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One year anniversary Chandrayaan-3 mission launch, first country to land rover on the lunar south pole

One year has passed since the Indian space organization ISRO did its Chandrayaan-3 mission and launched it on July 14, 2023. This mission created history and was also the most important mission of ISRO that was able to get successful.

July 15, 2024 / 13:34 IST
Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft's landing on the moon shown on the live stream (Photo Credit : Reuters)

Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft's landing on the moon shown on the live stream (Photo Credit : Reuters)

One year has passed since the Indian space organization ISRO did its Chandrayaan-3 mission and launched it on July 14, 2023.  This mission created history and was also the most important mission of ISRO that was able to get successful.

ISRO rover made a soft landing on the lunar south pole, marking India to be the first country to land on the south pole of the Moon. The success of this mission brought praise to India and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and increased its stature globally.

The landing of the rover on the Moon happened on August 23, 2023. The lander opened after it few hours of landing and the inside unit came out and stepped on the lunar surface. The operation was designed to take place for 14 days and 1 moon day.

The rover functioned well during its expenditure of one day on the moon compared to the failure faced by the Chandrayan-2 mission, as the last-minute failure during the previous mission faced by ISRO regarding the soft landing.

This made the ISRO scientists concerned but that failure made the scientists prevent it from happening again as they improved it in 2023 and became successful making it an important mission for the space organization.

The success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission made India 4th country to land on the Moon's surface. The journey of the Chandrayaan mission started in the 2008–2009 period when India did its first mission to the Moon Chandrayaan-1.

This Chandrayaan-1 mission made the discovery of the water on the Moon and revealed the world about its presence on the lunar surface. Till the Chandryaan 3 mission, a lot of improvement has been done by the ISRO scientist.

They developed the rover which at night will go to sleep mode for the functioning of the rover solar power is required and that availability is only at day time.

Also, the low temperature was a great challenge as during night time the Moon's temperature falls down to minus 150 degrees Celsius. The Indian system was not designed to withstand such extremely low temperatures.

Despite all the challenges, ISRO that the lander to work beyond one day. On September 3, 2023, the system was put into sleep mode.  Chandrayaan-3 was equipped with specialised sensors that can measure the temperature this data later got shared by ISRO.

Along with this, the rover was equipped with a sensor that studies lunar seismic activity and its measurements and there was a movement reported on August 25 and August 26.

The rover also studied the chemical composition and mineral composition and gathered information on the lunar surface that revealed the presence of sulphur and oxygen along with other elements like calcium, aluminium, iron, titanium, manganese, chromium, and silicon.

Through their past missions, ISRO has learned and implemented improvements to make their rover more adaptable to the lunar environment, ensuring a smooth mission execution within a limited budget and showcasing their capabilities to the world.

Khushi Thakur
first published: Jul 15, 2024 01:31 pm

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