Chandrayaan-3 landing highlights: Pragyan rover roams on the Moon

ChaSTE (Chandra's Surface Thermophysical Experiment) measures the temperature profile of the lunar topsoil around the pole, to understand the thermal behaviour of the moon's surface. It has a temperature probe equipped with a controlled penetration mechanism capable of reaching a depth of 10 cm beneath the surface. The probe is fitted with 10 individual temperature sensors. The presented graph illustrates the temperature variations of the lunar surface/near-surface at various depths, as recorded during the probe's penetration. This is the first such profile for the lunar south pole. Detailed observations are underway. 

ISRO shares video of the Pragyan rover roaming on the lunar surface.

After sharing a video of the Pragyan lunar rover leaving the lander, ISRO said that the rover travelled eight metres on the lunar surface. The space agency also added that the two instruments carried by the rover have been turned on. 

ISRO announced today that all parts of the Chandrayaan-3 mission are working as intended. Also, the Pragyan rover has traversed 8 metres on the lunar surface. The LIBS and APXS payloads of the rover have begun functioning. 

A day after the historic lunar landing by Chandrayaan-3, instruments on board the spacecraft began working and the rover took a “walk” on the Moon, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said on Thursday.

Communication links between the lander and the rover have been established and the first images of the rover have been captured, said sources. While some sources said the images would not be released until the completion of a “key event”, others said the picture quality was “not good” and “new images” were awaited.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission has been generating a lot of discussion around India’s space programme, and Moon missions in general. Here are a few things you may not be aware of.

Kalam ensured Chandrayaan-1 left imprint on Moon

Chandrayaan-1, India’s first mission to the Moon in 2008, was just an Orbiter. When the spacecraft was being assembled, President A P J Abdul Kalam visited the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) office. According to an account by former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair, Kalam asked scientists what evidence Chandrayaan-1 would have to show it had been to the Moon. (Read more)

The successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon shows that India is at the cutting edge of space technologies and can never again be at the receiving end of a technology denial regime, as happened in the past, celebrated former ISRO chairman K Kasturirangan said.

Kasturirangan, during whose tenure as ISRO chairman the Moon missions were planned, said space capabilities would be increasingly important in international affairs, and Chandrayaan-3 ensures India would be part of all decision-making process in matters related to space.

“This (landing) capability means we are at the forefront of this technology. And, therefore, we will be part of all decision-making related to future planetary explorations, and even extraction of resources from space. We are naturally part of the club that formulates these future policies,” Kasturirangan said in an interview with The Indian Express. (Read more)

Here's how Chandrayaan-3 Rover ramped down from the Lander to the Lunar surface.

The Space Applications Centre (SAC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) have made crucial contributions to the Chandrayaan-3 Moon mission, which is set to land close to the unexplored lunar south pole on Wednesday (August 23) evening. Both institutions were founded in Ahmedabad by Dr Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India’s space programme.

ISRO SAC played a crucial role in the landing process. It has developed a number of sensors on board the lander, including the hazard detection and avoidance camera and processing algorithm.

SAC has developed eight camera systems for the Chandrayaan-3 mission, four of which are on board the lander, and one on the rover — these five cameras will be primarily used for capturing images and their public dissemination. Three other cameras on the lander played a crucial role in the landing. (Read more)

As Chandrayaan-3 made its soft landing on the Moon, and elated ISRO scientists stood up and cheered, a Kolkata television channel flashed a sign in Bengali: “The South Pole of the Moon is now in India’s grip.”

