India has successfully landed its Moon mission in the southern part of the Moon, making it the first country to accomplish this.
India has now become one of the few countries to gently land on the Moon, following the United States, the former Soviet Union, and China.
The Vikram lander from Chandrayaan-3 landed as scheduled at 6:04 pm local time (12:34 pm GMT).
People all over the country are celebrating, and the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, said that “India has reached the Moon. ”
We have achieved what no other country has been able to. “It’s a happy event,” he said. Modi was watching the event on TV from South Africa. He is there for the Brics summit.
India has succeeded just a few days after Russia’s spacecraft Luna-25 lost control and crashed into the Moon.
The accident also highlighted the challenge of landing in the region of the south pole. The ground there is very rough and has lots of holes and big rocks.
India tried to send a spacecraft to land on the moon for the second time in 2019, but it didn’t work. The part of the spacecraft that was supposed to land and the vehicle it carried were destroyed. However, the main part of the spacecraft that stays in space managed to survive.
On Wednesday, there were intense and nerve-wracking moments before the lander, referred to as Vikram after Isro founder Vikram Sarabhai, touched down. The lander carried a 26kg rover named Pragyaan, which means wisdom in Sanskrit, inside it.
The lander’s speed slowly went down from moving very fast to almost stopping completely. This made it possible for the lander to land gently on the moon’s surface.
Scientists say that very soon, once everything has calmed down, a rover with six wheels will come out from inside the lander and explore the rocks and craters on the Moon’s surface. It will collect important information and take pictures, which will be sent back to Earth.
The main goal of the mission is to find ice made of water on the Moon. Scientists say that this ice could help humans live there someday. It could also be used to provide fuel for spaceships going to Mars and other far-away places. Scientists say that there is a large amount of surface area on the Moon that is always in darkness and this area could have a lot of frozen water.
The lander and the rover have five tools to learn about what the Moon’s surface is like, what the air above it is like, and what happens underground.
An official told the BBC that the rover has an Indian flag and Isro’s logo and emblem on its wheels. This is so that when the rover moves on the Moon, it will leave marks on the lunar soil.
Chandrayaan-3 is India’s third mission to the Moon. It aims to improve upon the achievements of past Moon missions and Isro officials believe it will lead to significant scientific discoveries.
This new mission is happening 15 years after the first mission to the Moon. The first mission found water on the Moon and showed that it has an atmosphere during the day.
Even though Chandrayaan-2 didn’t land successfully, it still has a functioning orbiter that goes around the Moon. This orbiter will assist the Vikram lander in transmitting pictures and information back to Earth for examination.
India is not the only country looking at the Moon. Many other countries are also interested in going there and have planned missions to the Moon in the near future. Scientists say there is still a lot to learn about the Moon, which is often seen as a way to explore outer space.