MOSCOW, August 23. /TASS/. The success of India’s Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission that landed on the Moon’s surface has again proven that the primary goal of present-day cosmonautics is to explore the Earth’s natural satellite, cosmonautics historian Alexander Zheleznyakov told TASS on Wednesday.
"This [the successful landing of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft] once again proves that the Moon is mankind’s primary goal in space exploration today. We have mastered near-Earth orbit well enough and are now expanding the area of our habitat and seeking to explore the Moon," the expert said.
India has thus become the fourth country that has managed to make a soft landing on the surface of the Earth’s natural satellite, Zheleznyakov pointed out.
"In their time, this was done by the Soviet Union and then by the United States of America. Already in the 21st century, the Chinese mastered this technology and now India has joined the lunar powers, so to speak," the cosmonautics historian added.
As of now, it is difficult to say what scientific results the Chandrayaan-3 mission will yield, the expert said.
"So far, there are plans to search for water, study the physical and chemical composition of lunar regolith, cosmic radiation, the solar wind and all other things. But let us hope that these plans will be implemented and the understanding that we will gain with the help of the Indian lander will make a new contribution to our general knowledge of the Moon," he said.
The Chandrayaan-3 automatic probe has become the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon’s south pole but that area is not as important as the probe’s touchdown on the lunar surface, Zheleznyakov said.
"The fact that the Indians have mastered this technology and acquired corresponding competences tells us a lot. It is good that this is the south pole but this is not the main thing," the expert pointed out.
India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) announced on August 23 that the Chandrayaan-3 mission had successfully made a soft landing on the Moon’s surface.
This is the third lunar mission sent by India. The country’s first Chandrayaan-1 automatic lunar station was delivered into orbit of the Earth’s natural satellite in November 2008. The second Chandrayaan-2 lunar mission was sent on July 22, 2019 but the lander failed to make a soft landing and the spacecraft was lost.