India, having corrected a technical glitch in a matter of a week, yesterday launched Chandrayaan-2 to the moon amidst great excitement. While all the action was at Sriharikota, one could feel the adrenalin pumping and almost hear hearts racing at the Nehru Planetarium in Mumbai as it neared takeoff time.

The previous technical snag was corrected in record time and with this mission, ISRO will seek to extend its very successful record. Just this weekend, the world celebrated 50 years of the first man on the moon. At that time, India was roughly into two decades of Independence. We had some obstruction from USA and Russia to develop the technical know-how to take a mission to the moon. Today, that is not so. Through the years, we have gathered the tools and developed most of the technology indigenously.