Editorial: India on the moon

The achievement is a tribute to the commitment of scientists at ISRO which has overcome many odds

The success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission, the most complex lunar expedition riddled with multiple challenges, is a monumental moment for India’s space research community and demonstrates its technological prowess to the world. The last and the most difficult phase of the mission — soft-landing of the spacecraft’s lander module on the moon’s surface — has been accomplished flawlessly. The feat is particularly significant because a similar mission by Russia failed just a couple of days ago when its ‘Luna-25’ went out of control in the landing stage and crashed into the moon’s surface. This failed mission heightened the tension here in India as scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) prepared for the final de-boosting operations and waited with bated breath for the descent of the landing module, comprising the lander ‘Vikram’ and rover ‘Pragyan’. The achievement, which came after some anxious moments, is a tribute to the dedication and commitment of the scientists at ISRO which has overcome many odds to earn its rightful place on the high table of the global space club. India becomes the fourth country in the world, after the United States, Russia and China, to soft-land spacecraft on the lunar surface and the first to land on the South Pole. It was a challenging mission because landings in the thin atmosphere and low gravity of the moon can be very tricky. In the last four years, four countries — India, Israel, Japan and Russia — have tried to land their spacecraft on the Moon but failed. Each of these missions encountered problems during the descent from the moon’s orbit to the surface, a stage aptly described by space scientists as “15 minutes of terror”.

India’s previous attempt in September 2019 — Chandrayaan-2 — ended in failure as the lander crashed into the moon’s surface. Learning lessons from the past failure, the ISRO made some improvements in the design and incorporated several safety features this time. Additional navigational and guidance instruments were installed to continuously monitor the Lander’s speed and make the necessary corrections. Each failure in such complex missions serves as a lesson to further fine-tune technologies. A remarkable feature of Chandrayaan-3 is that it has landed on the south pole, the dark side of the moon and a challenging terrain for landing. The lunar south pole is of particular interest to scientists looking at frozen water in that zone. If found, future explorers could transform it into air and rocket fuel. This feat has put India in a commanding position to take space exploration to the next level and embark on manned missions. Earlier, the Chandrayaan-1 made a path-breaking discovery of water molecules on the lunar surface and new rock types with unique chemical composition, a feat duly acknowledged by NASA. The finding has been a great contribution by India to the understanding of the lunar environment. It also gave a major fillip to the country’s indigenous space technology.

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