The Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander is scheduled to land on the Moon’s South Pole after 6 pm on Wednesday
India is gearing up for its second attempt to land on the moon, a historic moment for the world’s most populous nation.
Chandrayaan-3, which means “Vehical of the moon” in Sanskrit, is scheduled to land its Vikram lander near the moon’s little-explored south pole shortly after 6 pm (1200 GMT), a world first for any space program. stage
A previous Indian attempt failed in 2019, and the latest mission comes just days after Russia’s first lunar mission in nearly 50 years, intended for the same region, crashed on the lunar surface.
What did former ISRO Chief said about Chandrayaan-3
India’s former space chief K Sivan said the latest images sent by the lander show that the last leg of the journey will be a success.
“This is giving some encouragement that we will be able to achieve the landing operation without any problems,” he told AFP on Monday.
Sivan said the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) had improved after a failure four years ago when scientists lost contact with the lunar module moments before landing.
Chandrayaan-3 will proceed with more vigor, he said, adding that we are confident and hope that everything will go smoothly.
Launched nearly six weeks early in front of thousands of cheering spectators, the mission took longer to reach the moon than the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, which reached the moon in just a few days.
At that time India was using less powerful rockets than the US. Instead, the probe will orbit Earth several times to gain speed before starting its month-long lunar orbit.
The spacecraft’s lander, Vikram, which means “valor” in Sanskrit, separated from its propulsion module last week and has been sending images of the moon’s surface since it entered lunar orbit on August 5.
ISRO posted on social media that everything was going as planned a day before the landing and that its mission control complex was “buzzing with energy and enthusiasm”.
“Continued smooth sailing,” the organization posted on Twitter, Now X.
India has a relatively low-budget aerospace program, but it has grown significantly in size and momentum since sending the first probe into lunar orbit in 2008.
The latest mission comes with a price tag of $74.6 million – less than other countries considering India’s frugal space engineering.
Experts say India can reduce costs by copying and adapting existing space technology, thanks to highly skilled engineers who earn a fraction of the wages of their foreign counterparts.
In 2014, India became the first Asian country to place a satellite in Mars orbit and is expected to launch a crewed mission to Earth orbit in the next few years, starting with an unmanned test flight in 2024.
Former ISRO chief Sivan said India’s efforts to explore the moon’s relatively unexplored south pole would contribute “very, very significantly” to scientific knowledge.
Before this, only Russia, America and China were able to perform a controlled landing on the lunar surface.
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