ANALYSIS – The moon race is heating up, with India catching up to the U.S. and China. Until recently, the United States had a monopoly on lunar exploration, with the first unmanned landing in 1966, followed by the Apollo 11 manned landing in 1969.
The former Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.) landed a craft on the moon in 1966 as well.
American manned lunar landings ended in 1972 with Apollo 17, and the moon kind of lost its appeal for a while.
Then China became the third nation to successfully land on the Moon in 2013 with its Chang’e-3 mission and interest in the moon and its mineral resources, as well as its strategic position in space, reignited interest in lunar exploration. (RELATED: Space Marines Or Starship Troopers? – Rocket-Launched US Spec Ops To Deploy Worldwide)
Chang’e is China’s moon goddess.
As part of the Chang’e-4 mission, China currently has a robotic base on the far side of the moon and plans a manned landing by 2030. Meanwhile, the U.S. is hoping to beat that date by landing humans on the moon again by 2025 as part of its Artemis program. (RELATED: US Preps Mission To Uncover Universe’s Darkest Secrets)
And now India, the world’s most populous country and soon to be third largest economy, is joining the moon race with the launch of its unmanned Chandrayaan 3 mission on July 13. Chandrayaan means “moon vehicle” in Sanskrit.
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launched the lunar mission from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota at 14:30 local time (09:00 GMT or 5 a.m. EST) aboard a Launch Vehicle Mark-III (LVM3).
The Chandrayaan 3 carries a lander and rover with scientific payloads to analyze the chemical and geological composition of the lunar surface.
The craft is expected to land on the moon on August 23. It’s India’s second attempt at a soft landing after its previous effort with the Chandrayaan-2 in 2019 failed.
If successful, Chandrayaan-3 will make India the fourth nation to successfully land on the moon. And the mission is probably the cheapest. India has reportedly spent only $75 million on its Chandrayaan-3 mission. (RELATED: US Strengthening Defense Ties With India To Face China)
While others have crash-landed probes on the moon (a private Israeli group crashed their lunar lander on the moon in 2019) until now, only the ‘big three’ – U.S., Russia (under the U.S.S.R.) and China have achieved controlled soft landings on the moon.
India’s space engineers are aiming to land Chandrayaan-3 near the difficult terrain of the moon’s unexplored south pole.
The main objectives of the mission are threefold. They are first achieving a safe and soft landing on the moon, demonstrating the rover’s ability to move around on the lunar surface and conducting in situ scientific observations, focusing on the moon’s composition.
An orbiter will carry the lander-rover combination to a 62 mile lunar orbit.
The Vikram lander will have four payloads, including a seismometer to detect moonquakes and a LASER Retroreflector Array (LRA).
The six-wheeled Pragyan rover will have two payloads – two spectrometers will attempt to find materials from the ancient lunar crust.
In addition, there will be one payload on the orbiter, the SHAPE Earth-observing experiment, to measure spectral and polarimetric radiation and understand what signatures of habitable Earth-like planets could look like.
On Friday, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) confirmed on Twitter that Chandrayaan-3 is in “precise orbit” and has “begun its journey to the moon.”
It added that the health of the spacecraft is “normal.”
This is a huge step for India, as it positions itself as one of the world’s top three superpowers after the U.S. and China.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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Can India do this??
India is not yet a super power, but it is a key to keeping China and Russia in check. Just think how much progress could be made if China and Russia became democratized friendly nations.
India a super power? What kind of military do they have?
Nuclear weapons–it is estimated they have 150 nuclear weapons. They have the fourth largest air force in the world. Their army is over 1 million strong. They have 130 ships in their navy.
thank to the treasonists not held accountable