₦airaland Forum

BBC News || ABC News

🇮🇳 India has become the fourth nation to land on the moon after its Chandrayaan-3 touched the lunar surface Wednesday.

The craft, which means 'moon vehicle' in Hindi and Sanskrit, landed on the South Pole - beating the US, China and Russia to the unmapped region.

The South Pole is an uncharted territory that scientists believe could hold vital reserves of frozen water and precious elements.

A lander with a rover tucked inside touched down at 8:34am ET, sparking cheers and applause among the space scientists watching in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru.

Indian Space Research Organization's (ISRO) successful mission marks its emergence as a space power as the government looks to spur investment in private space launches and related satellite-based businesses.

Chandrayaan-3 is expected to remain functional for two weeks, running a series of experiments, including a spectrometer analysis of the mineral composition of the lunar surface to determine if there is water ice.

'This achievement marks a significant step forward for Indian Science, Engineering, Technology, and Industry, symbolizing our nation´s progress in space exploration.'

India had attempted to land on the moon four years ago with its Chandrayaan 2 lander.

But the spacecraft crashed on the lunar surface, destroying both the lander and rover due to a software glitch.

India's successful second attempt came less than a week after Russia's Luna-25 mission failed to touch down on the South Pole.

The Luna-25 spun into an uncontrolled orbit and crashed.

The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft began decent at 8:30 am ET, slowing down its thrusters for a soft landing.

The craft had just two engines firing as it approached the surface.

DailyMail UK || ABC News

According to preliminary findings, the lander “has ceased to exist following a collision with the Moon’s surface”, Roscosmos said on Sunday.

“Measures taken on August 19 and 20 to locate the craft and make contact with it were unsuccessful.”

The space agency said an investigation would be launched into the causes of the crash, without giving any indication of what technical problems might have occurred.

With Luna-25, Moscow had hoped to build on the legacy of its Soviet-era Luna programme, marking a return to independent lunar exploration.

The 800-kilogram Luna-25 probe was to have made a soft landing on the lunar south pole on Monday, the first in history.

The Russian spacecraft was part of a big-power race to explore a part of the moon that scientists think may hold frozen water and precious elements.

Roughly the size of a small car, it was expected to operate for a year on the south pole, where scientists at NASA and other space agencies in recent years have detected traces of frozen water in the craters.

The presence of water has implications for major space powers, potentially allowing longer human sojourns on the moon that would enable the mining of lunar resources.

Earlier, Roskosmos said it received the first results from the Luna-25 mission and they were being analysed.

The agency also posted images of the moon’s Zeeman crater taken from the spacecraft. The crater is the third deepest in the moon’s southern hemisphere, measuring 190km (118 miles) in diameter and eight kilometres (five miles) in depth.

Roskosmos said data it received so far provided information about the chemical elements in the lunar soil and would also facilitate the operation of devices designed to study the near-surface of the moon.

Its equipment registered “the event of a micrometeorite impact”.

Reuters || BBC News

Business Insider