It is human nature to want to think of ourselves as conquerors, whether of the Moon or Mt Everest or the coronavirus. Humans always want to establish dominion. But the Moon is a slippery object, constantly waxing and waning, in and out of our reach. The Sun might give this planet life but the Moon has given us poetry. And nightmares as well — the word lunatic comes from the Moon. In the West, the Moon is a thief, stealing the light from the Sun, pale and wan making Percy Bysshe Shelley wonder, “Art thou pale for weariness of climbing heaven and gazing on earth.” The Moon is fickle and William Shakespeare goes so far as to say “Arise, fair Sun, and kill the envious Moon.” (Read more)

Chandrayaan-2's Orbiter High-Resolution Camera (OHRC) has snapped a shot of Chandrayaan-3 Lander after the landing on August 23. 

The phenomenal achievement of Chandrayaan-3’s Moon-landing is the culmination of a process set in motion years ago, and puts India on the path to having a greater say in space exploration policy-making. K Kasturirangan, during whose tenure as ISRO chairman the Moon missions were planned, speaks to The Indian Express about the past and the future of India’s moonshot moment.

How do you see the Chandrayaan-3 landing on the moon?

It is a landmark event, no doubt. But if you look beyond the event, it gives us a very important capability. It gives us physical access to another planetary body. The fact that we are only among a handful of countries with this capability means we are at the forefront of this technology. And therefore, we will be part of all decision-making related to future planetary explorations and even extraction of resources from space. We are naturally part of the club that formulates these policies. (Read more)

The Chandrayaan-3 lander made a successful soft landing on the surface of the Moon a little after 6 pm on Wednesday, making India the first country to reach close to the lunar south pole. India has also become the fourth nation in history to land on the lunar surface, after the United States, the erstwhile Soviet Union, and China.

As the nation celebrates the biggest breakthrough of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), here is a look at the previous notable milestones of the space agency through three of its major programmes: satellites, launch vehicles, and planetary exploration. (Read more)

After concluding his two-nation visit from Greece, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will head straight to Bengaluru, Karnataka on a pre-scheduled visit. He will meet scientists of the ISRO team involved in the Chandrayaan-3 Mission. 

After a 40-day journey into space, the Chandrayaan-3 lander, 'Vikram', touched down on the uncharted lunar South Pole on Wednesday evening, making India the first country to do so. (ANI)

ISRO shared a video showing the Lander Imaging Camera saw the touchdown from its vantage point. 

A day after the Vikram lander successfully landed near the south pole of the Moon, ISRO has confirmed that all mission systems are functionally normally and that Chandrayaan-3 is working on schedule. Also, the Pragyan rover has begun its exploration of the Moon. 

After the dust settled following the Chandrayaan-3 landing on the Moon, the 26-kilogram six-wheel Pragyan rover got off the lander to leave on its journey of lunar exploration. Both the lander and rover are expected to remain operation for 14 Earth days during which they will conduct many important scientific experiment, uncovering for the first time data from near the lunar south pole. Here are some of the experiments that it will undertake. 

These are the four phases that happened during the “15 minutes of terror” at the end of the mission before Chandrayaan-3 successfully soft landed on the Moon:

1. Rough braking phase: During this phase, the lander’s horizontal velocity reduced from around 6,000 kilometres per hour to near zero for a soft 
2. Attitude holding phase: At a height of around 7.43 kilometres above the lunar surface, the lander tilted from a horizontal to a vertical position while covering a distance of 3.48 kilometres.
3. Fine braking phase: This will last around 175 seconds during which time the lander will travel about 28.52 kilometres horizontally to the landing site while reducing the altitude by around 1 kilometre. Chandrayaan-2 lost control between the Attitude hold and fine-braking phases.
4. Terminal descent: This is the final stage when the fully vertical lander should drop down on the Moon’s surface.

From US Vice President Kamala Harris to the president of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), congratulations poured in from all quarters for Chandrayaan-3’s successful landing.

While speaking to the media months ahead of the launch, ISRO chief S Somanath said the space agency made “failure-based” upgrades to the Chandrayaan-3 mission. This meant that ISRO took the learnings from the failure of Chandrayaan-2’s landing to improve on the Vikram lander and other parts of the new mission. Some of the upgrades are as follows:

Strengthened legs: The legs of the new Vikram lander have been strengthened to ensure that it can land safely up to a speed of 10.8 kilometres per hour. Of course, this might not really be useful if a situation like Chandrayaan-2 arises, when the lander was going at a speed of around 580 kilometres per hour when crashing.

