India moon landing: Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft successfully lands near lunar south pole

Gabe Hauari, USA TODAY
Updated ·2 min read
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Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on the moon Wednesday, etching India into history as the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the lunar surface.

The Indian Space Research Organization launched Chandrayaan-3 over a month ago with the goal of landing near the lunar south pole, where it made a soft landing at about 8:33 a.m. EDT Wednesday.

The mission marks the first landing of any country near the south pole and the first lunar landing for India. With the landing, India became the fourth country − after the United States, the former Soviet Union, and China − to achieve the feat.

Chandrayaan-3, the word for “moon craft” in Sanskrit, took off from a launchpad in Sriharikota in southern India in July with an orbiter, a lander and a rover in a demonstration of India’s emerging space technology.

The world watched the progress of Chandrayaan-3 after the loss of Russia's Luna-25, which crashed into the lunar surface Sunday preparing for a pre-landing orbit of the moon. The Russian space agency Roscosmos said the craft "ceased its existence as a result of a collision with the lunar surface."

The six-wheeled lander and rover module of Chandrayaan-3 is configured with payloads that would provide data to the scientific community on the properties of lunar soil and rocks, including chemical and elemental compositions, said Dr. Jitendra Singh, junior minister for Science and Technology.

DIG DEEPER: Chandrayaan-3 attempt India's first moon landing after Russian Luna-25 crash

India Chandrayaan-3 mission is expecting to land near the lunar South Pole
India Chandrayaan-3 mission is expecting to land near the lunar South Pole

India’s previous attempt to land a robotic spacecraft near the moon’s little-explored south pole ended in failure in 2019. It entered the lunar orbit but lost touch with its lander which crashed while making its final descent to deploy a rover to search for signs of water. According to a failure analysis report submitted to the Indian Space Research Organization, the crash was caused by a software glitch.

Contributing: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Chandrayaan-3: Indian spacecraft lands near lunar south pole