President, PM congratulate ISRO scientists

Sriharikota, Jan 10: President A P J Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today congratulated ISRO scientists on the successful launch of PSLV-C7, completing its first multiple mission flight.

ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair told reporters that the President and Prime Minister spoke to him over phone and congratulated the entire team.

Dr Kalam expressed great joy on the success of the mission and he wanted ISRO to keep him informed about the progress of subsequent operations, especially the Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE-1), a forerunner to mastering re-usable technology.

With this, India would join an elite class of countries possessing the SRE technology - the United States, Russia and China.

Dr Singh congratulated the entire ISRO team for the remarkable achievement in the new year. ''I take pride in ISRO doing the country proud by its successful launch today. I wish all success to ISRO's future missions and their programmes'', he said in his message.

UNI