India's Major Victory: Joining the Space Frontier

Introduction

August 23rd, 2023, marks the date of the fourth country landing on the moon. India sent the Chandrayaan-3, which landed on the south pole of the moon. They chose that spot to land because ice had been discovered there. This event is significant in multiple ways, for both India and the world.

The Chandryaan Missions

Chandrayaan means “mooncraft” in Sanskrit. Of course, India couldn’t just say “abracadabra” and make a perfectly successful rocket first try. Rather, they had 3 Chandrayaans. The first rocket was used to map various aspects of the moon: chemical, mineralogical, and photo-geologic. This rocket was successful and achieved all of its major goals.

The Chandrayaan-2 was ultimately unsuccessful. Launched on July 22, 2019, Chandryaan-2 successfully entered into lunar orbit. In its orbit, it gathered more data. The issue revealed itself when they tried to send a lander onto the moon’s surface. Everything had gone perfectly all the way up to about 2 kilometers from the surface when communication was lost. This wasn’t a total loss, however, as the mission proved a lot of the technology to be functional.

Finally, the Chandrayaan-3. On July 14, 2023, the spacecraft was launched. Next, were a few orbit-raising maneuvers and finally a lunar launch maneuver. On August 1, the spacecraft was on its way to the moon. August 5 marks the day the spacecraft reached the moon and successfully entered orbit. The next couple weeks were lowering orbit on the orbiter and then the lander. Finally, on August 23, 2023, “'I reached my destination and you too!': Chandrayaan-3” (ISRO). The Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on the south pole of the moon.

The Importance

This achievement may sound inconsequential, as there have been numerous lunar landings

already. However, this event is very important for 2 big reasons. First, is the previously mentioned ice. The ice opens opportunity for the world to get fuel, water, and air from the moon. More things have been found since: sulfur, aluminum, calcium, iron, chromium, titanium, manganese, oxygen, and silicon. Secondly, this signifies that future space exploration will be a global venture, not limited to the usual big economies.

Conclusion

The entire Chandrayaan mission is a big win for India that has been widely celebrated by the entire country. If you want to see the landing and celebration for yourself you can watch the video below, which is a telecast of the lander’s descent and landing on the moon. The lander touched down at 44:50, followed by the country’s celebration. The video highlights just how important this was to the people of India. And now, when you look up at the moon, you know that there is a small little rover exploring the bottom of it.

Citations

“Chandrayaan 1”. ISRO, 2023

https://www.isro.gov.in/Chandrayaan_1.html Accessed 29 August, 2023

“Chandrayaan 2”. ISRO, 2023

https://www.isro.gov.in/Chandrayaan2_science.html Accessed 29 August, 2023

“Chandrayaan 3”. ISRO, 2023

https://www.isro.gov.in/Chandrayaan3.html Accessed 29 August, 2023