india in moon

Ending days of tension caused by heavy rains, Chandrayaan-1, India’s maiden moon mission, took off as planned in a textbook launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, about 80 km north of Chennai, on Wednesday morning. “It is a historic moment for India. We have started our journey to the moon and the first leg has gone perfectly well,“ Dr G. Madhavan Nair, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, said soon after the take-off at 6.22 am. “Our baby is on way to the moon,” said the Chand-rayaan project director, Mr Mylswamy Annadurai. The indigenously built PSLV-CII rocket weighing 1380 kg is carrying a variety of precious payload. It was placed in the earth orbit 18.2 mins after the blast-off and is expected to reach the lunar orbit on November 8. Soon afterwards, Isro scientists will manoeuvre a module to crash-land on the moon to leave the Tricolour on its surface.