After a failed first attempt in 2019, India is attempting a controlled moon landing for the second time. The missile was successfully launched. The unmanned spacecraft “Chandrayaan-3” is now on its way to the moon and is scheduled to touch down in August.
Aiming to successfully land on the moon, India has once again launched a rocket towards the moon. Live images from the Satish Dhawan space station in the state of Andhra Pradesh by the Indian space agency ISRO show this.
With the unmanned mission Chandrayaan-3, India wants to explore the rarely explored South Pole of the Moon. First, however, the controlled lunar landing must work, which is scheduled to take place on August 23 or 24. So far, only the United States, the Soviet Union and China have managed such a soft landing. Chandrayaan means “lunar vehicle” in Sanskrit.
The first attempt failed
In 2019, the first attempt failed. During the Chandrayaan-2 mission, the landing module fell on the surface of the Earth satellite. The space agency later told Parliament in New Delhi that it had problems decelerating as it approached the moon.
Earlier, India had already sought another trip to the moon: the first lunar probe “Chandrayaan-1” was launched in 2008 and orbited the moon – without landing on it. With the current mission, it should reach lunar orbit after 15 to 20 days, it said.
The LVM3 launch vehicle carried the lunar lander into space.
India’s space program began in the 1960s. In the early decades, the focus was on sending a few satellites into space at low cost. The country now has more ambitious goals — and recently, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited US President Joe Biden, increased cooperation in space travel was announced.
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