NEW
DELHI (AP) - India rejoiced Saturday at joining an elite club by planting its
flag on the moon as the country's space agency released the first pictures of
the cratered surface taken by its maiden lunar mission.
A
probe sent late Friday from the orbiting
mother spacecraft took pictures and gathered other data India needs for a
future moon landing as it plummeted
to a crash-landing at the moon's south pole, said Indian Space Research
Organization spokesman B.R. Guruprasad.
The
box-shaped probe was painted with India's saffron, white and green flag,
sparking celebrations in the country that is striving to become a world power.
"The
tricolor has landed," the Hindustan Times said in a banner
headline, while The Asian Age proclaimed "India is big
cheese."
As
India's economy has boomed in recent years, it has sought to convert its
newfound wealth - built on the nation's high-tech sector - into political and
military clout. The moon mission comes just months after it finalized a deal
with the United States that recognizes India as a nuclear power, and leaders
hope the mission will further enhance its prestige.
"This
momentous achievement shall be etched in the history of India as a grateful
tribute to our scientific community for their resolute efforts to take India to
a global leadership position," said Sonia Gandhi, head of the ruling
Congress party.
To
date only the U.S., Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and China - and
now India - have sent missions
to the moon.
But
while the celebrations conjured up images akin to that of the U.S. flag
unfurled on the moon by Apollo astronauts, India's flag is most likely
scattered over a wide swath of the moon's Shackleton crater after the probe
slammed into the surface at more than 3,100 miles (5,000 km) per hour.
The
violent landing was planned and Indian scientists hope to study the images and
data sent back by the probe during its 25-minute descent to prepare for a
future "soft" landing, Guruprasad told The Associated Press. It
carried a video imaging system, a radar altimeter and a mass spectrometer.
The
video imaging system took pictures of the moon's surface, while the altimeter
measured the rate of descent of the probe and the mass spectrometer studied the
extremely thin lunar atmosphere.
Guruprasad
said the pictures that were released were raw images and that scientists had
not yet analyzed the information sent by the probe.
It
was the first stage of a
two-year mission aimed at measuring not only the surface of the moon, but
what lies beneath. The probe was one of 11 payloads on the spacecraft
Chandrayaan-1. Chandrayaan means "moon craft" in ancient Sanskrit.
India
plans to follow the mission by landing a rover on the moon in 2011 and,
eventually, with a manned space program, though this has not been authorized
yet.
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