Bigger fuel tank: The Chandrayaan-3 mission carries more fuel than its predecessor to make sure that it can make last-minute changes if necessary. 

More solar panels: The new Vikram lander has solar panels on all four of its faces instead of just two, as seen with its predecessor.

Additional instruments and improved software: More crucial, the Chandrayaan-3 mission has additional instruments and improvements to its software to aid the soft-landing effort. This includes the Laser Doppler Velocimeter, which will fire laser beams to the lunar surface to calculate the Lander’s speed. The updated software features multiple redundancies that will help it cope with different scenarios.

Former ISRO chief K Sivan, who presided over the space agency during Chandrayaan-3's unsuccessful soft-landing attempt, spoke about the Chandrayaan-3 mission and its success. 

In an interview, ISRO chairperson S Somanath said the Aditya L1 solar observation mission is ready for launch in September. India’s first crewed space mission, Gaganyaan, meanwhile, is still a work in progress. Somanath said the space agency will conduct a mission as early as October to demonstrate the crew module’s efficacy along with crew escape capabilities. 

ISRO chief S Somanath speaks about how the space agency will go forward with collecting the first pieces of data from near the lunar south pole in history. 

Chandrayaan-3 may have landed on the Moon but it sent waves across our planet. With the landing, India became not only the first country to land near the lunar south pole but it also became just the fourth country to soft-land on the Moon at all. This is how global media reacted to the historic achievement by ISRO. 

ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 triumph would not have been possible without the dedication and hard work of the top talent from across the country who worked on it. While it would be hard to pin down the key scientists and engineers in such a massive group effort like the mission, you can read about six of them in this article. 

These are the four phases that happened during the “15 minutes of terror” at the end of the mission before Chandrayaan-3 successfully soft landed on the Moon:

1. Rough braking phase: During this phase, the lander’s horizontal velocity reduced from around 6,000 kilometres per hour to near zero for a soft 
2. Attitude holding phase: At a height of around 7.43 kilometres above the lunar surface, the lander tilted from a horizontal to a vertical position while covering a distance of 3.48 kilometres.
3. Fine breaking phase: This will last around 175 seconds during which time the lander will travel about 28.52 kilometres horizontally to the landing site while reducing the altitude by around 1 kilometre. Chandrayaan-2 lost control between the Attitude hold and fine-braking phases.
4. Terminal descent: This is the final stage when the fully vertical lander should drop down on the Moon’s surface.

Celebrated former ISRO chairman K Kasturirangan, under whose tenure the space agency laid out the initial plans for the Moon mission, said the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 shows that the country is at the cutting edge of space technologies. 

“This is significant because in the past, we have suffered by being kept out of such clubs. We have been denied access to technology — in atomic energy, in space, and in other critical areas. We were kept out because we did not have our own capabilities and were, in some ways, dependent. The Moon landing changes that permanently,” he said to The Indian Express. 

The lander carries four instruments:
? The Radio Anatomy of Moon Bound Hypersensitive ionosphere and Atmosphere (RAMBHA) instrument will study surface plasma on the Moon.

? The Chandra’s Surface Thermo physical Experiment (ChaSTE) instrument will study the thermal properties of the lunar surface near the polar region. Chandrayaan-3 has landed around 70 degrees south latitude, the closest that any spacecraft has reached to the lunar south pole.

? The Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA) will measure lunar quakes near the landing site and study the composition of the Moon’s crust and mantle.

? The LASER Retroreflector Array (LRA) is a passive experiment sent by NASA that acts as a target for lasers for very accurate measurements for future missions.

There are two scientific experiments on the rover.

