India’s Historic Soft Landing on Unexplored Lunar Terrain: Chandrayaan-3 Mission and its Cost-Effective Approach

India is due to land its rocket on Wednesday (23) in an unexplored region of the Moon. This will be the first time that a country makes a “soft landing” in an area never reached on lunar soil. The rocket was launched on July 14th. The expectation is that the video of the landing starts around 8:45 am.

The lunar surface is treacherous terrain with large craters and steep slopes, as well as no sunlight, leading to extremely low temperatures, as low as -203°C, and making it very difficult to operate exploration equipment. That way, a smooth landing means the rocket wasn’t destroyed.

India seeks to explore the Moon – with the mission called Chandrayaan-3 – because the first space trip of this project, which took place in 2008, detected the presence of water on the lunar surface.

“We still need a lot more detail about where and how much water there is, and whether all of it is frozen,” Akash Sinha, professor of space robotics at Shiv Nadar University near Delhi, tells the BBC.

Exploring the surface of the Moon’s polar regions, made up of rocks and soil, could also yield answers about the formation of the Solar System.

The country’s goal became to explore the Moon at the lowest possible cost. That’s because the second mission, which took place in 2019 and went wrong (the rocket exploded on landing), cost $140 million, while this morning’s cost was just over $80 million. The first, in 2009, was around US$79 million.

Former president of the Indian Space Research Organization K. Sivan said this morning’s trip will be cheaper because the rocket must use the moon’s gravitational pull to bring the spacecraft into lunar orbit.

In addition, another point that reduces the price of the operation, according to the BBC, is that unlike the previous mission, Chandrayaan-3 does not include a new orbiter – a satellite that remains in orbit. This mission will feature the Chandrayaan-2 mission orbiter to provide all communications between the lander, the rover and the control room.

2023-08-23 09:39:19
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