The India-China lunar mission aims to succeed in landing on the lunar surface after Russia fails to land on the same region as Chandrayaan-3
The Indians feel great pride in their country’s space program. But the stakes for Wednesday’s landing attempt have been amplified by the crash on Saturday of Luna-25, a lunar lander from Russia that was to set down in the same region of the moon as Chandrayaan-3. The technological accomplishments of the world’s most populous country will highlight if India succeeds in landing after Russia fails.
Excited and anxious, people across India, home to the world’s largest population, crowded around televisions in offices, shops, restaurants and homes. Thousands prayed Tuesday for the success of the mission with oil lamps on the river banks, temples and religious places, including the holy city of Varanasi in northern India.
Chandrayaan means “moon craft” in Hindi. The landing module for the moon mission includes the lander and rover that will try to land on the lunar surface near the south polar region. The mission is robotic and there are no astronauts aboard.
Many countries and private companies are interested in the south pole because permanently shadowed craters can hold frozen water, which can be useful for future astronauts.
The lunar soil and rocks data from the six-wheeled lander would be provided to the scientific community.
“The recent crash of Russia’s Luna 25 spacecraft is a stark reminder of just how difficult it is to land successfully on the Moon,” says Marc Norman, planetary geochemist at the Australian National University in Canberra. While attempting a controlled landing on the Moon, the landers from Israel and Japan crashed. In recent years, only China’s Chang’e missions have landed successfully on the Moon and conducted surface operations. The United States and Soviet Union are the only other nations that have successfully put craft on the lunar surface.
The moon craters that are thought to hold water deposits were confirmed in 2008 by India and the $140 million mission was supposed to study them permanently in 2019.
The anticipation for a successful landing rose after Russia’s failed attempt and as India’s regional rival China reaches for new milestones in space. In May, China launched a three-person crew for its orbiting space station and hopes to put astronauts on the moon before the end of the decade. The relationship between India and China plummeted after border skirmishes in 2020.
Various countries and private companies are trying to land a spaceship on the moon. A Japanese company’s craft crashed while trying to land on the moon. An Israeli nonprofit had a chance to achieve a similar thing in 2019.
Japan plans to launch a lunar lander to the moon over the weekend as part of an X-ray telescope mission, and two U.S. companies also are vying to put landers on the moon by the end of the year, one of them at the south pole. In the coming years, NASA plans to land astronauts at the lunar south pole, taking advantage of the frozen water in craters.
A landing of the Russian Luna-25 lunar lander on August 23: A test-bed for deep inelastic scattering and impact crater studies
India’s success has instilled confidence in its space industry, says a mission systems engineer at a Bengaluru-based company. It could attract global investments in the Indian private space sector, foster international collaboration, and innovation across universities, labs, start-ups, and research communities in India, says Karampuri.
The lander is in an elliptical orbit of the moon, swinging as close as about 15 miles above the surface. On Wednesday at around 8:14 a.m. Eastern time, ISRO says the spacecraft will fire its engines to bring itself out of orbit and begin a descent to the surface. The engines will try to help it fall to the ground.
The nation’s space program, the Indian Space Research Organization, will provide a livestream from the mission control room in Bengaluru. You can watch it on ISRO’s YouTube channel or website starting at 7:50 a.m. It is on the eastern side.
The August 23 landing was chosen to coincide with the sun rising at the site. The mission will conclude when the sun sets. The solar-power lander and rover will make thermal, seismic and mineralogical measurement while on the surface.
But Russia’s Luna-25 lander wasn’t so lucky. It appeared that the craft malfunctioned and crashed as it prepared to land the next day. The Russian space agency planned to send Luna 25 for a year to research the regolith and pockets of water ice near the impact crater.
The power descent phase began at about 8:15 am ET, during which time the craft’s speed slowed from 1,680 to 358 meters per second, and the altitude dropped from 30 to 7.4 kilometers over a period of 11.5 minutes. During the following altitude hold phase, the craft turned its altimeters towards the moon to see how far away it was from the regolith. Then began the fine braking phrase, which ran for nearly 3 minutes, as the altitude was reduced to 800 meters.
The descent phase began around 8:29 am and the craft’s four legs began to move towards the landing site. As the craft’s sensors took readings of the safety at the landing site and were re-targeting, it hovered 150 meters above the surface. The people of the mission control headquarters in Bengaluru broke into applause after it set down on the regolith. “India is on the moon!” exclaimed ISRO chairman Vikram Sarabhai. The Prime Minister was watching the show remotely, so Sarabhai asked him to speak. I would like to address everyone, the people of every country and region on this happy occasion. Modi said that India’s successful moon mission was not just India’s alone. This success is for all of humanity and it will help other countries with their moon missions. I’m confident that all countries in the world, including those from the global south, are capable of achieving such things. We can aspire for the moon and beyond.
The landing “gives confidence to configure missions to go to the Moon, Mars, Venus, maybe even asteroids”, ISRO chairman S. Somanath told a press briefing.
The new laser sensor, the ability to handle unexpected deviations in flight, the bigger and riskier solar panels, the heavier lander with four sturdy legs, and more are just some of the things these include.
The area has rough terrain and landing at the south pole of the Moon is difficult because it involves positioning the craft at a different angle from previous landings.
In particular, it requires putting the spacecraft into a polar orbit that is at right angles to the Moon’s orbit, says Norman. “This requires additional energy to move the spacecraft into an ‘unnatural’ orbit, which introduces uncertainties on critical aspects such as velocity and location of the spacecraft.”
The region has insufficient data on its gravity and surface characteristics. “For example, if the spacecraft lands in a crater, on a slope, or the leg of the lander catches on a boulder, the mission could be compromised.”
Moon quakes near the area add complexity, says geologist Saumitra Mukherjee at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, whose team analysed images sent by India’s first lunar mission, Chadrayaan-1, which launched in 2008 and detected cliffs and signs of displaced underground rocks in two craters near the lunar south pole.
The lighting from the sun is not good. Torin Clark is an engineering professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, and he says that some areas are completely dark and others are in the light. The Apollo landing sites were specifically chosen to ensure quality lighting of the lunar terrain, such as rocks and craters.