India is rejoicing at joining an elite club by planting its flag on the moon as the country’s space agency released the first pictures of the cratered surface taken by its maiden lunar mission.
A probe sent late last week from the orbiting mother spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 took pictures and gathered other data India needs for a future moon landing as it landed at the moon’s south pole, said Indian Space Research Organization spokesman B.R. Guruprasad.
The TV set-sized probe, painted in the green-white-and-orange colours of the Indian flag, made a “precise-to-the-second” landing on the lunar surface, the ISRO said.
Politicians across the spectrum buried their differences to hail the milestone in India’s space history in which the nation joins Russia, the U.S., Japan and the European Space Agency in successfully landing moon probes.
“Today is a historic day for India,” said Sonia Gandhi, head of the ruling Congress Party. Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party leader Lal Krishna Advani called it an event “to be recorded in golden letters.”
Former president and rocket scientist APJ Abdul Kalam said the landing of the probe — which coincided with the anniversary of the birth of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru — “will kindle a dream in children.”

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