Chandrayaan’s Early Images and more
India’s successful landing on the Moon’s south pole has resulted in new friends seeking support for their lunar missions
Nothing succeeds like success and ISRO scientists would be the first to admit. After two earlier missions that weren’t completely successful, India became the first country to achieve a soft landing on the lunar south pole. Which automatically makes it a preferred partner for the United States’ manned moon mission in about two years time.
The landing, which took place at 18:04 hours IST after more than a month of the spacecraft’s launch, made India the fourth nation to make a soft landing. The others are the former Soviet Union, the United States and China. However, this is the first time a landing was made on the southern hemisphere of the moon which has remained unexplored till date.
(Image source: ISRO)
NASA amongst first to congratulate ISRO
Within a few hours of the soft landing, ISRO confirmed on its X (formerly Twitter) account that a communication link had been established between the Chandrayaan-3 lander and the MOX-ISTRAC station in Bengaluru. The account also shared some images taken from the Lander’s horizontal velocity camera during the descent.
US vice president Kamala Harrris described India’s moon landing as an incredible feat for all scientists and engineers involved. “We are proud to partner with you on this mission and space exploration more broadly,” said Harris, whose mother is an Indian. Also, the US vice president is the head of the country’s National Space Council.
“Congratulations to India for the historic landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the southern polar region of the moon,” US Vice President Kamala Harris said on X, known as Twitter till recently.
“It is an incredible feat for all the scientists and engineers involved. We are proud to partner with you on this mission and space exploration more broadly,” said Harris, whose mother was from India. The vice president heads the National Space Council.
Barely hours after the lunar module, comprising the Vikram lander and the 26kg Pragyan rover, it was announced that the latter had rolled on to the moon’s surface. The rover will imprint India’s national emblem – the Lion Capital of emperor Ashoka – and the ISRO logo on the moon. The rover descended from the lander on to the lunar surface using a side panel as a ramp.
(Image Source: ISRO)
India’s success comes right after a failed attempt by Russia by launching the Luna-25 that was to make a soft landing on the south pole before the Chandrayaan-3 attempt. However, the Russian craft crashed onto the moon’s surface last Saturday after losing contact with the country’s space agency Roscosmos.
A shift in space dynamics is on the cards
Barely minutes after ISRO chairman S. Somnath congratulated scientists, engineers and the industries that supported the Chandrayaan-3 mission, NASA administrator Bill Nelson took to his X account making a congratulatory post on the platform. “We’re glad to be your partner on this mission,” the official wrote.
Readers would recall that India had signed NASA’s Artemis Accords to partner with participating countries on space exploration back in June. As part of the agreement, NASA would provide advanced training to Indian astronauts at the Johnson Space Center in Houston and send them to the International Space Station as early as next year.
Russia’s failure and India’s success with the latest moon landing appears to have severed an age-old association between the former Soviet Union and India in space research. The result of which was India’s first space mission that took Rakesh Sharma, a former Indian Airforce pilot to outer space on board the Soyuz T-11 on April 3, 1984 as part of the Soviet Interkosmos program. In fact, Sharma was among the earliest to applaud ISRO’s mission.
In addition to NASA’s support to India’s space program, ISRO is also working closely with the US space agency to launch a low-Earth orbit observatory next year to map the plant within 12 days that could help provide data for analyzing alterations to Earth’s ecosystem, ice mass, vegetation biomass etc.
Moreover, the two teams would be working closely as the US is preparing a crew mission to the lunar south pole called Artemis-III in 2025. Insights from Chandrayaan-3 could assist them in understanding the surface before a human landing. Additionally, Chandrayaan-2’s orbiter is also sending inputs from the south side, in spite of the mission’s failure.
