Chandrayaan-3 was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota.
New Delhi:
India’s third lunar mission (Bharat Chandra Mission) Chandrayaan-3 (Chandrayaan-3) is scheduled to land on the South Pole of the Moon on August 23. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will perform a soft landing of Chandrayaan-3 at 6:04 pm on Wednesday. Chandrayaan-3 was launched on 14 July. About a month later, on August 11, Russia launched Luna-25. With this, Russia began its journey to the moon after 47 years. It was supposed to make a soft landing on August 21, but the spacecraft crashed. After India and Russia, America and China have also launched missions to land spacecraft on the Moon.
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The race to reach the moon is 7 decades old. So far only the United States (US), Russia (USSR), China and India have successfully landed missions to the moon. Let’s find out what these four countries have achieved so far on Mission Moon:-
In the last 7 decades, there were 111 missions to the Moon. 66 passed and 41 failed. 8 had partial success. Of the 38 attempts at soft landing on the lunar surface, only 52% were successful. America, Russia (USSR) and China are the 3 countries which were successful in soft landing.
Voyages of Russia (later USSR) to the Moon so far:-
1. Russia’s Luna-2 was the world’s first spacecraft for a lunar mission. It was launched on 12 September 1959.
2. On February 3, 1966, Luna-9 was the first mission to land on the Moon. Two Lunar missions also returned with samples from the lunar surface.
3. Russia sent the Luna-24 mission in 1976. Luna-24 returned safely to Earth with about 170 grams of lunar dust.
4. After 47 years on August 11, Russia sent Luna-25 on its journey to the Moon. Luna was scheduled to land on the South Pole of the Moon on August 21. Earlier it had crashed on Sunday.
5. Russia sent 33 missions to touch the moon. Out of which 26 were failed.
America’s journey to the moon so far:-
1. The American space agency NASA’s Apollo-11 set foot on the moon for the first time. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first and second astronauts, respectively, to land on the moon.
2. Apollo 17 was the second mission of NASA’s Apollo program. It was launched on 7 December 1972. It returned to Earth on 19 December 1972. This was the first mission that was launched at night.
3. America sent 31 missions to the moon, 17 of which failed.
China’s journey to the moon so far:-
1. China launched its first mission to the Moon in 2007. China has launched five Chang’e missions so far.
2. In this programme, China launched orbiters, lander and rovers to land on the moon.
3. China launched the first orbiter in 2007. The second orbiter was launched by China in 2010.
4. On 1 December 2013, China’s spacecraft Chang’e-3 made its first soft landing on the lunar surface.
5. At the same time, China landed on the moon for the second time by Chang’e-4 on December 7, 2018.
6. Through Chang’e-4, China became the first and only country to land on the far side of the Moon. The lander of the Changi-4 mission is still operational.
7. China sent a box with Chang’e-4, called the Lunar Micro Ecosystem. It contained many seeds, including cotton and potatoes. These seeds sent by China have germinated on the moon.
8. The Chang’e-5 mission, launched in 2020, brought back 1731 grams of lunar rock.
India’s trip to the Moon so far:-
1. India launched its first Chandrayaan mission on 22 October 2008.
2. Chandrayaan-1 discovered water on the lunar surface and entered the history books.
3. Chandrayaan-2 was launched in the year 2019. Chandrayaan-2 crash landed due to a software glitch.
4. ISRO launched Chandrayaan-3 on 14 July 2023, 4 years after the failure of Chandrayaan-2. Its soft landing will be done on August 23.