India becomes the 4th country to successfully make a soft touchdown on the Moon and the primary to land within the Southern Hemisphere.
Chandrayaan-3 began its descent phase, and over the subsequent 19 minutes, mission control fastidiously watched the telemetry being received from the lander and erupted into cheers and applause once the landing was confirmed.
The trip to the Moon began on July 14th because the Lunar lander rode atop the Launch Vehicle Mark 3 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, after which took the subsequent 40 days slowly but surely making their option to the Moon using a highly elliptical orbit across the Earth before starting its transfer toward Lunar orbit.
Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
‘India🇮🇳,
I reached my destination
and also you too!’
: Chandrayaan-3Chandrayaan-3 has successfully
soft-landed on the moon 🌖!.Congratulations, India🇮🇳!#Chandrayaan_3#Ch3
— ISRO (@isro) August 23, 2023
Once entering the Moon’s orbit on August fifth, the lander began using small descent burns to lower itself into the right orbit before attempting the landing.
Through the descent phase, the lander paused and hovered at about 150 meters above the Lunar surface, using its onboard scanners, corresponding to the laser doppler velocimeter and lander horizontal velocity camera, to detect an acceptable landing site.
The lander, generally known as the Vikram lander, together with its rover, Pragyan, now safely on the Moon, will begin an roughly 12-day scientific mission attributable to Lunar evening time occurring in 12 days and thus not capable of generate solar energy.
The scientific payloads aboard Vikram include the Chandra Surface Thermophysical Experiment that may measure thermal conductivity and temperature on the surface of the Moon, the Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity to measure Moonquakes, and the Langmuir Probe to measure plasma density.
Chandrayaan-3 marks an enormous accomplishment for the Indian Space Research Organization and India, especially as a follow-up from the Chandrayaan-2 mission, which crashed into the Moon attributable to software failures, just like Russia’s recent failed attempt with the Luna 25 mission.
The following mission to the Moon looks to be Intuitive Machines IM-1 mission, attributable to launch aboard a Falcon 9 rocket no sooner than November 2023.
One thing that has been proven again and again is that landing on the Moon isn’t easy, India beat the chances today.