2023-08-23 14:24:53
NEW DELHI. An Indian-launched spacecraft descended on Wednesday over the moon’s southern pole, uncharted territory scientists say might contain frozen water and valuable elements, as the country consolidates its presence in space and technology.
When the transporter module of a lunar rover touched down, cheers and applause erupted from scientists in the southern city of Bengaluru.
After a failed attempt just under four years ago, India went down in history as the first country to land near the southern region, joining the United States, the Soviet Union and China as countries that managed to land on the moon.
India’s space mission successfully lands on the moon’s south pole
India’s Chandrayaan-3 space mission successfully landed on the moon’s south pole, following a complex descent maneuver on the surface of the southernmost face of the satellite, never before explored.
“We have achieved a soft landing on the moon,” announced the executive director of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Sreedhara Panicker Somanath, following the complex maneuver that made India the fourth country to land on the moon. , a milestone only achieved by the United States, Russia, and China.
Chandrayaan-3 has taken 40 days for its journey since it took off on July 14 with India’s largest and heaviest launch rocket.
“India, I arrived at my destination. And you too!”posted Chandrayaan-3’s account on the X social network, formerly Twitter, shortly following the mission’s success was confirmed.
The mission’s lander contains an exploration vehicle (rover) that in the next few hours will begin its exploration journey to collect information and samples from the surface, Somanath explained.
“The rover will go out in the next few hours, or in a day, because it might take longer,” he told reporters.
Indian Prime Minister Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi, who is currently in South Africa to attend the BRICS leaders’ summit, paused his speech to follow the moment of the moon landing online.
“These historic moments become the eternal consciousness of the nation’s life. This moment is unforgettable, unprecedented, it is the moment of a clarion call from a developed India, it is a victory cry for the new India”, said the visibly moved prime minister.
The moon landing is a special achievement for India, which in 2019 saw the failure of its predecessor mission, Chandrayaan-2, which had the same objective and failed precisely in the deceleration maneuver to touch the lunar surface.
On that occasion, the memory of the country was marked by the image of the prime minister trying to comfort the then head of ISRO, Kailasavadivoo Sivan, with a hug, who broke down in tears with failure.
“We made a promise on Earth and we kept it on the Moon. Our scientific comrades have declared: ‘India is now on the moon,’” Modi added today.
The Indian space agency had previously explained that the descent of the last 25 kilometers from space to the lunar surface was the “most critical part of the landing.”
In this step, the landing speed was regarding 1.68 kilometers per second, with the Chandrayaan-3 in a horizontal position, so the maneuver was to go to the vertical position during the descent, which would depend on the precision of a mathematical calculation.
An error in this calculation was what caused Chandrayaa-2 to fail in September 2019.
The mission command center, MOX, packed with scientists, special guests and journalists began to clap with excitement and hug each other as the distance of descent counted down over two kilometers, with the speed constantly decreasing and exceeding the mark of the previous attempt.
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