We went through a lot of pain and agony, says space chief as ISRO now eyes Mars landing

BENGALURU: ISRO Chairman S Somanath on Wednesday toasted the success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission, crediting it to the pain and agony of all the scientists who persevered on it, and expressed confidence that the space agency would similarly land a spacecraft on Mars in the coming years.

He also acknowledged the contribution of a generation of leadership by the scientists of the country’s space agency for the Chandrayaan-3 mission’s success.

The journey to the Moon is tough and soft-landing is difficult for any nation to achieve today even with the advancement of technology, he said, pointing out that India achieved it in just two missions.

Chandrayaan-2, the first mission with the objective of soft landing on the Moon had a narrow miss, while the Chandrayaan-3 mission was perfectly executed.

Chandrayaan-1’s objective was only to place an an unmanned spacecraft in an orbit around the Moon.

“It (success of Chandrayaan-3 mission) gives us confidence to configure missions to not only go to the Moon, but also to go to Mars, sometimes (perhaps) land on Mars, may be in future go to Venus and other planets,” he said.

Key scientists behind Chandrayaan-2 were also part of the Chandrayaan-3 team, he said.

“Most of the people who were with Chandrayaan-2 are with us helping us to do Chandrayaan-3. They are a part of this, they have gone through such agony. The technology that we have in Chandrayaan-3 is no less complex or inferior to any other technology that goes to the Moon. So, we have the best of the sensors of the world, best in class (equipment) in Chandrayaan-3,” he said, explaining that it was a completely Made-in-India’ mission using world-class components.

Conveying the greetings of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the ISRO team, he said, “The Honourable PM called me and conveyed his greetings to each one of you and your family for the wonderful work you did in ISRO.”