The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Chandrayaan 3 mission successfully pulled off a first yesterday for the space agency when it soft-landed on the Moon.
India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, commenting on Twitter/X, said: “Today was a historic day for India’s space sector. Congratulations to ISRO for the remarkable success of Chandrayaan 3 lunar mission.”
The landing occurred between Manzinus C and Simpelius N craters on the lunar nearside at 12:34 Universal Time (UT) (6:34 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, or EDT) yesterday. This makes India the fourth nation to soft-land on the Moon, after the United States, China, and the former Soviet Union.
ESA’s European Space Tracking system (ESTRACK) and NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) partnered with ISRO to provide global tracking coverage for Chandrayaan 3.
This also makes India the first nation to successfully land in the lunar south-pole region. The crewed Apollo missions landed on the lunar nearside at lower latitudes, and even the historic farside landing of China’s Chang’e 4 craft in 2019 only reached some 45°S. Chandrayaan 3 reaches 69°S. Exploring the polar region of the Moon is the new game in lunar exploration, as some permanently shadowed craters at the poles harbour water ice.
Launched on a LVM 3 rocket from Satish Dhawan Space Centre on July 14th, Chandrayaan 3 entered lunar orbit on August 5th after a series of boosting manoeuvers. The 1,752-kilogramme (3,862-pound) Vikram lander separated from the upper stage on August 17th in preparation for landing. The lander also took a sequence of images of the primary landing site this past week from low lunar orbit, for engineers to analyse prior to the final landing approach.