? The LASER Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS) will determine the chemical and mineral composition of the lunar surface.

? The Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) will determine the chemical composition and mineralogical composition of the lunar surface

The successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon is one of the most defining moments in India’s history. It consolidates its position as a space power. India is one of the four countries to accomplish a soft landing on the lunar surface, and the first to do so near the Moon’s South Pole. Just like the implications of the nuclear tests, for instance, went far beyond nuclear or military affairs, the ramifications of Chandrayaan-3’s success are not restricted to matters of space. ISRO’s successful mission adds yet another dimension to India’s increasing global heft, across sectors. The fact that India made it in the second attempt does not take anything away from the achievement. On the contrary, it underlines the resilience, commitment and character of the space agency. Read More

After rolling down a ramp from the Chandrayaan-3 lander, the six-wheel, 26-kg rover, which is capable of slowly moving up to 500 metres, will begin its job of lunar exploration. The landing has happened at lunar dawn, and the six payloads on board the lander and rover will start collecting data soon after to get as much science as possible in the single lunar day or 14 Earth days for which they will remain operable. Read More

As the Pragyan rover rolled out from the lander after a successful landing by the Chandrayaan-3 mission, ISRO said: “Chandrayaan-3 ROVER: Made in India, Made for the MOON?! The Ch-3 Rover ramped down from the Lander and India took a walk on the moon!”

As the Chandrayaan-3 Moon mission receives accolades from around the world, President Droupadi Murmu said: “I once again congratulate the ISRO team and all fellow citizens for successful deployment of Pragyan-rover from inside Vikram-lander. Its rolling out a few hours after the landing of Vikram marked the success of yet another stage of Chandrayan 3. I look forward with excitement, alongside my fellow citizens and scientists to the information and analyses that Pragyan will acquire and enrich our understanding of the moon.”

The suspense is over. India is celebrating the remarkable success of Chandrayaan-3, which landed on the Moon’s surface on the designated day, time and location. One of the markers of global leadership is technological advancement. After the US, Russia and China, India is now only the fourth country to have achieved this landmark. Chandrayaan-3 landed at the southern pole of the Moon and India is the only spacefaring nation to have selected a particularly challenging and little understood location for exploration. Scientists say that it is only the polar regions which still carry the original geology of the Moon — most of its surface having been overlaid with the debris of large and small asteroids which have been bombarding the Moon through millennia and accumulating, layer after layer. The experiments which the Moon rover will be carrying out over this space, including looking for sub-soil water, will bring new knowledge about our closest celestial neighbour. This will also help our understanding of the history and make-up of our own fragile planet.

This great success in space exploration comes, coincidentally, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Johannesburg, South Africa, for the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit. Chandrayaan-3’s success will boost India’s profile and standing among its BRICS partners and enhance the influence of the BRICS itself as a grouping of economically and technologically capable states who are now peers among the constituency of developing countries, writes Shyam Saran. Read More

American politicians, newspapers and space research institutions hailed India Wednesday on the successful moon landing of Chandrayaan-3 as the country entered the elite club of three other nations — United States, Russia and China — that have a rover on the lunar surface.

"Congratulations to India for the historic landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the southern polar region of the moon," US Vice President Kamala Harris said on X, known as Twitter till recently.

"It is an incredible feat for all the scientists and engineers involved. We are proud to partner with you on this mission and space exploration more broadly," said Harris, whose mother was from India. The vice president heads the National Space Council.

Space cooperation was one of the major topics of discussion during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's State visit to the US this summer. India signed the Artemis accord, and also the two countries decided to work together on an international space station.

"Congratulations ISRO on your successful Chandrayaan-3 lunar South Pole landing! And congratulations to India on being the 4th country to successfully soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon. We're glad to be your partner on this mission!" said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

Chandrayaan-3 touched down on the unchartered lunar south pole at 6.04 pm on Wednesday. No country has ever landed on the treacherous south pole that scientists believe could hold important reserves of frozen water and precious elements. Russia's south pole-bound Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the Moon on Sunday after spinning out of control.

