August 23rd brought a monumental moment for space exploration and particularly for India when it became the first country to successfully land on the moon’s south pole.
The touchdown of Chandrayaan-3 was made shortly after 6pm IST (Indian Standard Time) near the lunar south pole, securing India’s enviable reputation as the fourth country to ever achieve a controlled landing on the moon after the United States, Russia, and China.
The landing is particularly impressive considering the recent Russian attempt by Roscosmos; their Luna-25 mission ended when the lander crashed into the moon’s surface following an unsuccessful orbital manoeuvre.
Why is there such intrigue surrounding the lunar south pole? Deep craters on the south pole mean that there are places with constant darkness – some areas have been protected from the sun’s rays for billions of years. Due to the lack of atmosphere to keep the surface warm, the temperatures in these areas fall as far as -258 degrees Celsius.
Scientists hope that these cold, dark conditions mean that they could dig into the lunar surface and discover an abundance of ice, which could be a key resource for future space exploration since the hydrogen and oxygen in the ice could be split to make viable rocket fuel.
There are also great challenges that come with attempting to land on the south pole of the moon. Overcoming these in order to claim this milestone propelled countries to bolster their space exploration efforts.
The cold can make it hard for electronic tools to work successfully and its sunlight cycle (14 days of sun followed by 14 days of darkness) means that rovers must be put into sleep mode as the sun goes down.
This is the case for Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram rover (named after physicist Vikram Sarabhai, considered the founder of India’s space programme); on the 24th of August, it was deployed to study lunar rocks and dirt in a two-week solar-powered mission. Since then, the rover has been put into sleep mode as lunar night fell across the landing site – scientists hope that both the lander and rover will reawaken after the sun rises again on the 22nd of September.
The question remains, why did India succeed in landing on the lunar south pole, given the unsuccessful attempts of Roscosmos earlier in August and a private Japanese mission in April?
India learned crucially from their own previous attempt – Chandrayaan-2 crashed in September of 2019 after its software was unable to diagnose and correct a problem that occurred with its thrusters during descent. To prevent this from happening again, Chandrayaan-3’s engineers implemented additional back-up systems and carried out more rigorous testing for potential problems.
This isn’t the first time that the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has presented fresh lunar science to the world. In 2008, their Chandrayaan-1 orbiter helped to confirm the existence of water on the moon. Furthermore, despite Chandrayaan-2 crashing, its orbiter component continues to study the lunar surface.
Chandrayaan-3’s success has helped to further secure India’s reputation as a top contender in the next lunar space race, but as the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi said: “This success belongs to all of humanity.”
