Chandrayaan 3: What is India’s mission to moon? Why is it important?
Chandrayaan 3 spacecraft set to make historic soft landing on Moon's south pole; India aims to showcase technological prowess.
Chandrayaan 3 spacecraft is all set to create history today for India by doing a soft landing on Moon's south polar region. According to the Indian Space Research organisation (ISRO), the Chandrayaan 3 spacecraft is expected to land on the Moon's surface at around 18:04 hours IST. Chandrayaan-3 is the follow-up mission of 2019's Chandrayaan-2 Mission which was partially successful as per the ISRO. In the previous Moon mission, the Vikram lander of the Chandrayaan-2 crashed while attempting the soft landing on the Moon's surface due to a technical glitch. However, this time scientists are optimistic about safe soft-landing as they have made certain changes in creating the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft to avoid the same mistakes.
Chandrayaan 3: What is India's mission to Moon?
Chandrayaan-3 is going to be a significant mission for the Indian space sector. The lander module of Chandrayaan-3, a comprising of Vikram lander and Rover Pragyan, will soft land on the Moon on Wednesday evening. The six-wheeled lander and rover module of Chandrayaan-3 is configured with payloads that would provide data to the scientific community on the properties of lunar soil and rocks, including chemical and elemental compositions. As per the ISRO's website, the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft will “measure the near-surface plasma (ions and electrons) density and its changes with time; carry out the measurements of thermal properties of the lunar surface near-polar region; ensure seismicity around the landing site and delineating the structure of the lunar crust and mantle; derive the chemical Composition and infer mineralogical composition to further our understanding of Lunar-surface, and will determine the elemental composition of Lunar soil and rocks around the lunar landing site”.
Chandrayaan 3: Why India's Moon Mission is important?
Numerous countries and private companies are in a race to successfully land a spacecraft on the lunar surface. Recently, Russia's LUNA-25 crashed. In April, a Japanese company’s spacecraft apparently crashed while attempting to land on the moon. An Israeli nonprofit tried to achieve a similar feat in 2019, but its spacecraft was destroyed on impact.
With nuclear-armed India emerging as the world’s fifth-largest economy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is eager to show off the country’s prowess in security and technology.
No country has ever attempted a soft landing on the moon’s little-explored south pole. The US, China, and USSR have attempted soft-landing on Moon's equatorial region but attempting the same on Moon's south polar region is considered difficult due to rough terrian. However, if Chandrayaan-3 successfully soft lands on Moon's south polar region, it will open new chapters for India in the space odyssey.
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First Published:23 Aug 2023, 07:06 AM IST
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