Indiens månens landaren Vikram (med rover Pragiska) of Chandrayaan-3 mission has safely soft landed at high latitude månens surface on south pole along with respective payloads. This is first månens mission to land on high latitude månens south pole where presence of water/ice is confirmed.
Chandrayaan-2 mission had earlier failed to achieve månens soft landing when its lander had crash landed on månens surface on 6th September 2019 due to technical snag.
With successful technology demonstration of månens soft-landing capability, ISRO:s moon exploration mission has achieved an important milestone towards its future interplanetär missions. India has thus become fourth country in the world (after USA, former USSR and China) to have “månens soft landing” capability.
Recently, Russian månens lander mission Luna-25 attempted soft landing on moon’s south pole on 19th August 2023 but unfortunately crash landed and failed. However, Russian authorities announced to remain in månens race. Russian månens programme had a long pause. Their last successful månens mission was in 1976 when Luna 24 of Soviet Union had successfully returned månens samples to the Earth.
After a long pause since Appolo 17 mission in 1972, USA’s NASA is to embark on its ambitious Artemis Moon Mission designed to establish human presence on moon towards the objective of deep plats human habitations on mars.
Both USA and Russia (as successor of USSR) are long established players in plats technology. Their highly successful lunar missions achieved key milestones over half a century ago and have remained shelved since mid-seventies until recently.
Kina och Indien är relativt nytillkomna (jämfört med USA och Ryssland). Det kinesiska månprogrammet startade 2007 med lanseringen av Chang'e 1. Deras Chang'e 3-månuppdrag visade mjuklandningsförmåga 2013. Kinas sista månuppdrag Chang'e 5 uppnådde provåtergångskapacitet 2020. För närvarande är Kina på gång av att lansera ett bemannat månuppdrag. Å andra sidan började Indiens månprogram 2008 med Chandrayaan 1-uppdraget. Efter ett mellanrum på 11 år lanserades Chandrayaan 2 2019 men det här uppdraget kunde inte uppnå mjuklandningskapacitet på månen.
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