Mumbai: In a closely watched astral event, Russia’s Luna-25 Moon mission and India’s Chandrayaan-3 are racing with each other to land on the Earth’s closest neighbour’s little explored South Pole.
No mission has so far landed on Moon’s rugged south polar region. All previous probes have touched down in the equatorial region, which is considerably easier to reach.
India's third lunar mission, Chandrayaan 3, last Saturday (August 5, 2023) successfully entered the Moon's orbit, marking a significant milestone in its journey towards Moon’s South Pole. The spacecraft with an orbiter, lander and a rover lifted off on 14 July.
Russia’s Luna-25 Moon mission on the other hand was launched earlier in the day (Friday August 11, 2023) aboard a Soyuz-2 Fregat rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the far-eastern Amur Region.
If both Chandrayaan 3 and Luna 25 land successfully they will have the closest temporal(time) proximity ever between two landers on any extraterrestrial surface.Hopefully I didn't miss accounting any past landerpic.twitter.com/yCP6G5FsqB— TitaniumSV5 (@TitaniumSV5) August 11, 2023
If both Chandrayaan 3 and Luna 25 land successfully they will have the closest temporal(time) proximity ever between two landers on any extraterrestrial surface.Hopefully I didn't miss accounting any past landerpic.twitter.com/yCP6G5FsqB
The lunar mission is Russia’s first in almost 50 years, and also the first built entirely from domestic components.
“Russia’s Luna-25 probe is heading toward the Moon after successfully leaving Earth’s orbit”, state space agency Roscosmos said on Friday.
The spacecraft is due to reach lunar orbit in five days. It will then spend between three to seven days choosing the right spot before landing in the Lunar South Pole area. Roscosmos expects the probe to land on the Moon around August 21, a source in the agency told AFP.
On the other hand, ISRO expects its Chandrayaan-3 will land on Moon’s South Pole on August 23, 2023.
Luna-25 or Chandrayaan-3 whichever probe lands on Moon’s South Pole first will make Russia or India the first country to achieve the milestone.
The previous attempt to land in the Moon’s polar mountains was undertaken by India back in 2019, resulting in the loss of Chandrayaan-2 and its Vikram lander, which crashed into the satellite’s surface.
The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft is taking much longer to reach the Moon than Russia’s Luna-25, and also the manned Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, which arrived in a matter of days. This is because the Indian rocket used is much less powerful than its counterparts.
Moreover, the probe orbited the Earth five or six times elliptically to gain speed, before being sent on a month-long lunar trajectory.
For all the latest News, Opinions and Views, download ummid.com App.
Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic.
