Today was scheduled to be a milestone in the history of lunar exploration and Chandrayaan-3 managed to score a goal, in a game that suddenly seems particularly combative. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) thus becomes part of a very small group of countries that at some point in history managed to overcome the distance that separates the Earth and its natural satellite. undoubtedly more difficult, completing a successful landing in it.

Mission flight started on July 14, when Chandrayaan-3 was launched, carrying a lander and a lunar rover in addition to the launch and propulsion phase. Achieving lunar orbit was not a particularly difficult feat and in fact ISRO had previously achieved this with the Chandrayaan-2 mission. However, on that occasion, the moon landing phase, which is undoubtedly the most complex, went wrong (the lunar lander deviated from the planned descent path, but the probe that accompanied it remained in orbit as planned).

So the tension of the last few hours could almost be cut with a knife and fork, because the space agency was at stake and did. just days after LUNA-25, a Russian space agency mission with the same goal, ended in disastercaused by a malfunction that prevented the lander from following its intended trajectory. This failure of Roskosmos questioned the current capacity of Roskosmos to carry out new lunar exploration projects.

Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
‘India🇮🇳,
I reached my destination
and you too!’
:Chandrayaan-3

Chandrayaan-3 successfully
soft landing on the moon 🌖!.

Congratulations, India🇮🇳!#Chandrayaan_3#Ch3

— ISRO (@isro) August 23, 2023

However, Chandrayaan-3 has been a resounding success, although it is true that the mission has only just begun. After his landing on the moon, which occurred at 2:33 p.m (Spanish Peninsular Time), it’s time for the rover, which will soon begin exploring the moon’s south pole, an area of ​​our satellite that is particularly promising for possible plans to establish lunar bases, due to the significant concentration of available frozen water in that region.

With this success, India becomes the first country in the world to land at the South Pole, a strategic goal that many other space agencies have their eyes on. Without going any further, this was also the goal of LUNA-25 and is in the plans of NASA and its initiated consortium for the Artemis missions. Something we have to remember is also thanks to the Indian Space Agency, because it was its Chandrayaan-1 mission that confirmed the presence of large amounts of ice on the moon’s south pole, something that was exactly five years ago yesterday.

So that’s not enough for the next few weeks Pragyan, which is the name of the rover, and which is the smallest human sent to the moon (weighing only 26 kilograms), will leave the Vikram shelter, which is the Chandrayaan-3 lander, which will travel through this distant and hostile lunar region (it is the coldest region of the satellite because it receives the least sunlight and is also riddled with large craters), gathering all kinds of information for future missions and something that seems ever closer after more than half a century, the return of a human being to the moon.