India achieved its historic feet when the country’s first mission to the Moon was successfully launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation on 22 October 2008 using PSLV-XL rocket from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.
The vehicle was inserted into lunar orbit on 8 November 2008. India researched and developed its own technology to explore the Moon which was actually a major boost to India’s space program.
Chandrayaan-1 made a path-breaking discovery with the detection of water in the vapour form on the lunar surface.
Former ISRO Chief K Madhavan Nair recalled the time when the space agency’s scientists detected a glitch before the launch and rectified the error and later the mission took off as planned.
Chandrayaan-1 also discovered water ice in the North polar region besides detecting magnesium, aluminium and silicon on the lunar surface while global imaging of the moon was another achievement of the mission.
The learnings of Chandrayaan-1 mission helped ISRO for its second interplanetary mission Mangalyaan or Mars Orbiter Mission in 2014.
Chandrayaan-1 was intended not only to be a demonstration of India’s technology in space but also was expected to return scientific information about the moon, according to NASA. Its major goal was to collect data about the moon’s geology, mineralogy and topography.
