India made history at 6.03 pm on Wednesday, August 23, when the Chandrayaan-3 Lander Module touched down near the moon’s south pole. The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) feat has made India the first country in the world to soft-land near the lunar south pole. The success of its mission makes India only the fourth after the United States, the former Soviet Union, and China to land a spacecraft on the moon. This is ISRO’s second attempt to soft-land on the moon after the Chandrayaan-2 lander failed in the final moments in 2019.
At 5.44pm, the Lander Module began its powered descent onto the surface of the moon. The descent was watched on by Union Minister for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh together with the team of scientists from ISRO’s viewing gallery in Bengaluru. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is in South Africa for the BRICS summit, joined in via a video link to watch Chandrayaan-3’s descent to the moon. “India is on the moon,” said ISRO chief S Somnath as Chandrayaan-3 touched down.
In 2019, India’s Chandrayaan-2 lander crashed during its descent. The crash was attributed to a software glitch. In the run-up to the Chandrayaan-3 mission, ISRO scientists said they made changes to both the software and the hardware of the lander, including giving it sturdier legs to ensure a smooth landing.
Russia’s Luna 25 spacecraft, which had also aimed to become the first to land near the lunar south pole, had crashed onto the moon’s surface on August 20. A private Japanese lunar lander called Hakuto-R also crashed in April this year during its attempt to soft-land near the lunar south pole. In 2019, an Israeli lunar lander named Beresheet had also crashed onto the moon’s surface.
The reason several countries are aiming for the lunar south pole is because it’s a fascinating area for scientists, as ice has been detected in its craters. Water is a critical resource for future explorations. Scientists believe that the frozen water found in craters may be billions of years old and could help them understand the early solar system.
India’s third mission to the moon – Chandrayaan 3 – was launched by its biggest rocket, the Launch Vehicle Mark-III (LVM3), from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on July 14. The spacecraft’s long journey to the moon took just over five weeks with Chandrayaan-3 traveling a distance of 3.84 lakh km.
The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft comprises a propulsion module, a lander, and a rover. With the lander successfully landing on the moon, the rover will slide down from a ramp deployed by the lander and begin to move on the surface of the moon using its wheels. The movement of the rover will be within the lander’s observational radius so that the cameras fitted on the lander will be able to see the rover’s movement at all times.
The propulsion module, lander and rover all have payloads that carry out a range of experiments. According to ISRO, the propulsion module has a Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload to study the spectral and Polari metric measurements of Earth from the lunar orbit.
The lander payloads are Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE) to measure the thermal conductivity and temperature; Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA) for measuring the seismicity around the landing site; and Langmuir Probe (LP) to estimate the plasma density and its variations. A passive Laser Retroreflector Array from NASA is accommodated for lunar laser ranging studies.
The rover carries an Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS) for deriving the elemental composition in the vicinity of the landing site.
The life of the payload carried by the propulsion module post-ejection of the lander is between three and six months. On the other hand, the mission life of the lander and the rover is 1 Lunar day or 14 Earth days, ISRO said.
With inputs from IANS.