New Delhi, Nov. 14: A metallic box crammed with scientific instruments broke free from Chandrayaan-1 this evening and crashed near the lunar south pole, in a planned, successful attempt to put India’s first signature on the moon.

During its 25-minute suicide dive that began at 8.06pm, the Moon Impact Probe captured images of the lunar surface, including the first-ever close-up pictures of a range of highlands called the Malpert mountains.

Scientists said the MIP, or the impactor, would have struck the ground at a speed of more than 1.5km per second (5,400kmph), and the ferocity of the impact would have left only shards of metal and its electronic innards scattered on the lunar landscape.

“But we’re in a jubilant mood,” said R. Venkata Ramanan, a scientist from the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, who had helped plan the spacecraft orbit and trajectory of the impactor, and was today at the Spacecraft Control Centre in Bangalore to observe its crashlanding.

The impactor had the Indian flag painted on its sides. A senior Isro scientist said he would not speculate on the final condition of the impactor or the flags. “Imagine what will happen when something crashes at more than 5,000km per hour,” the scientist said.

“Its job is over,” the scientist said.

Minutes after releasing the impactor, the spacecraft moved to the other side of the moon, becoming invisible to ground stations on Earth.

At 9.30pm, when the orbiter was visible again, scientists at the Deep Space Network station near Bangalore began to download the pictures that had been stored on the orbiter.

“We’ve got beautiful pictures... it’s bright daylight there,” said Ramanan. “Frame by frame, we can sense it heading closer and closer to the moon.”

The Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft itself with its other 10 scientific payloads continues to go around the moon in a circular orbit 102km above the surface. The payloads will help generate a map of the moon in unprecedented detail, look for minerals, and identify sites for future missions.

The impactor began relaying data to its mother ship as soon as it separated at 8.06pm and abruptly stopped at 8.31pm.

“The spike in data reception suggests the payload had crashlanded,” Ramanan said.

Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) scientists said the instruments on the impactor would help India prepare for future soft landings.

During its descent, an altimeter measured its altitude, while a camera took snapshots of the lunar surface, and an onboard antenna sent this data to Chandrayaan-1.

A key objective during the descent was to get the first close-up views of the Malpert mountains.

“Malpert is an attractive region for soft landings,” Ramanan told The Telegraph. “It is always visible from Earth and it is at an elevation which is good for communications with Earth.”

“It is also in a region which is in near eternal light,” said Mylswamy Annadurai, Chandrayaan-1 project director. “We have good pictures of the Malpert range.”

None of the American Apollo missions or the Russian Luna landers had touched down near the Malpert mountains. The Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin had landed in a region called the Sea of Tranquility, very close to the lunar equator.

Isro engineers also turned on today a terrain mapping camera on the orbiter which will be used to generate a detailed 3D map of the lunar surface — every crater, every mountain.

The impactor sequence began with controllers at the Isro centre in Bangalore commanding Chandrayaan-1 to orient itself so that the impactor pointed towards the surface.

Then they directed the impactor to free itself and fired a small thrust rocket engine to slow it down and move it into a suborbital trajectory — a collision course with the moon.

Isro chairman G. Madhavan Nair, flanked by former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, said: “We have travelled all the way to Moon. We have given the moon to India.”

Kalam said: “Landing of the MIP will kindle a dream in children. In 15 years, I want to see an Indian on the moon.”