why is it so impressive that India landed on the South side of the Moon?
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The Russian Luna-25 spacecraft that attempted this exact landing crashed a few days ago.
From what I can gather, it’s an ideal site for electromagnetic transmissions to Earth. This means they’re able to expend less energy in communication.
The South Pole is also said to have areas that are permanently covered in darkness making it likely there’s still ice. The hope is to be able to extract this and another raw elements/materials they may find with a view to making it a base for future space exploration
Lunar landings are hard. There is no atmosphere to brake against, so you have to use engines to kill all your horizontal speed. Plus the surface is pretty rough and your landing software has to find a smooth patch to land in. The Russians just tried this and crashed. It’s a hard problem and ISRO did great work to make this happen.
Because they could study the minerals on the south pole of moon (Ti, Ca, Ni, k)
They want to find these minerals on chandrayan III mission.
This is our third attempt to reach the moon
It was successful that’s why we Indians are making this news a sensation
We are proud of our achievement
It is impressive because its hard. Only 4 countries have done it, most nations have not even tried. It is a fair bit harder to land on the pole of the moon, no nation has done that at all.
It is impressive because the south pole is thought to be an optimal spot for future human landing & settlement. Some deep craters are always in shade, so may have water ice. Some crater lips are (almost) always in the sun, so it is great for solar energy. Plus having a constant areas in the sun and in the shade is good for heat management – too much heat in the sun, too little in the shade.
We want to go to the South part of the moon because Water Ice was discovered there which could be useful for colonisation in the future.
Until now, no country had ever managed to land on the South part of the moon. Landing on the equator is easier and safer, requires less fuel and less corrections because earth’s and moon’s equators are almost aligned. South part of the moon is mostly dark, cold and covered by craters on top of that. Russia’s Luna-25 tried to land some days ago but crashed. India’s Chandrayaan-3 landed there with $75 million, and became the 4th country to land on the moon. Luna-25 mission costed $200 million for reference. Even the movie Interstellar had a budget of $165 million. The Ranger missions (1 to 9) by NASA in the 60’s costed around $1.3 billion in today’s value, and they were designed to just purposefully crash land on the moon.
The south polar region where this spacecraft landed, has regions such as inside craters, where sunlight never reaches. There are indications that these permanently dark places may contain significant deposits of water-ice. This water would be a significant resource for a lunar colony and can be made into rocket fuel. Exploring this region is a crucial step in a Lunar colonisation effort.
4 nations have successfully landed on the Moon. The Soviets were the first in 1959, then the US in 1968, then China in 2007, and now India in 2023.
If you look at the [list of missions to the Moon ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon#Missions_by_date), youll notice that even today, attempts often end in failure. Even attempts by the US still have a high chance of failure. NASA’s last attempt in 2022 ended in failure. Japan has tried several times to land on the Moon, and has been as yet unsuccessful.
Its a big deal because its hard to do. Like actually hard.
I’m more surprised that you don’t think its impressive that anyone landed anywhere on the moon at all.
Since this probe lands before Artemis, in roughly the same region; it is certain to be refered to often in coming years. Regardless it’s payload, it will contribute to the actual stream of human progress because it is scouting somewhere useful.
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