The moment every Indian was looking forward to finally arrived with Chandrayaan-3 landing on the Moon. If one were to state it in technical language, the Indian spacecraft soft-landed on the Earth’s natural satellite without any issues. Not only Indians, but the entire world had its eyes set on the country’s ambitious lunar mission and it did not disappoint this time. This expedition not only met with the expectations but also restored the trust and confidence in the country’s space research agency ISRO. The scientists who were part of this mission were confident about its success this time and the Indian people had echoed their sentiments.
While scientists were putting in their best efforts to execute the mission without any errors, Indian citizens were performing pujas and holding prayer services at temples, churches, mosques and gurudwaras for Chandrayaan’s success. Indeed, the scientists deserve all the credit for the mission’s success, but this gave an opportunity for the nation to come together as one. In a world’s first, India has become the first country to land a spacecraft on the Moon’s southern pole. America, China and the erstwhile USSR had reached to the Moon way before India did, but none of those countries were able to touch the Moon’s South Pole, which makes this incident even more significant in nature. After blasting off on July 14, Chandrayaan-3 took 41 days to reach the Moon and covered a staggering 3,84,000 kilometers. The route was full of hurdles and the main obstacle was the change in the environment. The hurdle of crossing the Earth’s orbit and entering Moon’s orbit was a challenge as well. However, the spacecraft took everything in its stride without any fuss.
Chandrayaan-3 will plant the Indian flag and draw ISRO’s logo on the lunar surface, so that during any future expeditions, signs of India’s successful mission can be identified. Of course, that’s not all that the Chandrayaan is assigned to do. The main objective is to study the lunar surface and the Moon’s atmosphere. It will also study the possibility of the presence of water and minerals in the lunar soil and whether life exists on the Moon. After studying the lunar soil it will send the reports to the scientists. All these tasks will be controlled and monitored by ISRO scientists from Earth, and as simple as it may sound now, it only proves how far the country has come in the field of science and technology. To send a spacecraft on the Moon which is lakhs of kilometers away from Earth and to get work done by it is not a small feat. It is not possible to achieve this without advanced technology which our scientists have acquired through sheer hard work.
All the technology used for Chandrayaan-3 mission is locally developed and assembled. Two of the previous lunar missions narrowly failed. Chandrayaan-2, especially, crashed in the last stages when it was merely 15 km from the Moon. It lost connection with the ISRO station resulting in a crash landing. Although it did land on the Moon, it was not in a condition to carry out the assigned tasks and was declared a failure as it did not revert back with any information. Learning from the previous mission, ISRO scientists had made considerable improvements in the Chandrayaan-3 mission. Every single step was closely monitored and the next one was taken only after ascertaining that the previous one had passed the test. This is a huge leap forward in terms of India’s scientific advancement. With Russia’s recent failure of their lunar mission, Chandrayaan-3’s success is even more significant considering erstwhile USSR was the first country to not only reach the Moon’s surface, but was also the first ever country to launch an artificial satellite in space. This proves how fragile such missions can turn out to be and previous achievements do not always guarantee success. This incident had created an uncertainty around Chandrayaan-3 as well, but it attained its desired destination. The last 15 minutes of the mission were extremely crucial and aptly termed as “15 minutes of terror” by former ISRO chief K Sivan. However, the daring lunar explorer made it look like a cakewalk – thanks to ISRO scientists, because of whom India’s reputation in space research will be counted amongst the elite countries.
