August 23, 2023 Around 6:04 PM IST, 8:34 AM UST Chandrayaan 3’s Vikram Lander successfully soft-landed on the dark side of the Moon making India the first country in the world to land on the dark side of the Moon. And India Became Space Super Power But one Problem but one problem arise.
Chandrayaan 3 success secret
Did you know that NASA was more responsible for the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 than ISRO? On the dark side, whatever mission the Vikram lander performs will have a direct impact on NASA’s next mission, ARTEMIS 3. but how.
Travel to India with Chandrayan.
August 23, 2023 Around 6:04 PM IST, 8:34 AM UST Chandrayaan 3’s Vikram Lander successfully soft-landed on the dark side of the Moon making India the first country in the world to land on the dark side of the Moon. .
India’s 56th Independence Day means that on 15 August 2003, Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced that now our country is also ready to touch the heights in the field of science. At the same time, he said that I should tell that in the year 2008, India is going to send a mission to the moon, named Chandrayaan. Chandrayan means Moon Craft.
Finally, after 5 years, the day came when India sent Chandrayaan to the Moon for the first time by PSLV XL Rocket. Eleven years after this mission, the day came when ISRO launched Chandrayaan-2 by GSLV MK III Rocket.
Chandrayaan 2 had 3 main components
- Moon Orbiter
- Vikram Lander
- Pragyan Rover
But unfortunately on 6 September 2019 Vikram Lander was destroyed due to some error. Due to which the whole of India suffered a lot. Just imagine what must have gone through the hearts of the scientists who worked day and night on Chandrayaan 2. But Indian scientists did not give up and continued to work hard.
ISRO started work on Chandrayaan 3 with Chandrayaan 2 in mind. ISRO scientists fixed the weaknesses that caused Chandrayaan-2 to crash. And 4 years later Chandrayaan 3 was repaired and launched. Chandrayaan 3 was exactly the same object as Chandrayaan 2, it also had the same components as Chandrayaan 2.
When it was launched, it went around the Earth’s elliptical orbit towards the Moon and on August 17, the Vikram Lander separated and came closer to the Moon. It slowed down in horizontal and vertical velocity and finally touched down on the dark side of the Moon on August 23, 2023.
Where now these two Vikram Lander and Pragyan Rover will perform the task by stopping for 14 days according to Earth Day.
Mission of Chandrayaan 3
Chandrayaan 3 will stay on the moon for 14 days to complete the mission task. Going into the details of Chandrayaan 3’s mission, Chandrayaan 3 is also made up of 3 components.
- Propulsion Module
- Lander
- Rover
Propulsion Module
Of which the Propulsion Module is a part. Which brought the lander and rover from Earth’s orbit to an orbit of 100 km from the Moon’s surface.
If we talk about its design. It is a large solar panel that completes the power supply and charges the battery. Two large cylinders are attached to the second part of the Propulsion Module, which is the part to which the lander was attached.
Lander
As for the lander, this part was the most important part of the entire Chandrayaan 3 segment.
Because the lander has landed on the surface of the moon. And in 2019, Vikram Lander of Chandrayaan 2 was destroyed on the surface of the moon because of lack of landing experience at that time. ISRO workers imposed limitations like not being able to control the speed and slow rotation attitude change of 10 degrees per second in Chandrayaan 2 which became the main reason for its crash.
But this time ISRO has given Chandrayaan 3’s Vikram Lander control to manage its speed in each phase of landing. And besides, its attitude was increased to 5 degrees per second. Learning from Chandrayaan 2 is the result that this time ISRO did not face any kind of landing problem.
Vikram Lander
If we talk about Vikram Lander, it is also a big box-type structure with four landing legs and four landing thrusters for landing, each of which can generate a force of 400 N.
Many types of instruments are installed in this lander such as
- Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment (CHaSTE) to measure the Moon’s thermo properties.
- Instrument Of Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA) which will measure seismicity around the landing side.
- Radio Anatomy of Moon Bound Hypersensitive Ionosphere and Atmosphere (RAMBHA) which will measure lunar gases and their plasma.
- And lastly, a Passive Laser Reflective Array that was commissioned by NASA to be installed on the Chandrayaan 3 lander. Which will be useful in the study of soil composition of the moon.
Rover
Now finally talking about the rover, this rover weighing 26 kg has 6 wheels mounted on the surface of the moon while experimenting easily, but what is more important is the scientific equipments installed in it which are the scientific equipments of the whole world. What the community does is very important.
So the Rover program has 2 main components for experimenting on the surface of the moon.
