India Moon Landing Mission: Chandrayaan-3 successfully lands on the Moon’s South Pole

ISRO's third lunar mission Chandrayaan-3 made a perfect landing today, August 23 (2023), near the south pole of the moon. With this, India joined an elite list of countries to land a rover on the Moon.

Previously, only Russia, China, and the US had landed rovers on the moon. However, India is also the first country to land a rover on the Moon's south polar region.

India Moon Landing Mission Success

The Indian Space Association, which is made up of Bharti Airtel, L&T, and OneWeb as well as around 30 Indian space tech start-ups said that this achievement would help in establishing a lunar economy and promoting broader celestial exploration.

"We applaud ISRO on the successful landing of the Chandrayaan-3 which shows India's strong spirit of space exploration and our prowess in the space domain," Lt Gen AK Bhatt (retd.), Director General, Indian Space Association said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated ISRO for the successful landing and announced future missions including Aditya L1 Mission and Gaganyaan, India's first manned space flight mission. Chandrayaan-3 aims to demonstrate safe and soft landing, roving on the Moon, and conducting in situ scientific experiments.

Not all Smooth Sailing

The launch of the rover, though, took time. This is because the rover cannot be launched till the dust kicked up by the touchdown of the Vikram lander is dissipated. The gravity of moon being a fraction of that of Earth, dust does not settle the way it does on Earth.

The scientists were concerned that if the rover is rolled out before the dust dissipates, it can damage the cameras and other sensitive equipment on the rover.

Mr Somnath had told reporters, "The rover will come out in a few hours. Sometimes it takes a day also... Once the rover comes out, it will do two experiments. We are looking at a very exciting time after Pragyan's entry... It will do experiments for 14 days."

Importance of Data Sent by Pragyan

The data to be sent by Pragyan rover is of vital importance, given the traces of water found in the area. Chandrayaan-3 is exploring possibilities of water presence.

The presence of water holds hope for future moon missions as it could be used as a source of drinking water, to cool equipment and broken down to produce oxygen. It can also have clues to the origins of oceans. The Lander Module comprising the lander (Vikram) and the rover (Pragyan) made a touchdown on the moon after 06:00pm (IST).

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