India is the first country to land near the south pole of the Moon after Russia’s defeat

India has become the first country to land a spacecraft near the moon’s south pole after a Russian moon landing attempt in the same region ended in failure due to engine failure.

Chandrayaan-3, the Indian spacecraft launched last month, made a gentle landing at 6:04 pm local time. local time on Wednesday, after Russia’s Luna-25 plunged to the moon on Sunday.

A rover called Pragyan or wisdom is expected to analyze the chemical composition of the lunar surface and look for water in one lunar day, equivalent to 14 Earth days.

India is the second country, after China, to have a rover on the Moon.

The successful landing enhances India’s prestige in the global space race, after the country suffered a setback following a failed moon mission in 2019.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted to bolster it. the country’s status among the world’s space nations, and in June, India signed the Artemis Agreement, an initiative supported by the United States and more than two dozen other countries to manage the joint mission and civil space exploration.

The Chandrayaan-3 Vikram lander is trending on X, formerly known as Twitter, as industrial billionaires and Bollywood actors eagerly await this historic moment. Schools urged students in the world’s most populous country to watch the event live and celebrate the historic mission, while some prayed at mosques and temples for the landings. success. , Shares of 13 Indian space companies including PTC Industries Ltd., Zen Technologies Ltd. and Centum Electronics Co., Ltd., has recovered and added more than $2.5 billion in market value this week, according to data provided by Bloomberg.

Ice water present at the unexplored south pole of the Moon has also attracted interest from space nations, including the United States and China.This could provide an important source of fuel for drinking, breathing and rocketing to fuel human space exploration deeper in the solar system.

The US space agency’s Artemis III mission plans to send the first humans to explore the area near Antarctica by 2025. China is also looking to build a research station near the area and send astronauts. to the Moon by 2030.Japan had planned to launch an unmanned mission on August 26.

India has other space efforts slated. The country will soon launch a mission, called Aditya L1, for a detailed solar study. A Venus mission is also on the Indian Space Research Organisation’s agenda, Modi said after the landing. The agency plans to demonstrate human spaceflight capability through its Gaganyaan mission, which will launch crew members into an orbit of 400 kilometers (249 miles) for three days before bringing them back safely to Earth.

India’s space agency and NASA have agreed to send an Indian astronaut to the International Space Station. The South Asian nation is also in discussions with Japan to work on a moon mission together.

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