India's unmanned probe approaches the Moon

The Indian Space Research Center announced that its probe landed on the Moon on Friday. This is an important milestone in the 45-year history of the country's space program.

The probe landed on the Moon at 8:34 pm (1504 GMT), 25 minutes after it was launched from an unmanned satellite.

' In the process of extracting from the Chandrayaan-1 satellite, a camera mounted on the device transferred images of the Moon to the ISRO control center ,' said Satish.

Scientists monitoring the probe celebrated when ISRO director Madhavan Nair announced the success of the country's first Moon mission. This program started on October 22 when a full rocket had taken Chandrayaan-1 into space.

The probe carried three measuring instruments and an Indian flag painted on the hull of the ship landed on a crest of the southernmost of the Moon.

ISRO Director - Madhavan Nair (Photo: AP)

Nair claimed the landing was a success.'We succeeded in placing the national flag on the surface of the Moon, ' he said during the press conference. ' The moon is an interesting place for us and this is a useful and successful task '. He also added that ' We emerged as a cargo agency with no cost to fly into very low space '.

Chandrayaan-1 will be on the Moon's trajectory for 2 years to provide a detailed map of the chemical characteristics and topography of the Moon's surface.

Thanks to the success of this mission, ISRO plans to send the second unmanned vessel to the Moon in 2012 and launch independent satellites to study Mars and Venus.

India began its space program in 1963, developing and launching its satellites to reduce dependence on foreign agencies.

The space program has entered the commercial rocket launch market by launching an Italian satellite into orbit last April. In January, she launched an Israeli spy satellite

India is also hoping this mission will boost its space program in the race against China and Japan.