Chandrayaan-3 Landing: India creates history, lunar lander module successfully soft lands on Moon surface

Chandrayaan-3 Landing: India watched in rapt attention as the countdown for Chandrayaan-3's landing drew closer to its end, and as the lander module successfully made soft landing on the lunar surface, celebrations broke out across the country and at Mission Operations Complex of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), in Bengaluru on Wednesday. What is remarkable is that the lander touched lunar surface near the South Pole of the moon, after completing a journey of 3.84 lakh km traversed for over the course of 40 days. 

Chandrayaan-3 Landing: Plan executed perfectly

Everything went as per ISRO's plans. The Chandrayaan-3 moon lander successfully planted its four legs softly and safely on the lunar soil at 6.05 PM — making India the fourth nation in the world to achieve the feat and the first to land on moon's South Pole. 

The 19 minutes of suspense and excitement began at 5.45 p.m., as planned earlier, and ended at 6.05 PM. with the lander successfully soft landing on the lunar soil.

Chandrayaan-3 Landing: Perfecting the landing manoeuvre 

This time around, the soft landing was the tricky part for the scientists, because the nation remembers how Chandrayaan-2 mission's Vikram lander had crashed on the moon while on its last phase of landing in 2019.

Scientists said that the soft landing is the trickiest part of the mission, because it involves a series of complex manoeuvres involving rough and fine braking.

The lander and ISRO conducted complex imaging of the landing site area before landing procedure began to find the safe and hazard-free landing zones.

At about 5.45 PM, the lander began a horizontal descent from a height of 30 kilometres, followed by activation of the automatic landing sequence.

As the brakes were deployed, the lander's speed was reduced from 1,680 metres per second to 358 metres per second, and the height brought down to 7.4 km above the moon.

During the altitude hold phase, Chandrayaan-3's altitude was slowly brought down to 6.8 km, before the lander's position position changed to vertical. Then, with two of the four engines firing, the craft hovered 150 metres over the lunar surface, taking pictures and surveying the landing zone to acscertain a safe landing spot.
 

Chandrayaan-3 Landing: PM congratulates ISRO

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated ISRO on Chandrayaan-3's successful landing on the moon, and said, "This is a historic movement and sounds the bugle for a developed India."

"India has set new, ambitious targets for future," PM said, adding that India’s successful moon mission is not India’s alone. "This is a year in which the world is witnessing India’s G20 presidency. Our approach of one earth, one family, one future is resonating across the globe," he further stated.

Also Read - Chandrayaan 3 Mission: India is now on the moon, says PM Modi

PM called up ISRO chief S Somnath, and congratulated him and his team on this historic feat. "Somnath Ji, your name is Somnath, which is associated with the moon, and therefore your family members will also be very happy today. Many many congratulations to you and your entire team from my side," PM Modi said in the telephone conversation. 

Historic day for India's space sector. Congratulations to @isro for the remarkable success of Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission. https://t.co/F1UrgJklfp

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 23, 2023

Chandrayaan-3 Landing: ISRO chief congratulates team

Following the landing, ISRO Chief S Somnath said, "India is now on the Moon!" He congratulated his team on the success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission, saying, "I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people behind this mission."

Chandrayaan-3 Mission:

India is on the moon.

Appreciations and thanks
for all the contributions
from India and abroad to this
ISRO-turned-National endeavour called Chandrayaan-3.https://t.co/MieflRY20B
Thank You!@PMOIndia@DrJitendraSingh@HALHQBLR@BHEL_India…

— ISRO (@isro) August 23, 2023

Chandrayaan-3: Components 

The Chandrayaan 3 spacecraft consists of a propulsion module that weighs 2,148 kg, a moon lander weighing 1,723.89 kg and a rover which weighs 26 kg.

As per ISRO, Chandrayaan 3's moon rover contain Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS) and Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) that will derive the elemental composition close to the landing site.

Chandrayaan-3: Lander's payloads

Chandrayaan-3's lander contains — 
a) Chandra's Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE) - for measuring the thermal conductivity and temperature;
b) Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA) - to measure seismic activity around the landing site, 
c) Langmuir Probe (LP) - which will estimate the plasma density and its variations; and, 
d) Passive Laser Retroreflector Array - Provided by NASA, it will conduct lunar laser ranging studies.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission was successfully launched into orbit on July 14 via India's heavy lift rocket LVM3. The spacecraft completed orbiting around the Earth and headed towards the moon on August 1.