This Wednesday is anticipated to mark the Moon landing for India’s lunar mission Chandrayaan-3. It will be the first lander to reach the Moon’s south pole safely if it is successful in doing so (RIP, Lunar-25). This region is becoming more and more interesting because significant amounts of ice have been found there. It has, however, been sending back some stunning images of the Moon’s far side.
Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
— ISRO (@isro) August 21, 2023
Here are the images of
Lunar far side area
captured by the
Lander Hazard Detection and Avoidance Camera (LHDAC).
This camera that assists in locating a safe landing area — without boulders or deep trenches — during the descent is developed by ISRO… pic.twitter.com/rwWhrNFhHB
The expedition has been circling the Moon and doing some orbital maneuvers in advance of the landing. During this process, it captured some very impressive images of the far side of the Moon—the part that is invisible to humans. So that we may always see the same face of the
Moon as it is tidally locked to our planet.
Some of the craters and areas the probe has flown through, such as Mare Humboldtianum and Bel’kovich, are labeled on photos that the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) posted on X, the previous Twitter platform.
Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
— ISRO (@isro) August 18, 2023
🌖 as captured by the
Lander Position Detection Camera (LPDC)
on August 15, 2023#Chandrayaan_3#Ch3 pic.twitter.com/nGgayU1QUS
Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
— ISRO (@isro) August 18, 2023
View from the Lander Imager (LI) Camera-1
on August 17, 2023
just after the separation of the Lander Module from the Propulsion Module #Chandrayaan_3 #Ch3 pic.twitter.com/abPIyEn1Ad
The Lander Hazard Detection and Avoidance Camera (LHDAC), which is mounted on the payload descending to the surface, took the pictures. Among them are a lander and rover that are planned to spend three to six months on the moon. After China and the old Soviet Union, India would only be the third country to soft land a probe on the moon if it is successful.
In addition, ISRO released two images that were composed of images captured by the probe on August 15 and August 17, following the detachment of the propulsion module from the lander module.
The presence of permanently shadowed craters where water ice has been found from orbit—so abundant that it is thought to be a prime location for future human settlement on the Moon—is what has people interested in the lunar south pole. This is among the motivations behind the Artemis 3 mission’s goal of landing people there in a few years.
The risk of landing on a different celestial body never goes away. China, the Soviet Union, and the United States have all accomplished successful Moon landings that have returned information and occasionally genuine Moon rocks. It’s not a given, though, as the recent Luna 25 crash landing by Russia, as well as prior attempts by Israel, a United Arab Emirates-Japan alliance, and the most recent Indian mission to attempt such a maneuver, have shown.
Even a successful landing won’t signify that the mission has been completed. The environment a rover will encounter on the Moon is the harshest at such high latitudes. At those latitudes, sunlight is scarce, the landscape is rough, and the temperature can drop dramatically.
