'India is on the Moon': Lander's success moves nation to next space chapter

Two visitors from India - a lander named Vikram and a rover named Pragyan - landed in the southern polar region of the moon on Wednesday. The two robots, from a mission named Chandrayaan-3, make India the first country to ever reach this part of the lunar surface in one piece - and only the fourth country ever to land on the moon.

"We have achieved soft landing on the moon," S. Somanath, the chair of the Indian Space Research Organization, said after a roar ripped through the ISRO compound just past 6 p.m. local time. "India is on the moon."

The Indian public already takes great pride in the accomplishments of the nation's space program, which has orbited the moon and Mars and routinely launches satellites above the Earth with far fewer financial resources than other space-faring nations. But the achievement of Chandrayaan-3 may be even sweeter.


Speaking after the landing, members of the ISRO leadership who managed Chandrayaan-3 made clear that the failure of their last moon landing attempt, in 2019, was a major driving force behind their work.

"From the day we started rebuilding our spacecraft after Chandaryaan-2 experience, it has been breathe in breathe out Chandrayaan-3 for our team," said Kalpana Kalahasti, the mission's associate project director.

Chandrayaan-3 has been orbiting the moon since early August. On Sunday, an engine burn pushed the lander into an elliptical orbit that passed within 15 miles of the surface. On Wednesday, as the spacecraft approached the low point of the orbit, moving at more than 3,700 mph, a preprogrammed sequence of maneuvers commenced.

The craft's four engines fired again at the start of what ISRO called the "rough braking" portion of the descent, its speed of fall accelerating. After 11.5 minutes, the lander was just over 4 1/2 miles above the surface and started rotating from a horizontal to a vertical position while continuing its descent.

The spacecraft stopped to hover about 150 yards above the surface for a few seconds, then resumed its downward journey until it settled gently on the surface.

Up on the moon Vikram and Pragyan were set to get to work, with the rover possibly rolling onto the lunar surface in the coming hours or sometime on Thursday according to Somanath.