President, PM congratulate ISRO on Chandrayaan-1 launch

President Pratibha Patil today congratulated ISRO scientists on the successful launch of India's maiden moon mission Chandrayaan-1, calling it a "landmark day" for the country.

In a message from Guwahati, Patil said it was a "landmark day" which would inspire the Indian space scientists for sending manned missions in the future.

Patil, who is on a tour of North-eastern states, said India should aim at sending Indian astronauts to space in an Indian space capsule.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also hailed the successful launch of Chandrayaan-I as the "first step" in a historic milestone in India's space programme.

Singh, who is on an official visit to Japan, called up G Madhavan Nair, Secretary, Department of Space and congratulated him and his team of scientists for the successful launch.

"I congratulate all the scientists associated with this mission for the successful completion of the first step," the Prime Minister said.

Singh said when completed, the mission will put India in the very small group of six countries which have thus far sent space missions to the moon.

"The successful launch of the Chandrayaan-1 marks the first step in what we hope will be a historic milestone in India's space programme," he said.

The Prime Minister noted that all the launch vehicle systems performed satisfactorily and the spacecraft has been successfully placed in an orbit around the earth.

"This is the beginning of a two-week long effort in which our scientists will now manoeuvre the spacecraft into expanding orbits around the earth before finally shifting it to an orbit around the moon," he said.

"Our scientific community has once again done the country proud and the entire nation salutes them," the Prime Minister said.