A day ago, India made history, after Chandrayaan 3 of the country landed on the far side of the moon, near South Pole. This way, India became fourth nation to land on the surface of moon. Earlier, United States, former soviet union and China had been able to land successfully on the moon.
However, as no other nation have achieved soft landing on South Pole of the moon, after landing the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan 3 on south pole, India became the very first nation to successfully achieve the soft landing on the South Pole of the Earth’s Moon.
Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) had launched the Chandrayaan 3 Spacecraft on July 14, 2023 on top of a LVM3-M4 rocket, so this way the rocket started its journey to the moon. After many maneuvers and going round and round in the lunar orbit, the Vikram lander finally separated from the main Chandrayaan 3 spacecraft on August 17 2023.
Later on, exactly according to the plan, on August 23, 2023, Vikram Lander finally made the soft touchdown on the moon’s surface. This significant event made India the first nation to land on south pole of moon and the fourth nation to land anywhere on the moon.
Previously, India sent two spacecrafts to the moon, the Chandrayaan 1 and Chandrayaan 2. They did reach there, however, the lander modules of both crashed in to the moon’s surface and destroyed on impact, instead of achieving the soft landing. Chandrayaan 3 is the only moon mission of India which was able to achieve the soft landing on the moon’s surface.
In the new space race to land on the South Pole of the Moon, India was not alone. On August 10, 2023 Russian space agency ‘Roscosmos’ launched it own spacecraft Luna 25 on top of Soyuz 2.1b rocket. Luna 25 was also heading to the moon, it opted for a more direct route to the moon and despite launching much later, it was expected to achieve soft-landing on the moon on 21st of August 2023, two days earlier than India’s Chandrayaan 3.
For Luna 25 everything was going well, other then the last few steps of the mission. Just one day before the landing date, Russian Luna 25, spun out of its intended orbit around the moon and this way Luna 25 crashed into the surface of moon.
So India have won the new space race of making a soft-landing on far side of moon near the south pole. Russia had the chance to beat India to the South Pole of the moon, however, it was lost after the Luna 25 lander destroyed on impact one day before the actual landing date. I am sure Russia will try again and other nations will also try to land in similar area. But for now, Indians must be very happy with the success they achieved with Chandrayaan 3.
Brief history of Moon Landings
First ever uncrewed moon landing was performed by soviet union. It was hard moon landing. The goal of the mission was to just reach the moon with an object and just crash in to the lunar surface. This first ever moon landing, which was uncrewed and hard landing, was performed by soviet union in 1959. The spacecraft which was involved with this first ever moon landing from any man made object from planet earth was called Luna 2.
Later on, with in just next three years, United States duplicated the mission and with its spacecraft Ranger 4, United States reached moon for the first time. This was also a hard landing in to the surface of moon. Fast forwarding, many other agencies have made the hard and soft moon landings. The countries and agencies which made the uncrewed moon landings include Interkosmos of Soviet union, NASA of United States, ISRO of India, CNSA of China, JAXA of Japan and also European Space Agency (ESA).
First crewed landing on the moon was by NASA via their Apollo 11 mission landing on the moon on 20th July, 1969. It lifted back up from the moon on the 21st July, 1969 and completed a safe journey back to earth. The astronauts included Neil Armstrong and the Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin.
Later on United States sent several more successful crewed missions to the moon, these included Apollo 12, Apollo 14, Apollo 15, Apollo 16 and Apollo 17. Total six american flags were planted on moon by astronauts visiting the moon in these six Apollo missions mentioned above.