Three days after the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) admitted the abrupt end of its Chandrayaan-1 mission, a leading US-based scientist associated with the project on Wednesday termed it a complete success, but added that "what we have not achieved is our ultimate goal, which was a much more extended mission that was to be achieved during the full two years".

Speaking to reporters here on the sidelines of an ISRO-sponsored conference, Carle Pieters, science manager at the NASA-supported spectrology facility at the Brown University in the US, said: "I think it's a complete success."