2023-08-26 07:32:02
India began to inspect the surface of the Moon with a robot explorer on Thursday, after having become, the day before, the first country to land an automatic ship near the lunar south pole.
Pragyan — Sanskrit for “wisdom” — stepped out of the lander hours after India met a final milestone in its ambitious low-cost space program, sparking jubilation across the country.
The mobile robot “came down from the lander and India walked on the moon,” the Indian Special Research Organization (ISRO) stated on Platform X (ex-Twitter).
The day before, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had described the success of the mission as a “historic day”.
The six-wheeled robot, which works with solar energy, will travel through that poorly mapped area of the satellite; and will transmit images and scientific data during the two weeks that the mission will last.
The moon landing of the Chandrayaan-3 mission, which means “moon craft” in Sanskrit, occurred on Wednesday at 1234 GMT, just days after a Russian probe crashed in the same region.
Until now, only the Soviet Union, the United States and China had managed to carry missions to the surface of the Moon.
The Chandrayaan-3 mission includes a lander called Vikram — which means “courage” in Sanskrit — and the mobile robot Pragyan.
Launched six weeks ago, Chandrayaan-3 took much longer to reach the Moon than the US Apollo missions in the 1960s and 1970s, which reached the moon in a few days.
India uses less powerful rockets than those used by the United States at the time, so the probe had to orbit Earth several times to gain speed before heading to the Moon.
The country has a low-cost aerospace program compared to other powers, but it has grown remarkably since it sent its first spacecraft to orbit the moon in 2008.
The budget for this mission is $74.6 million, proof of India’s frugal space engineering.
Experts say it achieves these low costs by copying and adapting existing space technology and taking advantage of the abundance of highly-trained engineers who charge far less than their foreign counterparts.
Chandrayaan-3 has captivated public attention since its launch in front of thousands of viewers.
Politicians celebrated Hindu rituals to wish the mission success and school students followed the final moments of the moon landing from their classrooms through live broadcasts.
“I feel very proud. India has made its name shine,” Bhagwan Singh, a shopkeeper in the capital New Delhi, told AFP.
“It’s a very happy moment for us,” he added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Wednesday that the success of the mission “belongs to all of humanity.”
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