India’s space mission Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on the south pole of the Moon, after a complex descent maneuver on the surface of the southernmost face of the satellite, never before explored. “We have achieved a soft landing on the moon,” announced the chief executive of the Indian Space Research Organization, Sreedhara Panicker.

Chandrayaan-3 has needed 40 days for your tour since it took off on July 14 with India’s largest and heaviest launch rocket. This complex maneuver has made India the fourth country to land on the moon, a feat achieved only by the United States, Russia, and China.

The Indian Prime Minister, the Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi, who is currently in South Africa to attend the BRICS leaders’ summit, took a break from his participation to follow the moment of the moon landing online. “These historic moments become the eternal consciousness of the life of the nation. This moment is unforgettable, unprecedented, it is the moment of a clarion call from a developed India, it is a victory cry for the new India,” the visibly moved Prime Minister said.

The moon landing is a special achievement for India which saw in 2019 the failure of its predecessor mission, the Chandrayaan-2, which had the same objective and which failed precisely in the deceleration maneuver to touch the lunar surface. On that occasion, the memory of the country was marked by the image of the prime minister trying to comfort the then head of ISRO, Kailasavadivoo Sivan, with a hug, who broke down in tears with failure. “We made a promise on Earth and we kept it on the Moon. Our scientific comrades have declared: ‘India is now on the Moon,'” Modi added today.