The India Moon Impact Probe landed on the moon on Friday night after having flown 3,86,000 km from the earth, which made India the fourth country on Earth to land a probe on the moon.

"We have given moon to India," the chief of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) G. Madhavan Nair said with excitement minutes after the moon impact probe (MIP) landed on the lunar surface Friday night.

"The moon has been very favorable to us all through. We have traveled all the way to the moon," Nair told the media.

The MIP has already sent "beautiful images with high resolution of the moon and their analysis will now begin," said Nair.

The Indian tricolor is painted on all sides of the 29-kg Moon Impact Probe which is attached to the main orbiting spacecraft, Chandrayaan-1, which was launched on Oct. 22.

By now the United States, the former Soviet Union and the European Space Agency comprising 17 countries already have their flags on the moon.

The flight of the MIP on Friday is supposed to prepare for the second Indian moon mission, Chandrayaan-2, which will carry a Russian rover and a lander slated for lift-off between 2010 and 2012.