Over nine million people tuned it to the the screens to witness the successful lunar landing of India's ambitious moon mission Chandrayaan-3 on Wednesday, asianet news reported.
According to the report, over 355.6K people watched the telecast live on Facebook. Apart from those who viewed the Chandrayaan-3 landing live on ISRO's official broadcast channels, many people across the globe witnessed the historic moment. In India, Doordarshan TV was the official broadcaster of the momentous occasion.
Over 7,50,822 people were watching the Chandrayaan-3's landing on Moon live on Doordarshan's YouTube channel, the report added.
In a giant leap for its space programme, India's Moon mission Chandrayaan-3 touched down on the lunar south pole at 6.04 pm today, propelling the country to an exclusive club of four and making it the first country to land on the uncharted surface.
Shortly after the landing, the Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO) said on Wednesday night that communication link was established between the lander and the space agency's Mission Operations Complex (MOX) in Bengaluru.
The space agency also released images from the Lander Horizontal Velocity Camera(LHVC) taken during the descent to the Moon's surface.
{{/usCountry}}The space agency also released images from the Lander Horizontal Velocity Camera(LHVC) taken during the descent to the Moon's surface.
{{/usCountry}}"India is on the moon!" prime minister Narendra Modi who is currently attending the 15th BRICS Summit in Johannesburg said. He watched the live telecast and as soon as the touchdown happened he sported a big smile and waved the tricolour.
With this touchdown on the Moon to script history after a flawless 41-day voyage and less than a week after a Russian lander headed to the lunar south pole crashed. India has become the fourth country- after the US, China and Russia – to have successfully landed on the moon’s surface, it has earned a place in record books as the first to touchdown on the south side of Earth’s only natural satellite.
India's third attempt to the moon was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota on July 14.A GSLV Mark 3 (LVM 3) heavy-lift launch vehicle was used for the launch of the spacecraft that was placed in the lunar orbit.
After the launch, ISRO had been maintaining that the health of the spacecraft remained “normal”. On August 5, Chandrayaan-3 was successfully inserted into the lunar orbit.
The Chandrayaan-3 mission is the follow-up to the Chandrayaan-2 mission of 2019, when the Vikram lander crashed into the lunar surface.
(With inputs from agencies)