On Friday, India has successfully launched its Chandrayaan-3 mission, in order to become the only fourth country to execute a controlled landing on the moon.
Chandrayaan, which mean ‘moon vehicle’ in Sanskrit, blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center at Sriharikkota in southern Andhra Pradesh state at just after 2.30 pm IST ( 5.00 am ET).
Crowd gathered at the space center to witness the history in making and more than one million people tuned in to watch it on YouTube.
14 July 2023#IndianArmy congratulates Team @isro for the successful launch of #Chandrayaan3 and conveys best wishes for the successful completion of the lunar mission. The path breaking event will be etched in Golden Letters in history of the Nation. pic.twitter.com/CnptU17MMs
— ADG PI – INDIAN ARMY (@adgpi) July 14, 2023
This is India’s second attempt at a soft landing after its previous effort with the Chandrayaan-2 in 2019 failed. Earlier, the Chandrayaan-1 in 2008 orbited the moon and was then deliberately crashed onto the lunar surface.
The three other countries who have successfully achieved this feat are United States, Russia, and China.
Indian engineers are aiming to land Chandrayaan-3 near the challenging terrain of the moon’s unexplored South Pole. The team has been working on it for years now.
India’s maiden lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1 discovered water molecules on the moon’s surface. Eleven years later, the Chandrayaan-2 successfully entered lunar orbit, but its rover crash-landed on the moon’s surface. It too was supposed to explore the moon’s South Pole.