{"id":45964,"date":"2023-08-22T19:38:25","date_gmt":"2023-08-22T11:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/after-russias-failure-india-is-next-in-line-to-attempt-a-moon-landing\/"},"modified":"2023-08-22T19:38:25","modified_gmt":"2023-08-22T11:38:25","slug":"after-russias-failure-india-is-next-in-line-to-attempt-a-moon-landing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/after-russias-failure-india-is-next-in-line-to-attempt-a-moon-landing\/","title":{"rendered":"After Russia\u2019s failure, India is next in line to attempt a Moon landing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>India\u2019s Chandrayaan 3 spacecraft is setting up for a final descent to the surface of the Moon on Wednesday, four days after Russia\u2019s Luna 25 lander cratered following a botched engine burn.<\/p>\n<p style=\"\">If all goes according to plan, the Chandrayaan 3 lander\u2014named Vikram\u2014will settle softly onto the lunar surface at 8:34 am EDT (12:34 UTC) Wednesday, redeeming India\u2019s failed landing attempt on the Chandrayaan 2 mission in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>You can watch the live broadcast of the Chandrayaan 3 landing attempt below.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DLA_64yz8Ss\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>For the last 47 years, reaching the Moon\u2019s surface in one piece has proven to be an impossible task for any landing craft that wasn\u2019t built in China. Since 2013, China has racked up three successful landings with its robotic space missions, including the first controlled touchdown on the Moon\u2019s far side and an ambitious sample return mission in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Russia\u2019s Luna 24 mission returned Moon rocks to Earth with a robotic spacecraft in 1976. Since then, it has been all China. Privately funded landers led by Israeli and Japanese teams failed during their descents to the lunar surface in 2019 and in April of this year, and there was the attempt made by India\u2019s Chandrayaan 2 mission four years ago.<\/p>\n<p>All of the US landers that reached the Moon more than 50 years ago have long ago stopped transmitting. Ars has previously reported on the Moon landing missions on tap for the second half of this year. You can cross Luna 25 off that list, and now Chandrayaan 3 is on deck.<\/p>\n<p>Two more US-built landers developed under contract with NASA by two commercial companies\u2014Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines\u2014appear on track for launch before the end of the year, assuming a satisfactory conclusion to final ground tests, and in the case of Astrobotic, the readiness of United Launch Alliance\u2019s new Vulcan rocket. A second Intuitive Machines lunar lander, previously set for launch toward the end of this year, has now been delayed into 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Japan is also poised to launch its first lunar lander mission later this week\u2014liftoff is scheduled for Friday night, US time\u2014but that spacecraft won\u2019t be in position to touch down on the Moon for about four to six months.<\/p>\n<p>,<\/p>\n<h2>A second chance for India<\/h2>\n<p>India\u2019s space agency quickly established a follow-up mission to Chandrayaan 2 after its landing failure in 2019. Indian engineers determined the Chandrayaan 2 lander crashed on the Moon due to a cascading series of problems. First, its five braking engines developed higher thrust than anticipated, then the lander\u2019s software could not compensate for the error.<\/p>\n<p>India developed the Chandrayaan 3 mission for about $90 million and then launched the spacecraft on July 14. Chandrayaan 3 was launched with a propulsion module to push it out of an initial orbit around Earth toward the Moon, where it arrived in lunar orbit on August 5. Additional engine burns moved the spacecraft into a tighter loop around the Moon, then Chandrayaan 3\u2019s Vikram lander separated from its propulsion module last week.<\/p>\n<p>Over the weekend, the Vikram lander maneuvered into an elliptical orbit, taking it as close as 15 miles (25 kilometers) from the lunar surface. The Indian Space Research Organization reported the lander will \u201cundergo internal checks and await the sunrise at the designated landing site.\u201d The powered descent is expected to begin around 20 minutes before landing, with Vikram\u2019s throttleable hydrazine-fueled engines first pulsing to drop the lander out of orbit.<\/p>\n<p>Then the spacecraft will pitch over from a horizontal to a vertical orientation to start lowering itself toward the landing site, located on the near side of the Moon at about 69 degrees south latitude. A suite of cameras will scan the surface for hazards, providing inputs to the lander\u2019s autonomous navigation system to avoid boulders or craters. If the touchdown is successful, Chandrayaan 3\u2019s Vikram lander will be the first to explore a site so close to the Moon\u2019s south pole, but it won\u2019t land far enough&nbsp;south to explore permanently shadowed craters where vast deposits of water ice may be present.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"ars-img-shortcode id-1962117 align-center\">\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1500\" height=\"1500\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/c3traj1.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/c3traj1.jpeg 1500w, https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/c3traj1-300x300.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/c3traj1-640x640.jpeg 640w, https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/c3traj1-150x150.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/c3traj1-768x768.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/c3traj1-500x500.jpeg 500w, https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/c3traj1-1000x1000.jpeg 1000w, https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/c3traj1-980x980.jpeg 980w, https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/c3traj1-1440x1440.jpeg 1440w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\"><\/p>\n<p>                India\u2019s Chandrayaan 3 spacecraft entered orbit around the Moon on August 5, then began reducing its altitude to set up for the landing attempt this week.<\/p>\n<p>                    Credit:<br \/>\n                                          ISRO<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Once on the surface, Chandrayaan 3\u2019s Vikram lander will extend a ramp to deploy a small rover named Pragyan. The solar-powered mobile robot will \u201ccarry out in-situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface,\u201d India\u2019s space agency said. The lander is designed to function for about 14 days, the length of the lunar day, until sunset at the landing site causes temperatures to plummet to fatal levels.<\/p>\n<p>Vikram\u2019s science instruments include a thermophysical experiment to measure the thermal conductivity and temperature at the landing site, a seismic sensor, and a Langmuir probe to measure plasma density. NASA also supplied a laser retroreflector array on the Vikram lander for future lunar ranging measurements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>India\u2019s Chandrayaan 3 spacecraft is setting up for a final descent to the surface of the Moon on Wednesday, four days after Russia\u2019s Luna 25 lander cratered following a botched engine burn. If all goes according to plan, the Chandrayaan 3 lander\u2014named Vikram\u2014will settle softly onto the lunar surface at 8:34 am EDT (12:34 UTC) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4540,301,525,2043,625],"class_list":["post-45964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-chandrayaan-3","tag-india","tag-isro","tag-lunar-lander","tag-moon"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45964"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}