After what has been described as "India's 20 minutes of terror", as a nation waited with bated breath, the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) lunar exploration mission Chandrayaan-3 landed on the Moon's south pole on Wednesday. India became the fourth nation after the United States, Russia, and China to successfully land a spacecraft on the Moon.
Soft landing refers to a controlled landing where the spacecraft lands gently on the surface of the Moon, using a combination of engines, thrusters, and landing gear without causing significant damage to the surrounding area or to itself.
"I reached my destination and you too!'," ISRO tweeted seconds after the landing, adding "Chandrayaan-3 has successfully soft-landed on the moon."
India is on the Moon, said ISRO chief S. Somanath said, while announcing the soft landing of Chandrayaan-3.
The lander and rover— Vikram and Pragyan—that have a mission life of one lunar day (about 14 earth days), will now study the Moon's atmosphere and mineral composition, the spectral and polarimetric measurements of Earth from the lunar orbit, and conduct a series of experiments using the payloads Radio Anatomy of Moon Bound Hypersensitive ionosphere and Atmosphere (RAMBHA) and Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA).
The mission, which seeks to demonstrate India's technological capabilities and contribute to the scientific understanding of the Earth's celestial neighbour, will allow ISRO to explore if there is water ice on the Moon.
The landing is indeed historic as the rugged terrain on the south pole of the Moon, with permanently shadowed areas, makes it extremely challenging to land the mission there.
A new dawn for India, says PM Modi
"India's successful Moon mission is not just India's alone, This success belongs to all of humanity," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said while congratulating ISRO scientists for the achievement. He called it “a new dawn for India.”
"No country has reached there (the south pole of the Moon) before. With the hard work of our scientists we have reached there," the PM said.