Cementing India's status as a global power in space, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scripted history as Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft made a soft landing on the surface of the Moon Wednesday evening. With the mission's success, India has become the first country to land a spacecraft on the lunar's uncharted territory of south pole and fourth overall to reach on the Moon. The next big manoeuvre was the rolling out of the Pragyan rover which started slowly after the dust settled on the Moon’s surface, the space agency said.

With Chandrayaan-3 successfully landing on the Moon’s surface, decks have been cleared for ISRO to unveil the next stage of its lunar exploration programme.

As of now, ISRO is preparing for one more lunar mission, this one in collaboration with Japanese space agency, JAXA. This mission, called LUPEX, or Lunar Polar Exploration, is slated for 2024-25. But there would be more in the Chandrayaan series as well.

“Of course, the Chandrayaan programme will not end with Chandrayaan-3. We have landed now. But there are many more things to do. It is natural to expect follow-up missions Chandrayaan-4, Chandrayaan-5 and so on. Those plans can be expected to be revealed soon,” said Mylswamy Annadurai, the mission director of Chandrayaan-1 that was launched in 2008.

“In fact, if Chandrayaan-2 had succeeded in landing, Chandrayaan-3 would have been a sample return mission. Now, maybe Chandrayaan-4 will be the sample return mission whenever it is planned. That is the next logical step to a lander and rover mission,” Annadurai said. Read Full Version

The Space Applications Centre (SAC) of ISRO and Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) have made crucial contributions to the Chandrayaan-3 mission, which landed close to the unexplored lunar south pole on Wednesday evening. Both institutions were founded in Ahmedabad by Dr Vikram Sarabhai, father of India’s space programme.

ISRO SAC played a crucial role in the landing process. It has developed a number of sensors on board the lander, including the hazard detection and avoidance camera and processing algorithm.

SAC has developed eight camera systems for the Chandrayaan-3 mission, four of which are on board the lander, and one on the rover. Three other cameras on the lander played a crucial role in the landing. Read Full Report

Students from across the country and varied types of institutions — from a humble government school in Guwahati to the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), India’s only such institute shaping future space scientists — watched the finale on Wednesday evening as Chandrayaan-3 landed on Moon.

On IIST campus in Thiruvananthapuram — scores of its alumni were part of the Chandrayaan mission — around 1,500 people, including nearly a thousand students, watched the landing on two giant LED walls. IIST senior administration manager Pradeep Kumar said, “We are proud that our alumni who joined ISRO over the years are part of the mission.”Nearly 2,000 km away, at Physics department of Pandit Ravishankar Shukla University in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur, students of Physics and Astrophysics department chanted slogans such as “ISRO Salam Tujhe (We salute you, ISRO)”, “Vande Mataram”, “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”. Department head Nameeta Brahme said, “It is an extremely proud moment for our department — our alumni, Vivek Agrawal, is a scientist at ISRO and his lab has contributed to this mission. Our students see this as their own victory…” Read Full Report

As the dust settles, Pragyan rover comes out of the Vikram lander.

The Indian space agency shared a new picture of the surface of the Moon where its Chandrayaan-3 landed. It also said that the spacecraft chose a relatively flat region to land on the lunar surface.

ISRO Chairperson S Somanath Wednesday lauded the scientists involved in Chandrayaan-3 moon landing mission, and said that the success of the project will create an ambition to attempt adventurous deep space missions including landings on Venus and Mars. Read more here

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on Wednesday congratulated India on being the 4th country to successfully soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon and said the US space agency was glad to be India's "partner" on this mission. "Congratulations @isro on your successful Chandrayaan-3 lunar South Pole landing! And congratulations to #India on being the 4th country to successfully soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon. We're glad to be your partner on this mission!" Nelson posted on X.

