Four years after the failure of a first controlled moon landing attempt, an unmanned rocket launched by India entered orbit of the Moon on Saturday, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) announced. three weeks after its launch.
If the rest of the current mission goes as planned, the mission is expected to land near the moon’s little-explored south pole between August 23 and 24. The most populous country in the world, with more than 1.4 billion inhabitants, would then join the club having succeeded in a controlled moon landing, which currently includes only Russia, the United States and China.
Valor and Wisdom
Developed by ISRO, Chandrayaan-3 includes a landing module called Vikram, which means “valour” in Sanskrit, and a rover, a mobile robot, called Pragyan, which means “wisdom” in Sanskrit and which will explore the surface of the moon. Chandrayaan-3 took much longer to reach the Moon than the manned Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, which arrived within days.
The Indian rocket is much less powerful than the Saturn V, the rocket of the American Apollo lunar program. It made five or six elliptical orbits around the Earth to gain speed, before being sent on a lunar trajectory lasting a month. Since the launch of a probe into orbit around the moon in 2008, India’s space program has grown considerably.
Compete with other countries
In 2014, India became the first Asian country to put a satellite into orbit around Mars and three years later launched 104 satellites in a single mission. By next year, the Asian giant should launch a three-day manned mission in orbit around the earth.
India is also striving to increase its share of the commercial space market in the world, which is currently 2%, thanks to much lower costs than its competitors.