Historic moment for India
\nIndia on August 23, became the first nation to land a craft near the Moon\u2019s south pole
\nBENGALURU
\nAn Indian spacecraft landed on the moon on Wednesday in a mission seen as crucial to lunar exploration and India\u2019s standing as a space power, just days after a similar Russian lander crashed.
\n\u201cThis is a victory cry of a new India,\u201d said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was seen waving the Indian flag as he watched the landing from South Africa, where he is attending the BRICS summit.
\nScientists and officials clapped, cheered and hugged each other as the spacecraft landed and as the government now looks to spur investment in private space launches and related satellite-based businesses. \u201cIndia is on the moon,\u201d said S. Somanath, chief of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) as the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft landed on the lunar south pole.
\nThis was India\u2019s second attempt to land a spacecraft on the moon and comes less than a week after Russia\u2019s Luna-25 mission failed. People across the country were glued to television screens and said prayers as the spacecraft approached the surface.
\nChandrayaan means \u201cmoon vehicle\u201d in Hindi and Sanskrit. In 2019, ISRO\u2019s Chandrayaan-2 mission successfully deployed an orbiter but its lander crashed.
\nThe Chandrayaan-3 is expected to remain functional for two weeks, running a series of experiments including a spectrometer analysis of the mineral composition of the lunar surface.
\nRough terrain makes a south pole landing difficult, and a first landing is historic. The region\u2019s ice could supply fuel, oxygen and drinking water for future missions. \u201cLanding on the south pole (of the moon) would actually allow India to explore if there is water ice on the moon. And this is very important for cumulative data and science on the geology of the moon,\u201d said Carla Filotico, a partner and managing director at consultancy SpaceTec Partners.
\nAnticipation before the landing was feverish, with banner headlines across Indian newspapers and news channels running countdowns to the landing.
\nPrayers were held at places of worship across the country, and schoolchildren waved the Indian tricolour as they waited for live screenings of the landing.
\nChildren gathered on the banks of the Ganga river, considered holy by Hindus, to pray for a safe landing, and mosques in several places offered prayers.
\nAt a Sikh temple, known as a gurduwara, in the capital New Delhi, Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri also offered prayers for Chandrayaan.
\n\u201cNot just economic, but India is achieving scientific and technological progress as well,\u201d Puri told reporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Historic moment for India India on August 23, became the first nation to land a craft near the Moon\u2019s south pole BENGALURU An Indian spacecraft landed on the moon on Wednesday in a mission seen as crucial to lunar exploration and India\u2019s standing as a space power, just days after a similar Russian lander crashed. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351216,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-351182","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n