Chandrayaan-3 trivia: How tricky is last leg of landing on Moon's South Pole?
Chandrayaan-3 mission's lander module with a rover in its belly is expected to touch down on the surface of the Moon around 6.04 pm on Wednesday, ISRO had said on Sunday. Live actions will be available on the ISRO website, its YouTube channel, Facebook, and public broadcaster DD National TV from 17:27 IST on Aug 23, 2023. The Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the Moon after it spun into an uncontrolled orbit, Russia's Roscosmos space agency said on August 20.
Communication with Luna-25 was lost at 2:57 pm (1157 GMT) on Saturday, Roscosmos said. According to preliminary findings, the lander "has ceased to exist following a collision with the Moon's surface". "Measures taken on August 19 and 20 to locate the craft and make contact with it were unsuccessful," the space agency added.
However, Indian top scientists are confident that India's CHandrayaan-3 would reach the lunar surface carefully and successfully. The lunar far side is the side that faces away from the Earth and is sometimes also called "the dark side of the Moon" because so little is known about it. Scientists say landing there can be a tricky affair.
Rough terrain makes a south pole landing difficult for Chandrayaan-3 , but making a first landing would be historic, says Reuters. ISRO said on Sunday that the lander module had been successfully lowered into an orbit closer to the Moon (of 25km by 134km) and is now waiting for the lunar Sun-rise to land. If Chandrayaan-3 is successful, India will be first to land on the lunar south pole.
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