October 22nd, 2008 
Aman 
Special Day October 21 will remembered as a special day in the history of India as first, it launched its maiden lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 successfully, second India and Pakistan opened the trade routes across LoC and third India defeated the world champion Australian team in the Mohali test with a huge difference.
Launch India’s indigenously made launch vehicle PSLV-C11 placed the spacecraft into the Transfer Orbit around the earth ‘perfectly’. Launch vehicle lifted off at 6.22 am from the Satish Dhawan Centre and placed the spacecraft into the transitory orbit exactly after 18.2 minutes. With the successful launch India has entered the elite club and have become the sixth nation who have sent missions to the moon. Earlier US, Russia, European Space Agency, China and Japan have successfully launched lunar missions. Just a few days ago China had successfully sent a manned mission into the space. After successful injection in the transfer orbit Chandrayaan-1 is ready to start the next 15-day journey to reach the lunar orbit. There it will revolve around the moon for two years before start its journey back to the earth.
Record ISRO has successfully sent 14 PSLV flights in the space except one failure since 1993 and have launched 29 satellites. Chandrayaan-1 is carrying 11 payloads, five are indigenously made, three from European Space Agency, two from NASA and one from Bulgaria. With the successful launch India have made a big leap towards launching a manned mission into the space. Successful launch had sent the scientists in a bout of jubilation. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President have congratulated the scientists for their achievement. World space agencies also have congratulated ISRO for the successful launch of the maiden moon mission Chandrayaan-1. ESA is actively cooperating with ISRO in its lunar mission.
Tasks Chief of the Indian space program Madhavan Nair told reporters that Chandrayaan will take almost 15 days to cover 4 lakh kilometers to reach the lunar orbit. In initial stages it will revolve a thousand kilometers over the moon surface but will be moved closer to 100 kilometers from the moon surface. Then it will begin intensive search of water or ice on the moon. Though there are many challenges that ISRO will have to face during the next two years of the Chandrayaan-1 but the biggest challenge is to gather the faint signals from the satellite that will be almost 4 lakh kilometers away from the earth.
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