What an incredible moment: Sundar Pichai on India’s historic Moon feat

New Delhi, Aug 23:  Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Wednesday congratulated the Indian space agency and the country for the successful landing of Chandrayaan 3 on the Moon.

“What an incredible moment! Congratulations to @isro for the successful landing of #Chandrayaan3 on the moon,” he said in a post on X.com. 

“Today India became the first country to successfully achieve a soft landing on the southern polar region of the moon,” he added.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) established a communication link with its moon lander that is now on the lunar soil.

“The communication link is established between the Chandrayaan-3 Lander and MOX-ISTRAC, Bengaluru,” ISRO said.

The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft comprises a propulsion module (weighing 2,148 kg), a lander (1,723.89 kg) and a rover (26 kg).

Earlier, ISRO had said the moon lander had established communication links with the Chandrayaan-2 mission’s orbiter that is circling the moon since 2019.

In other words, the Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter will be the backup communication channel for ISRO with the lander.

The mission life of the lander and the rover is 1 Lunar day or 14 Earth days, ISRO said.

The Chandrayaan-3 was put into orbit on July 14 in a copybook style by India's heavy lift rocket LVM3.

The spacecraft completed orbiting around the Earth and headed towards the moon on August 1.