A great leap for India: A tiny step by Chandrayaan-3
India's moon moment is finally here- President, PM and many leaders congratulate ISRO scientists for the feat
Sriharikota: Chandrayaan-3 kept its tryst with destiny on Tuesday, soft landing on the lunar South Pole at 6.04 pm on Wednesday a month and nine days after its take-off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.
The moon’s South Pole, where it made the landing, is a permanently shadowed region that scientists believe is rich in resources and can offer ideal landing sites for manned missions in the future.
The Vikram lander has made history by becoming the first to land in this region of the moon. The lander and rover have a mission life of one lunar day (14 Earth days) during which it will conduct on-site experiments.
The powered braking of Vikram lander began with the retro firing of four thruster engines to reduce speed. Then came what scientists termed 17 minutes of terror — an entirely automated process that needed to go right based on complete instructions fed to Vikram earlier in the evening.
Close to 150 lunar missions have been run till date by various countries led by the USA and the erstwhile Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). Twelve men have gone to the Moon between 1969 and 1972 — Apollo-11 to 17 (Apollo 13 failed to land) — on six successful Apollo missions.
Interestingly, the South Pole is the region NASA is targeting with the return-to-the-moon Artemis III mission that aims to take astronauts to the Moon and back in 2025.
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