After the failed first attempt in 2019, India is attempting a controlled moon landing for the second time. The launch vehicle launched successfully. The unmanned spacecraft “Chandrayaan-3” is now on its way to the moon and is scheduled to touch down there in August.
With the goal of a successful moon landing, India has again launched a rocket in the direction of the moon. This was shown by live images from the Indian space agency ISRO from the Satish Dhawan Space Station in the state of Andhra Pradesh.
With the unmanned mission Chandrayaan-3, India wants to explore the rarely explored south pole of the moon. First, however, a controlled moon landing must work, which is scheduled to take place on August 23rd or 24th. So far, only the USA, the Soviet Union and China have managed such a soft landing. Chandrayaan means “lunar vehicle” in Sanskrit.
First attempt failed
In 2019, a first attempt failed. During the Chandrayaan-2 mission, the landing module crashed onto the surface of the Earth’s satellite. The space agency later told the parliament in New Delhi that there were problems with deceleration during the approach to the moon.
Previously, India had already sought another mission to the moon: the first lunar probe “Chandrayaan-1” was launched in 2008 and orbited the moon – without landing on it. With the current mission, the lunar orbit should be reached after around 15 to 20 days, it said.
An LVM3 launch vehicle carried the lunar lander into space.
India’s space program began in the 1960s. In the first decades, the focus was primarily on launching certain satellites into space at low cost. The country now has more ambitious goals – and more recently, during a visit by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to US President Joe Biden, increased cooperation on space travel was announced.