India’s Chandrayaan-3 finally lands on moon’s south pole. After a 40-day trip that began at the Sathish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota and a history of space crashes, India’s Chandrayaan-3 has at last touched down on the moon.
The Vikram lander, which collided with the moon’s surface during earlier Chandrayaan missions, has now arrived at the south pole of the moon.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced on Wednesday that the spacecraft’s automated landing sequence would soon be activated, starting an algorithm that would assume control once it arrived at the target location and aid in landing.
Following its landing, Chandrayaan-3 will conduct a number of experiments, including a spectrometer examination of the mineral composition of the lunar surface. Chandrayaan-3 is anticipated to continue operating for two weeks.
“Landing on the south pole (of the moon) would actually allow India to explore if there is water ice on the moon. And this is very important for cumulative data and science on the geology of the moon,” said Carla Filotico, a partner and managing director at consultancy SpaceTec Partners.
As India’s Chandrayaan-3 finally lands on moon’s south pole, the primary objective of the mission is to show that the Indian space agency is capable of performing a soft lunar landing.
India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission crashed on the lunar surface during a failed attempt to land it close to the south pole in 2019.
Days after the Russian space agency attempted to land there, the Chandrayaan-3 mission was launched after the last space crash and was successful in reaching the moon.
India has joined a small club of countries that have successfully made a soft landing on the moon. Russia, China, and the United States were the only members of the club prior to Chandrayaan’s mission.
