The United States, which had helped in India's Chandrayan-3 mission and closely tracked its progress, joined the world in hailing the historic soft-landing of the Indian spacecraft on the moon’s South Pole surface on Wednesday.

“Congratulations to @ISRO and the people of India for Chandrayaan-3’s historic landing on the South Pole of the moon,” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan wrote in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) .

“We look forward to deepening our partnership with India on space exploration in the years ahead.”

The United States provided key help to the mission, as acknowledged by S. Somanath, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), at a press conference. He also acknowledged help from Australia and the United Kingdom.

In a giant leap for its space programme, India's Moon mission Chandrayaan-3 touched down on the lunar south pole at 6.04 pm on Wednesday, propelling the country to an exclusive club of four and making it the first country to land on the uncharted surface.

India scripted history as ISRO's ambitious third Moon mission Chandrayaan-3's Lander Module (LM) touched down on the lunar surface on Wednesday, making it only the fourth country to accomplish the feat, and first to reach the uncharted south pole of Earth's only natural satellite.

In a big boost to India's space prowess, the LM comprising the lander (Vikram) and the 26 kg rover (Pragyan), made the soft landing near the south polar region of the Moon at 6.04 pm,,less than a week after a similar Russian lander crashed.

With this touchdown on moon in second attempt in four years, India has become the fourth country to master the technology of soft-landing on the lunar surface after the US, China and the erstwhile Soviet Union.

Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 and its objectives are to demonstrate safe and soft-landing on the lunar surface, roving on the Moon, and to conduct in-situ scientific experiments.