India has successfully launched its Chandrayaan-3 mission to the Moon as it bids to join an elite club of nations that have managed a controlled landing on to the lunar surface.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has its eyes on the lunar south pole, an area of special interest for both national space agencies and private companies owing to the presence of water and its potential for supporting a future permanent base.
The lunar lander, called Vikram, is carrying a lunar rover called Pragyaan.
If successful, India will join the former Soviet Union, the US and China in executing a soft landing on the Moon.
The launch took place around 10am BST on Friday morning. On Thursday, several of the team took a handheld model of the Chandrayaan-3 to a popular temple in southern India to seek blessings ahead of the launch.
The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft is now in an elliptical orbit around Earth, where it will remain until looping towards the Moon for a scheduled landing around August 23.
Chandrayaan, which means ‘Moon vehicle’ in Sanskrit, includes a two-metre tall lander designed to deploy a rover near the lunar south pole, where it is expected to remain functional for two weeks running a series of experiments.
ISRO’s Chandrayaan-2 mission in 2019 successfully deployed an orbiter, but its lander and rover were destroyed in a crash near where the Chandrayan-3 will attempt a touchdown.
Today’s launch is India’s first major mission since prime minister Narendra Modi’s government announced policies to spur investment in space launches and related satellite-based businesses.
Since 2020, when India opened to private launches, the number of space startups has more than doubled. Late last year, Skyroot Aerospace, whose investors include Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC, launched India’s first privately built rocket.
Space and the Moon are becoming increasingly commercialised. In April, Japanese company ispace attempted to become the first private company to land on the Moon, but its M1 lander crashed on impact after running out of fuel in the final descent.
Last month Nasa revealed it will begin missions aiming to extract resources from the Moon in 2032.
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