India has managed to land its first rocket, Chandrayaan 3, near the South Pole of the Moon, the Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) announced on Wednesday August 23. Four years after a failed attempt, the most populous country in the world has joined the very select club of nations that have managed to successfully carry out such an operation, while carrying out many of its programs at much lower cost.
Before India, only the Soviet Union, the United States and China had already managed to carry out a controlled moon landing.
“This is a historic day for the Indian space sector,” Narendra Modi wrote on social network X (formerly Twitter). He appeared smiling and waving an Indian flag, on the sidelines of the summit of the emerging powers of the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), meeting at the summit in Johannesburg.
This new stage of the Indian program, in full swing, comes four years after a bitter failure, the ground team having lost contact with the machine shortly before the arrival on the Moon. Designed by the Indian Space Research Organization (Isro), Chandrayaan 3 comprises a landing module called Vikram, meaning “valour” in Sanskrit, and a mobile robot, called Pragyan (“wisdom”, in Sanskrit) to explore the surface of the Moon.
Vikram detached from its propulsion module last week and has been transmitting images of the lunar surface since entering lunar orbit on August 5. Once it lands, a solar-powered rover will explore the surface and transmit data to Earth for two weeks.
India’s aerospace program has a relatively modest budget, but one that has been significantly increased since its first attempt to orbit the moon in 2008. The $74.6 million Indian mission (66.5 million euros), according to the media, much lower than that of other countries, testifies to frugal space engineering.
The first Asian country to place a satellite in orbit around Mars in 2014, India is expected to send a three-day manned mission into Earth orbit by next year. India’s efforts to explore the lunar South Pole could make a “very, very important” contribution to scientific knowledge, Sivan said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday congratulated Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the successful landing of the Chandrayaan 3 spacecraft, days after the Russian probe Luna 25 crashed into the Moon during a similar mission . “This is a big step in the exploration of outer space and, of course, a testament to India’s impressive progress in science and technology,” said Mr. Putin in a message whose content was published on the Kremlin website.
A few hours earlier, it was the Russian space agency Roscosmos which congratulated India for this moon landing. “State-owned Roscosmos congratulates its Indian colleagues on the successful moon landing of the Chandrayaan 3 spacecraft,” it said in a statement. “The exploration of the Moon is important for all of humanity. In the future, it could become a platform for deep space exploration,” she added.
