The sky’s not the limit anymore. Space is. The adage ‘Aim for the moon, if you miss you may hit a star’ does not count anymore, because India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission proved that if you aim for the moon, you can land on it, literally. Redefining the geo-space politics of the world, after an impressive array of attempts, on the 23rd of August 2023, India became the first nation to soft-land a spacecraft at the Moon’s southern pole.
This mission undoubtedly displayed the prowess and ingenuity of India’s research and engineering field. On top of that, while claiming territory in the space economy, it has also breathed new life into India’s national pride.
Orchestrated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the mission placed a landing craft on the moon which deployed a rover. This rover was designed to gather very important data on the soil composition on the moon. The fact that the mission was launched on a budget that pales when placed next to the costs of an average medium-sized U.S sci-fi film stands on par with the feat that it achieved. This achievement gives India a well-deserved and a well-earned ticket to sit at the same table as the members of the prestigious club of moon-explorers which used to comprise of the U.S, Russia and China.
The journey
Despite and in spite of the scepticism that many visibly wore on their faces about India’s “capability” of pulling off a project of such a scale, they did it. Not only because of their sheer resilience but also because India is home to a reservoir of the best brains that the world will ever witness. While Indians being the highschool nerd is a stereotypical trope that Western media happily exploits, in the process of doing so they forget that most Asians are actually smarter than they are given credit for. Especially women. This monumental achievement secured everyone’s attention not only because it was the first of its kind, but also because many women scientists played a crucial role in this success. Reports indicate that around 20-25% of ISRO’s workforce, which consists of 16,000 employees, are women. Notably, approximately 54 female engineers and scientists contributed to the Chandrayaan-3 mission. Thus shifting the narrative around who is conventionally supposed to be in the fields of rocket science.
Ever since Chandrayaan-2 and its aftermath, India has been tirelessly working to make their dream become a reality. As a result of the effort On July 14, 2023, at 5:05 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), a spacecraft was launched to the moon from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, India. This spacecraft was launched atop the medium-lift Launch Vehicle Mark-III (LVM3) rocket.
Chandrayaan-3, as the spacecraft was named, successfully completed its journey by landing near the moon’s south pole on August 23, 2023, at 8:33 a.m. Eastern Time (ET).
ISRO has an extensive and a remarkable history in space exploration, with its origins dating back to 1962 when a predecessor agency was established. ISRO conducted its first rocket launch in 1963 and was formally established as ISRO in 1969.
Additionally, in June 2023, just before the planned launch of Chandrayaan-3, India became a participant in the NASA-led Artemis Accords. These accords base their focus on promoting peaceful exploration of the moon by both humans and robots. While the immediate goals of the Artemis Accords pertain to human spaceflight, the White House mentioned that the information gathered from Chandrayaan-3’s mission could be extremely valuable for future Artemis missions involving human landings on the moon. This showcases India’s commitment to international collaboration in lunar exploration and the potential for Chandrayaan-3’s findings to contribute to broader lunar exploration efforts.
The Chandrayaan-3 mission had several key components and objectives. It involved a propulsion module responsible for transporting both the Vikram lander (named “Vikram,” which means “valour”) and the solar-powered rover called Pragyan (meaning “wisdom”) to the moon’s south pole, as stated by NASA.
The lander and rover were both crafted to direct scientific investigations on the lunar surface for a period of 14 Earth days, equivalent to a single lunar day. Meanwhile, the propulsion module had its own task which involved observations of Earth from lunar orbit.
The spacecraft package, which consisted of the rover, lander, and propulsion module, featured “advanced technologies” such as hazard detection and avoidance systems on the rover, a specialised landing leg mechanism to ensure a gentle landing, and altimeters and velocity instruments to accurately measure altitude and speed relative to the moon’s surface. These advanced features acted as a buttress for the success of the mission and for accumulating valuable data from the lunar surface.
The legacy
With a tremendous dream, an unprecedented level of perseverance, a cost-effective budget (US$ 75 million) and sheer will in their hands, India was able to drown the noise that all the naysayers had created in relation to Chandrayaan-2 and its crash. The success was even more accentuated because it followed closely on the heels of Russia’s failed lunar mission on August 19th.
With the positive turn of events, there is a BBC video that is spreading as fast as the news about the moon-landing in which the presenter at the time inquires whether India, a country that “lacks a lot of infrastructure” and where “700 million people don’t have access to a toilet” should be allocating money from their budget to fund a space programme. Bringing in this hackneyed trope of poverty is considered a low blow by many observers.
What India taught the world with this accomplishment is that landing on space is not only about making history, but it is also about investing in the future. India’s achievement of landing a module near the lunar south pole is a significant milestone that demonstrates the country’s space programme is far more than just a showpiece. This accomplishment will provide the world with valuable images and data from a previously unexplored region of the moon, particularly the lunar south pole, and this information is expected to have a profound and far-reaching impact on lunar research and our understanding of the moon. The successful and widely spoken lunar landing opens up the possibility of several benefits for India’s economy, including increased investments in space programmes, opportunities for international research collaborations and innovations, and greater support for the country’s scientific community.
India opened up the doors by themselves, for themselves, doors that were tightly locked and reserved for the self-proclaimed big guns. This success story will be spoken about for decades to come, not only because they succeeded, but because they celebrated all of their milestones, including failures.
(Sandunlekha Ekanayake)