In a latest update, the ISRO said the communication link has been established between the Chandrayaan-3 lander and the Mission Operations Centre (MOX) and ISRO’s Telemetry, Tracking and Command (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru. To know more about ISRTRAC and MOX, tap here

This is the four phases that happened during the “15 minutes of terror” at the end of the mission before Chandrayaan-3 successfully soft landed on the Moon:

1. Rough braking phase: During this phase, the lander’s horizontal velocity reduced from around 6,000 kilometres per hour to near zero for a soft 
2. Attitude holding phase: At a height of around 7.43 kilometres above the lunar surface, the lander tilted from a horizontal to a vertical position while covering a distance of 3.48 kilometres.
3. Fine breaking phase: This will last around 175 seconds during which time the lander will travel about 28.52 kilometres horizontally to the landing site while reducing the altitude by around 1 kilometre. Chandrayaan-2 lost control between the Attitude hold and fine-braking phases.
4. Terminal descent: This is the final stage when the fully vertical lander should drop down on the Moon’s surface.

"The most difficult parts were the launch, landing and capture by the orbit of the Moon, the launch of the lander to descent and the final landing. The lander's health will be assessed and the rover will come out from Lander in the next few hours, said ISRO chief S Somanath. 

Landing velocity was less than the targeted 2 metres per second and gives great hope for future missions, said ISRO chairman Somnath. The next 14 days of experiments by the instruments on the lander and rover will be exciting, he added. 

"There are many myths, stories and legends about the celestial body that are a part of our cultural truth, our Indian-ness. Devdutt Pattanaik draws Shiva and the moon, and retells some of them," writes Devdutt Pattanaik in an opinion piece for The Indian Express. 

“Historical, once in a lifetime moment like these while uniting our country also paves the way for an increased scientific temper amongst the youth of India, an accelerated pathway for self-reliance in emerging sectors & technologies, and, instilling the confidence to be amongst the Top 3 economies of the world. A classic lesson on focused perseverance, economic innovation and sovereignty in new and emerging tech, today’s event will propel India’s space economy to the next orbit," said Sreeram Ananthasayanam, Partner, Deloitte India, in a statement to the press.

“We applaud ISRO on the successful landing of the Chandrayaan-3 which shows India's strong spirit of space exploration and our prowess in the space domain. The successful landing shows the potential of the Indian space sector and places India among the very few nations in the whole world who have achieved this feat. It is also a harbinger of the exciting opportunities that it brings for private players. It not only encourages the development of the lunar space economy but also signals a major change," said  AK Bhatt, Director General, Indian Space Association. 

“This signifies these moon landings will also further propel our actions towards creating a flourishing lunar economy and will encourage broader celestial exploration, from Mars and beyond. An important step forward in space exploration and commercialization will be with the inclusion of more private players and our growing spacetech startups in the future missions to make a India a leader in the global space economy," he added. 

NASA administrator Bill Nelson congratulated ISRO on its success with Chandrayaan-3 in a post on X, formerly Twitter. 

The Chandrayaan-3 mission is the triumph of thousands of scientists who have worked over the decades to get ISRO to where it is now, making it a global space powerhouse. 

Prime Modi congratulated ISRO scientists for the success of the mission while speaking immediately after touchdown from South Africa. Says India is on the moon, adding that the success is a sign of a developed India “India's successful moon mission is not just India's alone, he said. According to Modi, success belongs to all of humanity and will help future moon missions of other countries. 

ISRO chairperson S Somanath congratulated project director P Veeramuthuvel, assistant director Kalpana, mission director Srikanth and URSC director V Sankaran for the success. Chandrayaan 3 project director P Veeramuthuvel reiterated how ISRO is the first to land near the south pole of the moon. "Most memorable and happiest moment," added assistant director Kalpana. 

Watch the last few moments before Chandrayaan-3 touched down on the Moon.