave these directions during a meeting to review the preparedness of the Gaganyaan mission and the first demonstration flight of the crew escape system test vehicle scheduled for October 21.
The website of Indian Space Research Organisation's commercial arm Antrix Corporation Limited was reportedly hacked on Sunday and the space agency said efforts are on to set it right.
The soft landing of the spacecraft is planned for late August. The mission is expected to be supportive to future interplanetary missions.
In his address, the air chief marshal underlined that with a massive surge of new technologies and opening up of space to private players, there is a "disruption in the established scheme of things".
A mysterious flying object has reportedly been sighted by shepherds over Indian Space Research Organisation's Mahendragiri centre and neighbouring forest areas.
'When a Project Director is appointed, the whole organization -- including the Chairman ISRO -- works for his success. It is a lesson that has been of abiding value all through the other projects I have worked on,' recalls the late President, one of the earliest pioneers at ISRO.
It also carries equipment for meteorological data relay and satellite based search and rescue services being provided by earlier INSAT satellites.
Taken from the Indian Remote Sensing Satellite hovering over space, the image shared by ISRO on Sunday shows the grand new temple which will be inaugurated on January 22.
According to the space agency, Chandra's Surface Thermophysical Experiment measured the temperature profile of the lunar topsoil around the south pole, to understand the thermal behaviour of the Moon's surface.
Scientists also expressed the hope that any technical problem will be sorted out by ISRO, and the mission will be launched successfully.
When asked if it would be possible to achieve the Gaganyaan mission with the given time frame, Sivan said, "Yes, we are not doing this for the first time, and we are also not starting the mission from the scratch. We are already on the job," adding that several important procedures, like the crew module, crew escape systems, environment control and life support systems, had already been completed.
The first Trajectory Correction Manoeuvre of India's maiden mission to Mars was on Wednesday carried out successfully by Indian Space Research Organisation scientists on the spacecraft, which is presently travelling some 2.9 million km away from Earth.
A S Kiran Kumar, chief of ISRO, said the mission was unsuccessful because the satellite housed within the heat sink could not be injected.
Indian Space Research Organisation has built a supercomputer, which is to be India's fastest in terms of theoretical peak performance of 220 TeraFLOPS (220 Trillion Floating Point Operations per second).
So, if ISRO is able to revive them as the Sun rises on the Moon again, information that is derived from experiments that could once again be conducted by the Chandrayaan-3 payloads would be a "bonus".
The move is part of recommendations made by a task force on the use of space technology in improving border management which have been accepted by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
The weight of the space station is likely to be 20 tonnes.
