Updated: 12:00 p.m. EDT with landing photo
The first image released from Chandrayaan 3 shows part of the landing leg on the surface and its accompanying shadow. Image: ISRO. India’s space agency said on Wednesday it had successfully landed its robotic probe Chandrayaan 3 on the surface of the moon. Landing Chandrayaan 3 landed near the Moon’s south pole at around 8:33 am. EDT (6:03 p.m. IST).
“We have achieved a soft landing on the Moon,” said Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman Shri Somanth. – Yes, in the moon!
Mission Control breaks into the celebration to confirm Chandrayaan 3’s successful landing. Image: ISRO. Landing on the moon has been complicated lately: the Russian probe Luna 24 crashed this weekend, 2019. in September, the private Japanese-operated Hakuto-R Mission 1 and India’s Chandrayaan 2 lander were lost.
Wednesday’s takeoff and landing appeared to go flawlessly. Ten minutes after landing, two antennas on NASA’s Deep Space Network tracking station in Canberra, Australia, were still receiving telemetry from the lander.
In an animation shown on mission control screens, Chandrayaan 3 hovers over the lunar surface just before landing. Image: ISRO. Chandrayaan 3 has gone up in 2023. July 14, aboard the Mark 3 (LVM3) launch vehicle from Sriharikota, India. According to ISRO, the name of the mission is derived from the Sanskrit words Chandra-Moon, Yaan-vehicle.
The lander is carrying a number of payloads, including a small rover. According to the mission description of the Indian space agency, the mission duration of both the lander and the rover should be just one lunar day, which translates to 14 Earth days.
