In giant leap, India steps on the moon

First nation to soft-land on the tough terrain of lunar south pole

- Shouvik Das

India on Wednesday carved its legacy in space history with the first soft-landing on the moon’s south pole, a tough terrain holding secrets that could one day aid human spacefarers. With this, the country joins the US, Russia and China, the world’s only other nations to have successfully landed on the lunar surface.

Applause broke out at the command centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) at 6:04pm as Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander module—named after Vikram Sarabhai, the father of space research in India—touched down on the south pole, where previous attempts have failed before. The historic feat holds the potential to broaden human understanding of lunar exploration and puts India at the forefront of the global space race and space-exploration programmes.

India’s third lunar mission took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on 14 July onboard Isro’s Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM-3), India’s heaviest rocket yet. Following the successful injection of the propulsion module in the lunar orbit, the latter journeyed to a 100-kilometre orbit of the moon. At this point, the propulsion module released Vikram into its planned landing trajectory, culminating in its landing on Wednesday.