India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission made space travel history today when it achieved a soft landing near the south pole of Earth’s Moon, just days after Russia’s Luna 25 spacecraft crashed while trying to land in the same region.
India is now the fourth nation to achieve a soft Moon landing and the first to have successfully touched down on the lunar south pole — a little-explored area of the Moon that’s believed to contain water ice. Water will be critical for future lunar colonies.
Soon, a solar-powered rover named Pragyan (Sanskrit for “wisdom”) is expected to roll off Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander with the goal of collecting scientific data about the moon’s makeup before its batteries drain after sunset. The lander is named after Vikram Sarabhai, a top space scientist.
The U.S., China, and the former Soviet Union — have all achieved a soft landing near the Moon’s equator, a safer region with comparatively amiable temperatures and terrain, and reliable sunlight to recharge solar-powered instruments.
In contrast, much of the Moon’s southern pole is littered with deep craters and basins that are permanently shrouded in darkness. According to NASA, these areas haven’t seen sunlight in billions of years and can experience temperatures as low as negative 334 degrees Fahrenheit. The extreme conditions in these “cold traps” make remote observation from Earth difficult and present challenges for operating sensitive equipment in the region reports MSN.
The six payloads on board the lander and rover will start collecting data for one lunar day or fourteen Earth days for which they will remain operable.
The rover exited the spacecraft on Thursday August 24 morning to begin its exploration of the lunar surface, the Indian Space Research Organization or ISRO said. The six-wheeled, 57-pound rover, which is about the size of a microwave oven, is designed to travel up to 1,640 feet on the lunar surface. It will conduct experiments to study the Moon’s geology, mineralogy, and atmosphere among other experiments.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said, “Congratulations ISRO on your successful Chandrayaan-3 lunar South Pole landing! And congratulations to India on being the 4th country to successfully soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon. We’re glad to be your partner on this mission!”
