By then, about 95 percent of the mission's objectives were accomplished,' Satish pointed out.

The ESA's three payloads were the imaging x-ray spectrometer (C1XS), the smart infrared spectrometer (SIR-2) and sub kiloelectronvolt (keV) atom reflecting analyzer (SARA).

Similarly, the US payloads were the 6.5kg mini synthetic aperture radar (MiniSAR) and the moon mineralogy mapper (M3).

The lone Bulgarian payload was the radiation dose monitor (RADOM).

The five Indian payloads were the terrain mapping camera (TMC), the hyper spectral imager (HySI), the lunar laser ranging instrument (LLRI), the high energy x-ray spectrometer (HEX) and the moon impact probe (MIP).

'We have achieved the technology objectives of the mission by flying the spacecraft 400,000km to the moon, inserting into the lunar orbit and placing the Indian tricolour on the lunar surface Nov 14 without hitch,' Satish noted.

Similarly, the scientific objectives such as the chemical and mineralogical mapping of the lunar surface using sophisticated sensors, conducting high-resolution remote-sensing of the moon in visible, near infrared, low-energy and high energy x-ray regions and three dimensional atlas of the near and far sides of the moon were accomplished.

'We have received excellent data from all the 11 instruments and the scientific community and the international agencies participating in the mission are very happy with the quality of the data,' Satish said.