Chandrayaan-3 Moon Landing: ISRO Scripts History as India Becomes First to Land on Lunar South Pole

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

India is writing history as the lander module (LM) of ISRO’s ambitious third lunar mission, Chandrayaan-3, touched down on the lunar surface on Wednesday, making it the fourth country to accomplish the feat and the first to reach The only natural satellite of the earth is unknown to the Antarctic country.

In an effort to greatly boost India’s space capabilities, the lunar module, consisting of a lander (Vikram) and a 26kg lunar rover (Pragyan), made a soft landing near the south pole region of the moon at 6:04 pm, softer than similar landers from Russia It crashed in less than a week.

This is the second moon landing in four years, and India has become the fourth country to master the soft landing technology on the lunar surface after the United States, China and the former Soviet Union.

Chandrayaan-3 is the follow-up mission to Chandrayaan-2, and its goal is to demonstrate safe soft landings on the lunar surface, lunar rovers, and conduct on-site scientific experiments.

On September 7, 2019, when Chandrayaan 2 was attempting to land, its lander “Vikram” crashed into the lunar surface a few minutes before landing due to an abnormality in the lander’s braking system, thus in the lunar phase phase fail. in 2008.

The Rs 6 billion Chandrayaan-3 mission launched on July 14 on a Mark-III vehicle (LVM-3) on a 41-day voyage to reach near the Moon’s South Pole.

The soft landing came days after the Russian Luna-25 spacecraft crashed out of control into the moon.

The lander and six-wheeled rover (with a combined mass of 1,752 kg) are designed to operate for one lunar solar cycle (approximately 14 Earth days). The lander has four legs and has multiple sensors to ensure a safe landing, including accelerometers, altimeters, Doppler velocimeters, inclinometers, grounding sensors, and a suite of cameras for hazard avoidance and location information.

The lander places the rover in a compartment with a ramp for deployment to the surface.