India is on its way to the moon.
Millions of Indians were glued to their laptops and television screens to watch the launch of the country’s third lunar mission, which took off from a spaceport in Andhra Pradesh, the BBC reported.
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— Ranaram Godara (@RanaramG19765) July 14, 2023
The country has launched its third mission to the moon and hopes to become the first to land near its south pole – which has rarely been studied.
It will take a while to get there…the orbiter, the lander and the Chandrayaan-3 rover they are not expected to arrive until late next month.
But if it succeeds, India will become only the fourth country – after the US, China and the former Soviet Union – to successfully achieve a soft landing on the moon.
#Chandrayaan3 https://t.co/hhkyGNm1kW
— RanJan Kumar 🇮🇳 (@iranjankr) July 14, 2023
After the rocket lifts off on Friday, it will take about 15 to 20 days to enter the moon’s orbit.
Scientists will then begin to slow the rocket down to a point that will allow for a soft landing of the lander.
If all goes according to plan, the six-wheeled rover will eject and circle the rocks and craters on the moon’s surface, collecting important data and images to send back to Earth for analysis.
That date should be around August 23-24.
#Chandrayaan3 https://t.co/hhkyGNm1kW
— RanJan Kumar 🇮🇳 (@iranjankr) July 14, 2023
This region of the Moon is still largely unexplored.
The surface area that remains in shadow is much larger than at the Moon’s north pole, meaning that there is a possibility of water in areas that are permanently shadowed.
Chandrayaan-1 was the first to detect water on the moon in 2008, near the south pole.
“We have more scientific interest in this place because the equatorial region that is safe for landing has already been reached and there is a lot of data about it,” said Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) chief Sridhara Panicker Somanath.
“If we want to make a significant scientific discovery, we need to go to a new area like the South Pole, but there is a higher risk of landing there.”
The Indian space agency says Chandrayaan-3 has three main objectives – to demonstrate a safe and soft landing on the lunar surface, demonstrate lunar rover operations and conduct in situ experiments on the lunar surface.
Success in these three areas will demonstrate the country’s technological prowess and ambitions in space exploration.
“So the ultimate goal of the Indian probes is one day when the Moon – separated by 360,000 km of space – will become an extended continent of the Earth, we will not be passive observers, but have an active, protected life on this continent, and we must let’s keep working on it,” project director Annadurai told the BBC’s Geeta Pandey earlier this week.
Today’s launch is the third in India’s lunar exploration programme.
The country’s first lunar mission — Chandrayaan-1 — was in 2008, when it performed “the first and most detailed search for water on the lunar surface and found that the Moon has a daytime atmosphere,” according to project director Mylswamy Annadurai.
Chandrayaan-1 did not make a soft landing on the Moon, but it did make key discoveries from orbit. The orbiter also launched an impactor that crashed into the Moon, and its debris was analyzed by the orbiting spacecraft.
Chandrayaan-2 was launched in July 2019, but was only partially successful. While the orbiter continues to orbit and study the Moon today, its rover crashed during landing.
Chandrayaan-3, which weighs 3,900 kg and cost 6.1 billion rupees ($75 million; £58 million), has the same objectives as its predecessor – to provide a soft landing on the surface of the moon.
Source: Air Force
2023-07-14 09:08:59
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