HISTORY, ETCHED IN SPACE

Relief, delight in the Isro command centre as a nation waiting with bated breath for 18 anxious minutes exhales and exults

- Soumya Pillai

BENGALURU: At 6pm, S Somanath, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), knew that his agency had done it. He got up from his seat at Isro Telemetry Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in the Peenya industrial area of Bengaluru, smiled at the anxious faces around him, and nodded his head as if to tell himself the mission was successful.

Two minutes later, the communications centre, from where he and his team were tracking Chandrayaan-3 as its lander descended onto the lunar surface, broke into loud cheers and applause. Minutes later, Somanath commandeered a microphone and said five words that only caused the applause and the cheers to grow louder.

"India is on the moon!"

Until then, the air in the large room was thick with tension. The landing process was preprogrammed but a bunch of things could go wrong, like they did four years ago when Chandrayaan-2, the predecessor of the current mission, Chandrayaan-3, saw its lander crash onto the lunar surface. The team picked itself up, dusted itself off, and got down to work. And as Somanath described it in an interview ahead of the launch, it ensured that it was ready with backup plans for backup plans.