- First (APXS) Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer
- Second (SLIB) Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope
Both of which will be used to study the composition and elements of the Lunar surface.
India’s Space Superpower Status
After successfully landing Chandrayaan 3 on the southern side of the Moon, India has now become the first country to land on the southern side. Now it has become a history because no country in the world had been able to land on the dark side of the moon till date. A major fact in this is that India did not even have that much budget.
With this landing, India has won a title. The USA has become the first country to land on the surface of the moon after Russia and China. According to the prestigious journal nature, this mission of India is a part of India’s strategy which wants to be a part of the elite group of mission k to have a long-term presence on the moon.
The success of Chandrayaan 3 is proof of this. That India has been quite successful in its strategy. But there is still a problem for India to increase its presence and that is India’s neighboring country China which has successfully sent its rovers to the Moon and Mars. And with that, India is still far behind in the space race.
Why is India Behind China in Space Race?
So far, since 2016, China’s industry has made a rapid and innovation progress through which China has shown presence technical advances from the moon to Mars.
The success of Chandrayaan 3 is proof of this. That India has been quite successful in its strategy. But there is still a problem for India to increase its presence and that is India’s neighboring country China which has successfully sent its rovers to the Moon and Mars. And with that, India is still far behind in the space race.
So why didn’t Chandian 3 make history by landing on the dark side of the moon? But if you look at India and China’s space rover program and we will find India’s moon program has lagged far behind China’s.
Such as China’s CHANG’E 4 Mission on December 8, 2018, which is very similar to the Chandrayaan 3 mission. Because China had performed the landing on January 3, 2019, which was successful. As China also sent a rover on this mission, Chandrayaan 3’s Pragyan rover meets China’s rover.
Which is to analyze water and soil on the surface of China’s rover moon. Similarly, Pragyan Rover of Chandrayaan 3 of India is going to perform the same task.
But tell me the most important thing. This mission of Chandrayaan 3 is going to work for one lunar day i.e. 14 Earth days. While this mission of China was for 3 months. And still four years later, China’s rover is optional on the surface of the moon.
China does not stop there, the very next year in 2020, China launched another mission called CHANG’E 5. The special thing about this mission was that this lander was not only to land on the surface of the moon, but it was going to collect lunar soil from there and bring it back to China. China was also successful in this mission. China collected lunar soil, which is still being researched today.
Six days ago, China plans to send astronauts to the moon by 2030. Not only that, but on June 16, 2021, the Russian agency ROSCOSMOS and CNSA have jointly talked about establishing the international lunar research station (ILRS) on the dark side of the moon. According to China, it will be a permanent human base liberty where experiments will be done on the lunar surface.
Chandrayaan 3 also most successful mission
Let me tell you one thing that I am not belittling India by putting China’s history in front of me, but I am showing a mirror. That’s why I am telling you how much more effort will have to be put in if India also wants to become a space super power. China’s budget in this competition is much higher than India’s budget. China’s budget is almost $12 billion, which is 10 times ISRO’s $1.6 billion. If India wants to become a space super power then first of all India has to increase its budget.
Due to this low budget, India could have avoided creating history by landing Chandrayaan 3 on the surface of the moon. ISRO chose the wrong path for Chandrayaan 3 even a month ago due to its low fuel consumption
The same Russia had reached the moon within 11 to 12 days through extra budget but unfortunately Luna 25 crashed. If Luna 25 had not crashed, today may be Chandrayan 3 would have landed on the moon, but he could not have created history by landing on the dark side of the moon, because this title would have gone to Russia.
If India wants to become a space superpower, India must first increase the budget of ISRO, only then we will be able to compete with and surpass other space agencies of the world.
Chandrayaan 3 Experiment Result
So a few days before Chandrayaan 3’s experiment launch, Indian Prime Minister Northern Modi went to America for a state visit. The US added it to Artemis to increase collaboration with India in space. Apart from this, NASA is keeping a lot of interest in the results of experiments conducted by Praghyan rover and Vikram lander in Chandrayaan 3 mission. Because NASA is also going to send humans to the dark side of the moon in its next mission in 2025.
Because there is a high possibility of water deposit in this place, the exact location of which will be known by NASA and its confirmation will be found through Praghyan rover and Vikram lander. This is the reason why NASA has more interest in this mission than ISRO. Because of this, NASA will be able to easily select the landing place for its spacecraft and the place for the astronauts to live due to the exact location.
However, there is a different prospective of seeing this mission in the countries of the world or whatever the importance of this mission is on the world stage. But there is no doubt that this mission is very special for India whose achievement will be remembered for many centuries.
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