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The mission, Chandrayaan-3, is seen primarily as a signal to the outside world that India has the knowledge and technology to participate in the new space race. In recent years, the focus has mainly been on commercial start-ups such as SpaceX, but rockets, cargo capsules and manned spacecraft from Elon Musk’s company have so far only reached an orbit around the earth.
If all goes as planned, an LVM3 rocket will first launch the Chandrayaan into orbit. From there, India uses Earth’s gravity to lift the lander and the lunar rover overall 3,900 kilos to give a pendulum to the moon. Landing on the lunar surface is scheduled for August 23. After that, the cart should take action for at least two weeks.
water in the ground
The moon’s south pole was chosen as the landing site. No probe has ever landed there. The area is of great interest to space services such as NASA, but also to private space companies, as there is water in the ground. This makes the South Pole the most attractive location for a future manned moon base.
Chandrayaan-3 is the first major mission for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), NASA’s Indian counterpart, since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in 2018 that his government would increase investment in space. The country mainly attracts private customers looking for ways to send satellites into space at a lower cost. The costs of Chandrayaan-3 remained below 75 million dollars (nearly 67 million euros).
The probe and lunar rover took off from a launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Center in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Nothing is left to chance: earlier this week, Indian television broadcast images of scientists going to a temple with a model of the Chandrayaan-3 to beg for a good result.
LUNAR LANDING REMAINS AT RISK
Since 1958, when Russia’s Luna 2 became the first man-made object to reach the moon, 11 countries have successfully sent spacecraft to Earth’s closest cosmic neighbor. Only three countries also managed to land unscathed on the inhospitable celestial body.
The Americans are leading the way, with 32 successful missions around and on the moon, including six manned flights in which a total of twelve astronauts passed through lunar dust. The United States hopes to return to the Moon in 2025. Russia has made 23 successful flights, including two successful landings by probes. China joined this selection in 2007 and has so far made three successful landings.
Despite new technological developments, moon landings still remain risky. Earlier this year, Japan saw a failed attempt to land a probe on the Moon. Contact with the space probe Hakuto-R from commercial company iSpace was lost during the descent. The spacecraft crashed due to a computer error.
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