'We went through a lot of pain and agony': ISRO chief

ISRO Chairman S Somanath acknowledged the contribution of a generation of leadership by the scientists of the country's space agency for the Chandrayaan-3 mission's success and said this is an "incremental progress" and "definitely a huge one”.

The journey to the Moon is tough and soft-landing is difficult for any nation to achieve today even with the advancement of technology, he said, pointing out that India achieved it in just two missions. Chandrayaan-2, the first mission with the objective of soft landing on the Moon had a narrow miss, while the Chandrayaan-3 mission was perfectly executed.

Chandrayaan-1’s objective was only to place an unmanned spacecraft in an orbit around the Moon.

"It (success of Chandrayaan-3 mission) gives confidence to configure missions to not only go to the Moon, but also to go to Mars, sometimes (perhaps) land on Mars, may be in future go to Venus and other planets...," he said.

Undertaking the Chandrayaan-3 mission was difficult, he said. "We went through a lot of pain and agony".