‘India is on the moon’
The Chandrayaan-3 Indian spacecraft landed on the moon on Wednesday, the space agency said, in a mission seen as crucial to lunar exploration and India’s standing as a space power, just days after a similar Russian lander crashed. This accomplishment comes four years after a previous attempt ended in failure just before landing.
“We have achieved soft landing on the moon, India is on the moon,”
says Sreedhara Panicker Somanath, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
For India, the successful landing marks its emergence as a space power as the government looks to spur investment in private space launches and related satellite-based businesses.
ISRO developed Chandrayaan-3, which includes a landing module named Vikram and a mobile robot named Pragyan. The landing holds significance for India, as it joins the exclusive club of nations that have achieved controlled moon landings. The success was hailed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a “historic day.”
The rocket’s landing near the lunar South Pole is significant due to its potential as a source of water and oxygen. The mission is aimed at exploring the lunar surface and gathering scientific knowledge. The mission was launched six weeks prior and took longer to reach the Moon compared to earlier US Apollo missions due to the rocket’s lower power. Despite the relatively modest budget of India’s aerospace programme, the country managed to achieve this feat by adapting and repurposing existing technology, thanks to its skilled engineers and cost-efficient practices.
Former ISRO chief Kailasavadivoo Sivan mentioned that lessons were learned from the previous failure, leading to the successful landing. This accomplishment positions India as the fourth country, after Russia, the United States, and China, to achieve a controlled landing on the lunar surface. The achievement reflects India’s growing capabilities in space exploration, following its success in launching a satellite into orbit around Mars in 2014. The country is also planning a three-day manned mission into Earth orbit in the near future.