WED, AUGUST 23 2023-theGBJournal |India Wedenesday with an historic Moon landing, becoming the fourth country to land on the lunar surface.
”India is now on the Moon,” elevated Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced to the world shortly after the Chandrayaan-3 space craft touched down on the lunar surface.
”The sky is not the limit. India’s successful Moon mission is not India’s alone alone,” the Prime Minister added.
The landing, India’s third lunar mission, comes days after Russia’s unmanned Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the Moon after it span out of control.
Chandrayaan-3 project director said the spacecraft’s successful landing has brought him ”immense satisfaction.”
The Chandrayaan-3 lander, the Pragyaan, equipped with six wheels is expected to roam the lunar surface gathering images and data, if all goes as planned.
The mission is said to have cost $75 million. less than half the $200 million than the cost of Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft which crashed on Sunday into the lunar surface.
India’s President Droupadi Murmu described the landing as a ”momentous occasion,” adding that the country’s scientists have ”not only made history but also remade the idea of geography.”
She said it is also a ”major achievement for the whole of human kind.”
India’s Space Research Organization (Isro) was founded in 1969 with the primary goal to design and launch satellites for forecasting storms, mitigating floods and boosting telecommunications in the country.
Since then the country has slowly but steadily achieved significant milestones to emerge as one the leading lights in space missions.
On today’s successful lunar landing the current Isro chief S Somnath said, ”this is not the our work alone, this is the work of a generation of Isro scientists.” He praised and acknowledged the ”endless support and faith in the space agency’s work” by Prime Minister, Modi.
Timeline
In 2009, India sent a robotic orbiter called Chandrayaan-1 to the Moon, which consequently discovered that water ice can exist on the lunar surface. It followed that up with another mission in 2014 when it successfully put a satellite into orbit around Mars, becoming the fourth country to achieve the feat.
And in 2017, the country with approximately 1.5 billion people successfully launched 104 satellites on a single mission.
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