India’s Successful Moon Landing: Chandrayaan-3
On August 23, 2023, India made history by successfully landing its Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the Moon’s South Pole, becoming the fourth nation to achieve a lunar landing and the first to land on the Moon’s South Pole. The mission was launched on July 14, 2023, from India’s main spaceport in Andhra Pradesh. The Chandrayaan-3 mission had a budget of about 6.15 billion rupees ($74 million).
Mission Objectives and Significance
The primary objective of the Chandrayaan-3 mission was to explore the lunar South Pole, a region with water ice that could be a source of oxygen, fuel, and water for future Moon missions or a more permanent Moon colony. The South Pole has gained importance among scientists due to discoveries about traces of water ice on the Moon.
How It Was Accomplished
Since its launch, the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft looped through progressively wider-ranging orbits of Earth, transferred to a lunar orbit, and emerged as a focus of national pride and global interest. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) activated the automatic landing sequence of the spacecraft, triggering the algorithm that took over once it reached above the designated spot and helped it land.
India’s successful landing came just days after Russia’s Luna-25 mission failed, crashing into the lunar surface. This achievement highlights the technological accomplishments of India’s space program.
Costs and Comparison to Other Missions
The Chandrayaan-3 mission had an estimated cost of $74 million, which is less than the cost to produce the 2013 Hollywood space thriller “Gravity”. The mission cost is also lower than that of its predecessor, Chandrayaan-2, which had a slightly higher cost of $96.5 million and whose lander crashed on the Moon’s surface in 2019.
India’s successful Moon landing demonstrates the nation’s growing space prowess and cements its status as a global superpower in space. With this accomplishment, India joins the United States, China, and the former Soviet Union as the only nations to have successfully landed on the Moon.
