India becomes first nation to land spacecraft near Moon's south pole
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The unmanned Chandrayaan-3, which means "Mooncraft" in Sanskrit, landed at 6:04 pm India time (1234 GMT) to raucous applause from mission control personnel.
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A screengrab showing the lunar landing of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the south pole of the Moon (ISRO via AFP)
India became the first country to land a vehicle near the Moon's south pole on Wednesday; a historic victory for the world's most populous country and its ambitious, low-cost space program.
The unmanned Chandrayaan-3, which means "Mooncraft" in Sanskrit, landed at 6:04 pm India time (1234 GMT) to raucous applause from mission control personnel.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi waved an Indian flag on a live broadcast to announce the mission's success from the BRICS summit in South Africa. He addressed the "people of the world," calling the success that of "all of humanity," and not only India's.
Read more: Humans to live and work on moon by 2030: NASA
Chandrayaan-3 launched over six weeks ago and had to orbit the Earth multiple times in order to gain speed before going on its month-long voyage.
Since entering lunar orbit on August 5, the lander, Vikram, has been delivering photographs of the Moon's surface. After its landing, a solar-powered rover will investigate the surface and send data back to Earth over the course of two weeks.
The low-budget space program of India has increased in size and speed since it put a spacecraft into orbit around the Moon in 2008.
The current mission cost $74.6 million, which is far less than that of other countries and a tribute to India's inexpensive space engineering.
Skilled engineers who earn only a fraction of foreign engineers' wages made all this possible by replicating existing technology.
India became the first Asian country to place a craft around Mars in 2014 and plans to send a three-day crewed mission into Earth's orbit next year. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was looking forward to Wednesday's landing after the failure of its former 2019 mission when the mission control lost touch with the Chandrayaan-2 lunar module just before its scheduled landing.
Only Russia, the United States, and China have previously accomplished controlled Moon landings.
However, on August 19, Luna-25 spacecraft deviated from its intended orbit and subsequently crashed into the moon's surface, Roskosmos Russia's state space corporation announced.
The mission would've marked Russia's first moon mission in 47 years. This incident comes amid international competition, with India's Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft already landing on the moon and China and the United States advancing their lunar ambitions.
